Ireland calls off St Patrick's feast
One of Irish tourism's biggest money-spinners, the St Patrick's Day celebration, has been cancelled across the country as part of the emergency precautions against foot-and-mouth disease.
Hardest hit will be Dublin, which has built a four-day festival around the occasion. Now it stands to lose an estimated IR£35m (£28.1m), plus another IR£1.3m (£1m) spent by the festival board on deposits and booking fees for the 5,000 performers who were due to travel, many from the USA.
Some Irish hotels are asking staff to take early holidays now because of the flurry of cancellations. "I know it's an unusual request at this time of year," says Conor Hennigan, manager of the Great Southern hotel in Killarney, "but the crisis is having a huge impact. A lot of people are very worried."
The St Patrick's Day celebrations were called off at the direction of Tourism Minister Jim McDaid, who promised that "promotional drives will resume with renewed vigour" when the emergency ends.
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Source: Caterer & Hotelkeeper magazine, 8-14 March 2001