The decision to close the International Rugby Experience has been described as "particularly sad" by the Mayor of Limerick.
The International Rugby Experience, located in Limerick city centre, and regarded as a unique and valuable tourist asset to the city, has announced it is to cease operations and close permanently by Christmas.
Speaking on RTÉ's Drivetime, Mayor John Moran said that the investment of €30 million from the JP McManus charitable foundation into the museum was "an act of supreme generosity" but said that the experience was too costly to continue operations.
"We had a conversation with councillors only last week on this where we laid out all the facts and experts had been brought in shortly after my appointment because it was looking like this was a much more complicated situation," said Mr Moran.
"We agreed with the JP McManus foundation that we would jointly appoint experts to look at the situation and see how it could be turned around and at what cost – but there just simply aren’t the funds to do that at the moment."
The iconic red bricked building set over six floors with a range of interactive rugby experiences was built with a gift of €30m from the JP McManus foundation and was first opened in May of last year.
The museum was gifted to the state and the JP McManus foundation contributed a further €1.2 million to maintain it over three years.
However, Mr Moran said none of these efforts were sufficient enough to keep the tourist attraction open.
He said that operational costs and the stamp duty associated with the passing of the museum to the state made its operation unfeasible.
The International Rugby Experience's foundation was built around Limerick's well-renowned love of and support for the game of rugby.
It had been anticipated it would attract 100,000 visitors, but actual figures fell short of that, attracting 60,000.
It was intended to be gifted to Limerick City and County Council, but it appears efforts to secure it as a permanent tourist fixture run and funded by the council have failed.
In a statement, the International Rugby Experience confirmed its closure on 23 December next.
All bookings up to then will be honoured, but no new bookings are being taken beyond that date with immediate effect.
The statement said the intention was to gift the architecturally significant and award-winning building to the State and in doing so, to help with visitor footfall in Limerick city centre.
The gift offer along with a €1.2 million donation was made to the council in October 2023, and both parties signed a head of terms agreement in March of this year.
That offer would have seen the building free to be used for any civic purposes by the council after 2028.
However, the International Rugby Experience has been unable to advance this process with the council, and so have taken this difficult decision to close the business.
It said it had brought 60,000 visitors to the city and delivered almost €8 million in visitor spend. It was built as a not-for-profit charitable venture and is entirely debt free.
The International Rugby Experience thanked former Munster and Ireland rugby internationals Keith Wood and Paul O'Connell for their fantastic support to the project at the concept stage.
They also thanked the staff and the people of Limerick for supporting the venture.
In a statement, Limerick City and County Council said it WAs disappointed by the news.
It said: "We want to assure the public that every effort was made to secure the proposed transfer of the International Rugby Experience into Discover Limerick DAC, the Council owned tourism company that manages other Limerick attractions including King John’s Castle.
"Following extensive due diligence, a detailed briefing was provided to the councillors of Limerick City and County Council, as recently as this week, to discuss the proposed transition.
"All possible avenues were explored including a report from an independent tourism expert consultant.
"Despite our best efforts, we were unable to secure a viable path forward as substantial operational and capital funding would be required from the Council into the future."
