A "fighting Irish" boost to the economy

THERE are more than 10,000 US visitors in Dublin for Saturday's American football friendly involving the "Fighting Irish", and most of them appear to be staying at the Blarney Woollen Mills in Nassau Street.

It certainly seemed that way yesterday, when some fighting Irish weather removed most of the alternatives to shopping. So the visitors spent the afternoon buying woollen jumpers, in keeping with US Federal law which states that an American citizen may not return from a trip to Ireland without "at least two sweaters".

Charlie Kenny, from Memphis, Tennessee, was shopping for a rain proof jacket, in fact. In all other respects he was a typical Notre Dame supporter. (Notre Dame, for those who don't speak American, is pronounced to rhyme with "voter name").

He graduated from the famous Catholic university in 1963 and is proud that his daughter - Erin - recently followed in his footsteps. His wife, Heather, smiled the wry smile of the football widow when I asked Charlie if he travelled a lot to watch his team play. But this was his first time in Ireland, and "a lifetime's dream".

Charlie is a qualified consumer psychologist. This means he advises businesses about what makes people want to buy things. So he will go back to the US having learned at least one new secret: that people who visit Ireland without rain proof jackets generally experience an urge to buy one, sooner or later.

Elsewhere in the shop, the O'Connors, from Wisconsin, and the McMullens, from Iowa, had already satisfied the statutory jumper requirement and were moving on to the crystal department.

Joyce McMullen proudly displayed a photograph of her son, Steve - in a kilt as a member of Notre Dame's Irish Guards band. Equally proudly, she displayed her $200 ticket for Saturday's game, which gives some measure of how much Notre Dame fans love their team.

With admirable dedication, the group interrupted their brief interview with The Irish Times to buy four Galway Crystal clocks. But the few minutes that US visitors spent talking to the press yesterday are estimated to have cost the Irish economy £1/4 million.

Notre Dame's opposition, Navy, was supposed to train at Croke Park in the afternoon, but The Irish Times squelched across a deserted pitch at the appointed time to be told by a groundsman that it had been cancelled.

"If we let them out on it today there'd be nothing going back to America on Saturday except muck."