Bailed-out Youghal Greyhound Track attracts just three fans to each meeting

County Cork track which received €763k in funding since 2020, drew just 92 attendees over 31 meets during the first four months of this year

Trainers lead their dogs into the stadium prior to the start of one of the races at Youghal Greyhound Stadium. Picture: Howard Crowdy

A Co Cork greyhound track, which was bailed out earlier this year, is attracting an average attendance of just three members of the public at its twice-weekly meets.

Youghal Greyhound Track drew just 92 attendees over 31 meets during the first four months of 2023, when trainers and bookmakers were excluded, figures released by the sport’s governing body show.

The track, which has received more than €763,000 in funding since 2020, was days away from closure in April of this year when it received a last-minute reprieve.

A spokesperson for Greyhound Racing Ireland said that the twice-weekly meetings at Youghal are held in the early evening at times “not conducive to attracting public attendance” as the stadium has a deal with British satellite broadcaster Sports Information Services.

“This arrangement is a commercially attractive agreement between Rásaíocht Con Éireann and SIS,” they said.

However, Katie Corcoran, an activist with anti-greyhound racing body Greyhound Awareness Cork, noted that Youghal’s start time of 6.05pm is broadly in line with other tracks such as Limerick and Tralee, which begin their events at 6.53pm.

“The start time could be used as an excuse for low attendance if it were in the am, as with Waterford, but it can’t really apply when the meetings are beginning after 6,” she said.

GRI said that consultants KPMG have been engaged to “prepare a strategic plan for RCÉ and its network of stadia, including Youghal, for the next five years”.

“It is anticipated that the plan will be published in the coming months,” the spokesperson said.

Youghal has been repeatedly earmarked for closure in recent years as GRI looked to consolidate its number of stadia. That closure was most recently recommended by consultants Indecon in November 2019, along with tracks at Longford, Enniscorthy, and Lifford.

Only Longford and Lifford have closed to date.

In 2022, average attendance at Youghal was just 18 people, the lowest seen at any of GRI’s nine operational tracks.

Youghal had been due to close down last March only for a deal to be agreed on March 31, a day prior to the lease’s expiry.

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Details of the length of the new deal have been kept a closely-guarded secret to date. It’s understood that the agreement leaves space for further negotiations between the track’s Cloyne-based private owners and GRI, assuming there is a willingness on both sides to find a mutually acceptable solution.

Ahead of the lease’s expiry in April, politicians have appealed to keep the track open, with Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue assuring local TD James O’Connor at the time that he would “continue to work with him in the context of his objective of ensuring there is a strong future for the track”.