It rises over the centre of Limerick in a six-storey array of bricks and pillars and vaults that has been compared to a scrum in building form.
The International Rugby Experience, Ireland’s newest tourist attraction looms over its surroundings with a swagger that channels Ireland’s performances on the field. The €30m (£26m) complex boasts a design, scale and ambition to match the country’s status as a rugby superpower.
Instead of memorabilia and traditional museum fare, it uses audio and visual technology to tell the story of rugby and capture its sights, sounds and atmosphere. Lasers and interactive devices let visitors test their kicking, running and scrummaging.
The goal is to draw 100,000 visitors a year and create an Irish rugby destination in this provincial capital in south-western Ireland, 120 miles from the Aviva Stadium in Dublin.
The building opened this month just two months after Ireland sealed their world No 1 status with a Six Nations championship grand slam, fuelling expectations for the World Cup in France in September.
“We didn’t plan it but the timing is great – you have the No 1 team in the world heading into the World Cup,” said the attraction’s chief executive, Barry Hannon. “We wanted to do something for the city and the sport. It’s not dusty boots and balls. We’re trying to capture stories from all over.”
Martin Johnson and Francois Pienaar, who respectively led England and South Africa to World Cup glory, joined other rugby legends for the official opening.
The architect, Níall McLaughlin, fused four derelict buildings into a tower of red bricks with high-vaulted ceilings, topped by a loggia with panoramic views, that is envisaged as a civic space for the next century and beyond. Rowan Moore, the Observer’s architecture critic, likened it to a medieval Italian palazzo with rugby metaphors – pillars and vaults visibly work as a team to hold it all up.
A charitable foundation founded by the racehorse owner JP McManus, who is from Limerick, funded the project. It will operate as a non-profit venture and, it is hoped, help revive a moribund city centre.
After passing a turnstile you enter a passageway throbbing with the soundscape of a stadium tunnel on match day. A door opens, leading to a room with projections of people – many of them female – playing rugby.
You work your way up five floors, each structured around rugby’s designated values of passion, discipline, integrity, solidarity and respect.
There is no mention of the 2018 “rugby rape trial” that divided Ireland. Two Irish international players were acquitted of raping a young woman but the airing of their social media conversations raised questions about sexism and misogyny in rugby culture. “We’re trying to teach boys and girls the positive stories,” said Hannon.
Paul O’Connell, a local rugby star and the attraction’s chair, helped to wrangle hundreds of players from around the world into virtual participation. England’s Jonny Wilkinson gives a kicking demonstration, after which visitors can kick a real ball at targets on a wall. South Africa’s Faf de Klerk shows how to pass. Ireland’s Tadhg Furlong gives tips on scrummaging. A QR card records visitors’ efforts.
The voices and faces of other Irish, stars such as Johnny Sexton, Keith Earls and Brian O’Driscoll, also appear but the emphasis is global. There is an interactive digital world map, flags and hymns from Spain, Italy and Argentina, plus a close-up video of the All-Blacks’ pre-match haka. But there is no sign of Irish triumphalism. “We are number one now but it’s all cyclical,” said Hannon.
Ireland’s rugby success – burnished by the dominance in Europe of Leinster and the national under-20 men’s team – belies the country’s 5million population, and rugby playing third fiddle to football and Gaelic sports. Many credit a structure that turns schools, clubs, provinces and national teams into a conveyer belt of talent. Peter Breen, an Irish Rugby Football Union spokesperson, said: “It’s the centralised aspect of it. Control can be an ugly word but here it means you’re not overburdening players, you can manage their workloads.”
The journalist Fintan O’Toole has credited Ireland’s coach, Andy Farrell, who is from Lancashire, with replacing a tradition of heroic failure with working-class English pragmatism. “It is not interested in excuses. It has a bracing literalism – you either get things done or you don’t.”
Whatever the reason, Ireland’s success cannot last indefinitely, said Breen. “We hope that worm never turns but that’s the nature of sport.”
Limerick’s shrine to the game may help defer that day. The interactive devices enthral children, who sidestep lasers and take turns kicking and passing the ball. “It was so realistic. I loved it,” said Ella Deedigan, 16, from Limerick. “I’ve not played rugby before but I actually might.”
