How O’Regan wooed the US

BRENDAN O’Regan defied the explicit orders of government officialdom when he set in train the American agenda that would create a Shannon powerhouse and turn the tide for the West of Ireland. He was probably the only person in the country who could have done so.
It was 1950 and the previous year had set a new milestone for transatlantic aviation. For the first time, numbers crossing the Atlantic by plane had exceeded those travelling by sea. It marked the beginnings of mass air travel with the GI generation of Americans returning to get to know the Europe that had been their theatre of war. To acquaint key travel and tourism elements in Europe with what American visitors would expect, a six-week tour of the facilities and standards that Americans were used to was organised under the Marshall Plan blueprint for European regeneration.
Brendan O’Regan was one of an Irish contingent of four picked for the 16-strong party’s tour to the US. Because they already knew the O’Regan style of getting things done, which had already established an international reputation for Shannon Airport hospitality and catering, the official instructions from the bureaucrats were “come back with a report, but not recommendations”.
O’Regan did the exact opposite. In a 41-page document that set out what Ireland had to do to close an already widening gap that had the country straggling in the European tourism stakes, he was joined by a brave fellow  professional, Patrick F Dornan, then manager of the flagship Parknasilla gem in the State-owned Great Southern Hotels chain. From his commanding position at the top of the Irish hospitality tree, Dornan would have been well aware that, whatever the civil servants ordered or threatened if instructions were not followed, O’Regan was “untouchable”.
There were three compelling reasons why O’Regan could take the independent course of action that Dornan endorsed. In his Shannon Sales and Catering Service, O’Regan was building a unique agency of State enterprise. Because there had been no expectation that a State-run catering service that began from the Foynes flying boat base would ever be more than an exchequer-subsidised venture, the commercial empire that evolved at Shannon was an independent republic. Sales and catering was hugely successful. It was generating direct and spin-off jobs in an employment wasteland. It was also making profits and returning dividends to the government each year as well as paying rental for the buildings and facilities at Shannon, which were government owned. But Sales and Catering was able to act on its own initiative and act fast when opportunities arose because it had no board of directors.
Brendan O’Regan reported directly to the minister and the minister happened to be Seán Lemass, the future taoiseach and the most powerful member of the De Valera Cabinet.  Having head-hunted O’Regan for Foynes, he was the protégé of Lemass and his department secretary, John Leydon who, between them and a hand-picked team of civil servants, were putting down the groundwork for the programme of economic expansion. So O’Regan was irritatingly out of reach of the bureaucrats and could both plan and act on his own initiative. 
The coast-to-coast familiarisation tour of American hospitality and leisure facilities not only opened the eyes of O’Regan and Dorman, they were also shocked by what were not only ill-informed but distorted impressions of Ireland projected in US travel media. The outstanding feature of the Dublin capital was its stark poverty and the Blarney Stone was kissed by less than a handful of visitors each year were just two of the myths pedalled in the guide books and travel pages.
The urgency that O’Regan and his ally attached to mapping out a comprehensive strategy and a programme of action was underlined by the fact that the Shannon airport supremo opted to return to Ireland by sea so that he could assemble the document that would point the way ahead. That voyage on the SS America worked out to the immediate benefit of Shannon. On board the liner he got a close up view of the money-spinning capacity of the duty free shop and a captive clientele. Back home in Shannon, the duty-free sales of liquor and tobacco that were largely confined to airport crews and the gift shop selling a limited range of souvenirs and crafts were merged and vastly expanded in the range of merchandise that would make Shannon the biggest duty-free store in the world.
The priority on a national scale that the O’Regan-Dorman blueprint set out was for transformation of the hotel sector. More than half of the 41-page document was devoted to how a totally new generation of hotels had to look and operate. The minute detail guidelines they set out extended from how a hotel reception desk should look and operate to the décor, fittings and furnishings of en-suite bedrooms where a switch from double to twin beds was an imperative for American visitors. Even the room temperature of 70 degrees Fahrenheit and for room service to be on call from a phone connection in every bedroom was included in the exhaustive list of actions. To bring about the transformation, they recommended that the State should help out with grants, subsidies and other concessions that would become an integral part of tourism expansion.
Because of its in-built flexibility and freedom to take the initiative, priorities identified were tackled from Shannon. The need for a hotel management college had been floated for some years and a group of enlightened hoteliers had agreed to subscribe funding but follow-through action was lacking. Within 18 months of their April 1950 strategy document, the Shannon College of Hotel Management enrolled its first crop of future professionals.
When recommending that the accommodation sector should match up to the range and standards available in the USA, O’Regan took a personal initiative.
In anticipation of his vision of seeing Bunratty Castle restored, he bought up a site in the shadow of the castle. There, the mid-range inn-style hotel favoured by Americans was built in record time for the American Al McCarthy in 1959 and designed to fit in with the local landscape as O’Regan had envisaged when he purchased the property. Through his promptings, the dollars of millionaire Bernard McDonough would be ploughed into the luxury-standard Dromoland Castle and the top grade cluster of hotels – Clare Inn, Limerick Inn and what was originally the International Hotel at the airport, which served as headquarters and training ground for the hotel college.
Later, when the Shannon Development agency was set up, the range of accommodation was extended to self-catering with the Rent-an-Irish Cottage scheme that set the standards for the rest of the country and showed the way in extending tourism into rural areas.
The American agenda of Brendan O’Regan that set the course of Irish tourism from Shannon and how a group of Americans played pivotal roles in making it happen is documented in a new book Stars and Stripes for Éireann, compiled and self-published by journalist Dermot Walsh, who has been a long-time contributor to The Clare Champion.