Kilrush call-up for Trap

KILRUSH Town Council this week sent a chilling warning to Republic of Ireland soccer manager Giovanni Trapattoni ahead of his side’s World Cup 2014 qualifier against Germany in Dublin.

 

Monday’s town council monthly meeting heard confirmation that Italian Ambassador to Ireland, Maurizio Zanini, will visit Kilrush on Saturday, October 27. However, Ireland will have to get a result against Germany on October 14 if Trapattoni is to be guaranteed an invite to Kilrush.

The ambassador will be accompanied by his Belgian-born wife, Patricia Dubois Zanini, who has ancestral links to Kilrush.

Councillor Paul Moroney suggested Trapattoni be invited to the reception at the Vandeleur Walled Gardens on the afternoon of October 27.
On hearing this, Councillor Tom Clyne, clearly unimpressed with Ireland’s 2-1 away win against Kazakhstan last Friday, urged caution before sending any invite to the 73-year-old former Italy, AC Milan, Juventus and Bayern Munich manager.
“We’ll have to wait until after the Germany match, I think,” Councillor Clyne told the meeting.

Yet Councillor Moroney is confident Trapattoni will still be the national team manager in late October. “If he survived the Euros, he’ll survive a bit longer,” he predicted.

Earlier in the meeting, Councillor Moroney asked if Giovanni Trapattoni had already been contacted. “I made that suggestion when this came up at the last meeting, when the Euros were on. I asked could we see if Trapattoni is available to come down on the same day. Was there anything done about it or was it just left to one side?” he asked the meeting.

“We’ve contacts in the FAI from their visit last year, so we can investigate that,” Kilrush town clerk John Corry replied.

The upcoming visit will be Patricia Dubois Zanini’s second trip to Kilrush this year. Last February, the ambassador’s wife, along with her sister, visited their ancestral Bulger and Scanlan family graves.
Patricia Zanini’s great-grandmother, Anne Bulger, was born in 1875 in Kilrush, where her father, Daniel Scanlan Bulger, ran a loan office and other businesses in Moore Street. The Bulger family moved from Moore Street to Dublin about a decade later. In 1896, in University Church in Dublin, Anne married Jules Tinchant, a Mexican whose family had a cigar business in Belgium, where they settled down.

When Daniel Scanlan Bulger fell ill and died in Dublin in 1904, his wife, also Anne (née Delany), applied to be admitted a member of the Dublin Stock Exchange in his place but her request was turned down, apparently on account of her gender. Instead, she moved to Lisdoonvarna and set up the Thomond House Hotel and golf links, now the Hydro.

During their visit in February, they paid their respects at the family plot where those buried include three children of Daniel Scanlan Bulger, who died in infancy in 1867, 1872 and 1874; John Bulger (d 1836) and Mary Bulger née Scanlan (d 1864), probably Daniel’s parents; and Daniel Scanlan and Ellen Scanlan née Kelly (both d 1830), probably Mary’s parents and thus the great-great-great-great-great-grandparents of the younger visitors.

Daniel Delany Bulger, Laurence Quinlivan Bulger and Michael Joseph Bulger, the three surviving sons of Daniel Scanlan Bulger and Anne Delany, were all noted sportsmen.
In 1894, Daniel Bulger assisted Pierre de Coubertin of France in establishing an international sporting festival.
Without Bulger, athletics historian Cyril White has suggested, the International Olympic Committee would not have formed when it did. Furthermore, Daniel’s Kilrush-born brothers, Laurence and Michael, both played on the Irish rugby team.