As a result of Dan Doyle’s many activities in Ireland and Northern Ireland, Mr. Doyle has been in discussions with colleagues at the University of Limerick and NUI Galway (the University of Galway) about a special 2012 trip to Ireland, specifically involving participants in Camp Renaissance and K-O Skills Basketball, along with their family members.

Plans for the trip will be formalized by Spring, 2011, at which time Camp families will be notified of the program. Mr. Doyle is presently in conversations with both universities to determine which school will host the trip, as well as with Aer Lingus and other airlines. One of the key objectives is to develop a package that is cost efficient, and affords families the opportunity to pay over a one-year period. The program will include pre-trip lectures, as well as opportunities to visit special places in Ireland ranging from the Irish National Basketball Arena, the construction of which Mr. Doyle oversaw in the late-80’s, to the Aran Islands, which hosted two highly-publicized literary festivals in the ‘90’s, both founded and directed by Mr. Doyle.

Full trip details will be posted on this website, and mailed to Camp families in Spring, 2011.

• Tentative travel dates: Mid-August, 2012 – just after K-O Skills Basketball wraps up.
• Tentative Itinerary: will be ready by Spring, 2011.

Background

In 1981, Mr. Doyle began to develop programs of various sorts to benefit the youth of the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. The first effort was a large-scale program to develop Irish basketball, and the Irish-American Sports Foundation (IASF) was formed. Mr. Doyle served as director and the distinguished Board included UConn legends George Blaney, who served as president of the Foundation, and Donald “Dee” Rowe.

The IASF set a number of lofty objectives, all of which would use basketball as a medium to provide opportunities for Irish youth. The initiative resulted in over 1000 Irish youth traveling to the United States to attend summer camps or compete against American teams. The program further included over 200 Irish youth being afforded the opportunity to attend an American high school or college with scholarship assistance and travel funding. Another important IASF achievement was sending over 300 highly regarded American basketball coaches to Ireland to conduct clinics for Irish youth.

THE NEED FOR A BASKETBALL ARENA

The main IASF objective was to construct a first-class National Basketball Arena in Dublin. When Mr. Doyle first visited Ireland in 1981, he was stunned to learn that Ireland had no indoor gymnasium even comparable to a U.S. junior high gymnasium. Under Mr. Doyle’s leadership, a major accomplishment of the IASF was to raise the funds for the construction of the Irish National Basketball Arena, which opened to great fanfare in 1989. The grand opening included an historic game between the Holy Cross Men’s Basketball Team, then coached by Mr. Blaney, against the Irish National Team. Albert Reynolds, then Irish Prime Minister, attended the game, presented Mr. Doyle with a Waterford vase for his leadership in the four million dollar project, and called the opening of the building “one of the great steps forward in the history of Irish sport - and Irish and American relations.” Later that year, Mr. Doyle was named Irish Sports Person of the Year by the publication Irish Voice.

The Irish National Basketball Arena is still considered to be one of, if not the finest sports facilities in Ireland.

The IASF contribution to Irish youth in the form of American coaches and players visiting Ireland was also a major success. The coaching roster was a list of “Who’s Who” in American basketball, and included the likes of Basketball Hall of Fame coaches, Hubie Brown and Dr. Jack Ramsay, and Hall of Fame point guard, John Stockton of the Utah Jazz.

When Mr. Doyle founded the Institute for International Sport at URI in 1986, the Institute directed considerable effort to expanding the work of the IASF in Ireland. By the late-80’s, the particular focus was on using sport and the art as mediums to bring Protestant and Catholic youth together in Northern Ireland. In 1989, the Institute founded Belfast United. Below, readers may view the compelling nature of this initiative. The first director of Belfast United was Patrick Lynch, who now serves as Rhode Island Attorney General. Attorney General Lynch has been a key participant in the growth of Mr. Doyle’s Institute for International Sport.

In 1994, when President Clinton made a historic trip to Northern Ireland to declare peace, Belfast United was credited in many corridors as being one of the most effective programs in bringing about the truce.

In the ‘90’s, Mr. Doyle, through his Young Writers Institute at Kingswood-Oxford School, administered two acclaimed literary festivals on the Aran Islands, the famous Irish literary retreat. The Aran Islands Poetry and Prose Festival featured some of the most renowned authors in the world, including Frank McCourt, William Kennedy, Rita Dove, Roddy Doyle, Michael Ondaatje, Elizabeth Strout, Edna O’Brien, Mark Doty and Nobel Laureate Czeslaw Milosz.

The 2012 trip will make use of these many contacts with the end result being a well-planned program that will combine Irish culture, sport and camaraderie.

View the history of the acclaimed Belfast United program.