I would like to thank the chief arbiter FA Colm O’Muireagain, ICU Chairperson Desmond Beatty, the ICU, Sandra Woods, David Hewitson, Fergal Gallagher, Ola Piechorowska, Laoise Kelly, anyone who helped in any way, the players and their families, the Diamond Coast Hotel team of Mary, Anne-Marie, Derry, Andy, Orla and all its staff, videographer Rummy McCullagh of Temper Hound Productions, photographer Conor Doherty, our corporate sponsors: Chessable, Liber Bookshop, Dmac Media, Abtran, Dunnes Stores, and our many board sponsors. The tournament would not have been possible without all of these people and entities. Thank you all. Your generosity and hard work are greatly appreciated.
We had 140 players across four sections representing 11 different national federations: Croatia, Czech Republic, England, Finland, France, Ireland, Mexico, Scotland, Spain, Sweden, and Ukraine. We had unrated players participating in their first over-the-board tournament and we had Ireland’s only Grandmaster, Alex Baburin. We had our invited guest, Ukrainian Woman Grandmaster Evgeniya Doluhanova, who we thank for her attendance.
We had a tournament-sponsored social event on the Saturday night. There was a free drink for every player, colouring competition, guess the number of sweets, photo board quiz, chess quiz, 1980s electronic board, jumbo Jenga, jumbo connect four, and a mate-in-7 chess puzzle . Of course, there were also chess boards, pieces, and clocks laying around so there were many impromptu games as well. I estimate that we had about 70 people, including friends and family of the players, attend through the course of the evening.