They're already cracking open bottles of champagne in Wicklow. And why not? The Tour de France is less than a month away. In Wexford they are planting 10,000 flowers. In Cork a couple who want to get married in the chapel at UCC on the day of Stage 2 (how could they have been so short-sighted?) are having to make special transport arrangements with the gardai.
In Carrick-on-Suir, home town of Sean Kelly, they have a special machine in operation to clean the pavements of chewing-gum. In Waterford city 500 gallons of paint are being slapped on buildings along the quay.
Wicklow County Council has spent nearly £1.5million resurfacing roads and will site 40 temporary toilets on top of the Wicklow Gap. O'Connell Street in Dublin will be closed to traffic for three days. Dublin Corporation has arranged for temporary footbridges to be built over the prologue route, which will be closed to traffic for all of Saturday, July 11th.
Some 1,000 gardai will police the prologue route alone; an estimated 3,000 will look after each of the two road stages (and there will be 44 more on motorcycles escorting the race, alongside 44 members of the French Garde Republicaine).
No doubt about it, this is going to be huge.
"After the World Cup and the Olympics, this is the biggest sports event in the world," says Pat McQuaid, of l'Evenement,
joint coordinator of the Tour de France in Ireland. "Those other two events happen every four years, whereas the Tour de France takes place every year."
The 21 teams of nine world class cyclists from as far afield as Colombia and Japan are only a tiny part of the vast machinery of the Tour. There will also be 3,500 staff and 1,500 vehicles converging on Dublin Castle for accreditation.
"It will be the best-looking HQ the Tour ever had," quips Alan Rushton, Pat McQuaid's partner in l'Evenement.
McQuaid estimates that a quarter of a million Dubliners will turn out on the streets to watch the prologue, and one million Irish people will watch the two stages.
It will be particularly big in media terms.
"ARD, which is the German equivalent of RTE, has chartered a cargo plane to bring its equipment to Ireland and France. France Television has chartered its own ship," says McQuaid.
There will be 104 outside broadcasting trucks in O'Connell Street, 1,200 members of the press, and four relay planes plus a swarm of up to 12 helicopters following the race so it can be beamed, minute by muscle-grinding minute, around the world.
And in between is Ireland's chance to be seen by an estimated 900 million viewers in 163 countries.
But not everyone is happy. Members of the Dublin Chamber of Commerce have not greeted the proposed road closures in the capital on the Saturday, the major shopping day of the week, with uniform enthusiasm.
"These will be the most extensive closures we've had in the city," says chief executive Noel Carroll. "We're concerned about the scale, duration and operation of the closures. People have to get to work. Goods have to be delivered. Tara Street DART station will be closed. Huge numbers of shoppers will be deterred. The downtown stores will have a serious shortfall in business. We'd like to have vehicular access at all times except for the duration of the prologue."
Final details of the road closures will be made available from Dublin Corporation early next week.
Currently, proposed road closures include O'Connell Street (from Cathal Brugha Street to Abbey Street) from 9 p.m. on Thursday July 9th to 7 p.m. on Sunday July 12th (with traffic diverted up Gardiner Street). The biggest closures will be on Saturday, the day of the prologue, when the entire prologue route will be closed off with barriers. There will also be a number of closures on Sunday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
"Pedestrians will be fine," says Alan Rushton. "There will be temporary pedestrian bridges to allow for plenty of movement in the city centre. We think on balance that it will mean that more business will be done in the city."
Dr James McDaid, the Minister for Tourism and Trade, has voiced his confidence in the ability of "Dublin Corporation, the Garda authorities and l`Evenement - who are in ongoing contact with the Dublin Chamber of Commerce and city centre businesses - to do all in their power to facilitate access for deliveries and shoppers".
Cork city already has a streamlined plan of action in terms of traffic management.
"The Tour route will slice the city in two, going the wrong way over Patrick's Bridge," explains Sgt Willy Dooley in the Tour de France office in Cork city. "From 9 a.m. the route will be closed. We hope to open it again at about 4 p.m. when the Tour has passed through. The route will be barriered from the back of the Metropole Hotel right out to the finish line. After the race the barriers will have to be gathered up. That will cause some disruption in the city right up until 7 p.m."
Park-and-ride facilities will be available, with buses at six parking sites around the periphery of the city, and there will be a parking area (in Farranlea Park) and viewing stand (in front of County Hall) for wheelchair users. "We're encouraging people to come early," says Sgt Dooley.
The fact that the Tour de France is coming to Ireland at all is nothing short of "jaw-dropping", say both Pat McQuaid and Alan Rushton, when you consider that this is the first time the Tour is going to have to cross a large body of water (twice) to stage its Grand Depart (when it went to England in 1994 the Channel Tunnel was in use).
The inspiration for its staging here was of course Stephen Roche's historic win in 1987. Another decisive factor was Jean-Marie Leblanc coming to cover the Nissan Classic Cycling Tour of Ireland in 1985 and 1986 for L'Equipe, recalls Alan Rushton. "He saw a lively race in a part of the world he hadn't seen before. He eventually became head of the Tour de France."
Other markers included the Dublin International Sports Council (DISC) making the case for having the Tour here and a visit by Gay Mitchell to see how successfully it went in the UK. By 1994, "we were presenting a dossier with aerial pictures and the timing of starts and finishes," says Alan Rushton. Twenty committees from the areas covered by the Tour route were formed. "We had no struggle to turn people on. It quickly took on a life of its own. Even the smaller places like Youghal and Dungarvan are going to town."
The Government has invested £2.1 million, but the total figure of how much it is going to cost is hard to estimate, says Pat McQuaid, when you consider the investment made by local authorities, the Garda i and community groups. In terms of revenue, he estimates "£30 million will be directly attributable to this event".
ALL along the Tour route there are festivals galore in preparation. Between Wexford and Cork alone there are 15, says Gary Breen of South East Tourism. Enniscorthy has a weeklong festival, including a concert by the Wolfe Tones. Carrick-on-Suir will also be partying for a week, including a Mardi Gras street carnival, and raft and cot races.
Wicklow town has De Dannan in concert and an evening with Niall Toibin; Midleton hosts a food fair and concert with Frances Black; and in Cork city there will be an open-air concert on the Saturday night with Cafe Orchestra, the Cork Pops Orchestra and L'Orchestre Nouvelle d'Orleans. Flags, flowerpots and window displays are appearing all over.
Gardai are visiting people who live on the Tour route, recommending them to keep pets and animals away from the roadside. "There will be a lot of helicopters, and horses and other animals might not like it," says Insp Peter Finn in Enniscorthy, co-ordinator of the south-east region.
"We have the dog wardens on the alert. And we're hoping that farmers cutting silage and crossing the roads will cancel that until the Tour has passed."
The biggest logistical challenge of the whole thing, says Pat McQuaid, will be the business of moving the Tour back to France.
"We have three giant Stena Line ships leaving, one from Rosslare and two from Ringaskiddy. We have three chartered planes flying from Cork to Brest." One of the planes will carry nothing but the bicycles and 20 mechanics. The push is on to get everything and everyone back to France safe and sound and in time for the Bastille celebrations the following day.
And when you think of those 1,500 vehicles - which measure 5km, bumper to bumper - not to mention all the other paraphernalia, you just wonder whether Pat McQuaid and Alan Rushton will get a wink of sleep until the last helmet and microphone land safely back in France on July 14th.
Prologue
The 5.6km Prologue time trial starts at 3.25 p.m. from College Green, and finishes at O'Connell Street at 3.32 p.m. The last rider departs at 6.33 p.m. The trial will be preceded by the Cavalcade, which begins at 1.50 p.m.
Proposed road closures : O'Connell Street, College Green, Westmoreland Street, D'Olier Street. The entire Prologue route between 8 a.m. and 7.45 p.m.
Stage 1
Stage 1 will cover 180.5km, starting at 11.30 a.m. from O'Connell Street and finishing in the Phoenix Park with a 7km circuit at 3.51 p.m. (to avoid clashing with the World Cup final which takes place in Paris that evening).
The race will have its official start at 11.45 a.m. from the Stephen Roche monument on Ulster Road. The Cavalcade starts in O'Connell Street at 10.15 a.m.
Proposed road closures : cf8 a.m.- 12 noon: Anglesea Road, Ballsbridge, Donnybrook Road, Eglinton Road, Lr Mount Street, Milltown Road, Northumberland Road, Parnell Square East, Parnell Square North, Pembroke Road. 12 noon - 5 p.m.: Emmet Road, Frank Sherwin Bridge, part of Naas Rd, part of Parkgate St, part of SCR, St John Rd West, Tyrconnell Rd, Walkinstown Ave, part of Wolfe Tone Quay. Elsewhere: 8 a.m. - 4pm: Race route closed
Stage 2
Stage 2 will cover 205.5km and begins in Enniscorthy at 10 a.m. It finishes in Cork on the Carrigrohane Straight at 2.48 p.m. There will be a Cavalcade starting in Enniscorthy at 9 a.m. and Macnas will stage a parade in Cork city at 11 a.m.
Proposed road closures: 7 a.m.-4 p.m.: race route closed
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