Ireland's Economic Recovery Shows at Galway Races

Celebrating his long-shot victory at Galway Races, local lawyer Joseph O’Hara heads to the Champagne tent to spend some of his €1,000 ($1,300) winnings. The seven-day festival in Ballybrit, which started on July 28, is the biggest of its kind in Ireland and has reflected the health of the economy. During the Celtic Tiger boom, it buzzed with helicopters, alerting punters to the arrival of the nation’s richest developers and bankers. Then came the collapse of the real estate market and an international bailout, and attendance and betting plunged.

With the economy improving and Ireland back in the good graces of global bond investors, punters are returning. The crowd of 140,000 for the festival was 9 percent larger than in 2013 and thronged the course and its Laurent-Perrier Champagne and Guinness tents, where stout, oysters, and smoked salmon were served. “The general feeling is that the worst is over,” says O’Hara, after backing a horse named Legatissimo that gave him odds of 20 to 1. “We’ve endured six years of austerity, and it’s been pretty miserable.”