To be fair, Irish people don't really care about winter sports. I lived there for 17 years and every time I would be asked which football team I support, I would say I'm more of a hockey fan. They would then laugh at me and say I'm in the wrong country.
Close to absolutely no one south of the border has ever heard of the IIHA, the national teams or even the Belfast Giants. When the Dundalk Ice Dome was still open, most people wouldn't even be aware of it (can't blame them, I always thought it was a bad location but hey, prime real estate there is simply outrageously expensive).
The only time I genuinely remember hockey being mentioned in a major news outlet was 2 articles in 2011 about the Stanley Cup finals' game 7. The first one was about tickets' black market value and the second about the subsequent riots. Needless to say not the greatest moment in hockey history.
Apart from when the Winter OG are on, you won't get it on TV unless you pay extra on your package to get Premier Sports. And let's be honest if Sky or RTE doesn't cover it, they won't care. All is left is for the NT to get good results to whip up some interest like the cricket team did . But there hasn't been enough time for that to happen when the opportunity was there.
Some people are interested going skating when the rinks are up around Christmas but not enough to create some kind of electoral incentive. So why would the government care about spending money on a rink if the general public at large is not that keen on it.
So private funding it has to be. I don't think finding a council would be the biggest challenge per say as I guess the rink would be considered commercial building, therefore rates. The land picked would need to be of absolutely no residential value considering the complete joke the housing situation is (the number one reason why we left as we couldn't afford moving out of our tiny one bedroom apartment). Energy efficiency would to be of the upmost importance to keep not only running cost down but also newfound greenwashing naysayers to a minimum.
In the end, I believe the biggest problem here would be and by far An Taisce. I do agree on principle with their purpose but, oh God, those guys can be some serious arrogant pricks. I have done some work for them and, unless you are an intellectual bulls..tter like them, they will consider you a leech to their snobbish society. Anything that can provide pleasure to the plebs is abhorrent to them and a rink would represent everything they hate. To be able to get rid of them, you would need some serious public support to show the local TDs to the point of making it an electoral issue. Otherwise they will shut the planning permission process down the same way they did the Liffey Valley expansion.
Until then, you got only two real options. Either renovate the Dundalk Ice Dome (that would cut your trip to a rink by what? an hour) or wait for the 32 counties to get back together. Then you got ice in the Republic.
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