Starting date set for major cycling event Rás Tailteann

The starting date has been set for Ireland's biggest cycling event, Rás Tailteann, which will take place from Wednesday, May 22nd to Sunday, May 26th.

This is the 69th edition of the race, which sees cyclists from Ireland and abroad traverse across various regions of the country. As the event is broken into various stages for each day, it covers a wide area on the map.

This year, the event will kick off from Tullamore, co. Offaly in Ireland’s Midlands, and the first stage will finish in Kilmallock, co. Limerick. This will be the first-ever Rás Tailteann stage to finish in the County Limerick town.

The 2024 edition will also have finishes in Sneem, County Kerry, Cahir, County Tipperary (which will see the first finish there since 1967) and Kildare Town, County Kildare.

The fifth and final stage will finish in Bective, County Meath where the race will take in three laps of a 14.1km spectator-friendly finishing circuit.

Almost 800km of Irish roads awaits this year's entrants with a total of eighteen categorised climbs over the five stages, including two x category one climbs on stages two and four.

Rás Tailteann has attracted teams worldwide, including New York-based 'Team Good Guys Racing', as well as Ride Revolution Coaching from the UK.

Team Good Guys Racing leader Cormac Daly said it is "such a privilege to bring our team to Ireland to compete in The Rás Tailteann again this year. I am especially excited as Stage 2 will take in many of my training routes on The Iveragh Peninsula and Stage 3 starts in my hometown of Kenmare. We will be putting in a huge effort before May to be as competitive as possible with our young squad."