Crowds gather in Ballina to welcome the Cannonball super cars

Ballina is awash with excitement as crowds gather to welcome 190 super cars into the town when Cannonball comes to Moyside at 6pm this evening. The event attracts over 200,000 spectators nationally every year and large crowds are expected in Ballina this evening as the super cars return to mark the town's 300th birthday celebrations.

Cannonball is the largest organised road trip in Europe featuring the finest cars on the planet from the awe-inspiring power of Ferrari, Lamborghini and McLaren to the grace and elegance of Porsche, Aston Martin, and Maserati. 

The finish line this evening will be at the Quay in Ballina and the cars will be arriving in at 6pm. Tomorrow morning at 10.30am, the cars depart Ballina for stage two of the event and head towards Salthill in Galway for lunch. They will then travel to Limerick for their second overnight stay.

On Sunday, the supercars will leave Limerick City at 10.30am towards Cork for lunch at Fota Island Resort before a big dramatic final finish line in Kilkenny City at 6pm.

This year the official charity of Cannonball is The Jack and Jill Children's Foundation - an Irish children’s charity that funds and delivers in-home nursing care, respite support and end-of-life care for children from birth to six years of age who have highly complex and life-limiting medical conditions. There are currently over 400 children under the care of Jack and Jill right across the country and the charity’s mission is to empower parents to care for their child at home, because there is no care like home care for a Jack and Jill child.

Cannonball was founded by Kildare businessman Alan Bannon and the benefit to the host towns for this event is estimated at €2,567,000 per year. Both Ballina and Enniscrone will benefit this year from the Cannonball overnight stay.