The bad weather that blighted this year’s race schedule might have been good news for bars and pubs in Douglas.

We spoke to a number of licensees, who said this year’s fortnight was one of, if not their busiest, TT for years.

Will O’Brien, manager of Brendan O’Donnell’s in Castle Street, said: ’The weather was awful but I’ve not seen the numbers we had in for maybe three years.

’It was wall-to-wall non-stop on days when there was no racing from the minute we opened.’

Ashley Burgess, who manages the nearby Sam Webb’s on Marina Road, said that the pub was busy every year but that the bad weather and Bushy’s being in the Villa Marina may have helped draw more people to the pub.

He added: ’The daytime was more busy than previous years, but I suppose when the weather was bad and there was no racing, there was little else to do. It’s probably the busiest TT I’ve known here.’

One bar opening up for its first TT, with the business launched in the days leading up the beginning of practice week, was the Front Porch, run by Island Travel duo Rikki Dunnage and Ed Cox.

Despite still establishing itself, Rikki said the bar, on Duke Street, Douglas, ’absolutely smashed it’.

He added: ’We hoped that we would be busy but it exceeded every expectation. There was a brilliant mix of locals and visitors, no trouble and a brilliant atmosphere from start to finish. We feel we have put the Porch on the map.’

Guy Rossiter, who runs the Rovers Return, told the Examiner this TT was ’really good for us’, adding: ’It was probably helped by people trying to stay dry.’

He said while he was still working out the figures, he believed it was ’one of the best TTs in a fair few years’.

Robert McAleer, who runs the Thirsty Pigeon with his father, described the fortnight as ’brilliant’ for the business, noting that it was particularly busy in the evenings and night time.

And Martin Brunnschweiler said he was ’all in all very happy’ with how Bushy’s Village handled the weather.

He said: ’Some days were busier than last year and other days were quieter, but the racing and the weather all had affected that.

’But now we’ve had one extreme to the other, from one of the hottest TTs in memory in 2018 to one of the wettest this year, so it was good to see how the village managed it and we’re very satisfied.’

Last year, the Hooded Ram rivalled Bushy’s with a beer tent on the Bottleneck car park on Loch Promenade.

This year, Hooded Ram did not open on the site after a problem securing a licence.