Life

Lynette Fay: There's more to the north of Ireland than the 'North Coast' and golf

Every tourism ad aimed at attracting visitors promotes the 'North Coast' heavily. So what? If it gets tourists north of the border, surely this is a good thing, you may think. But aren’t we selling ourselves short? We have more to market ourselves on than sport

Lynette Fay

Lynette Fay

Lynette is an award winning presenter and producer, working in television and radio. Hailing from Dungannon, Co Tyrone, she is a weekly columnist with The Irish News.

Tomorrow marks the beginning of a huge event sporting event as The Open comes to the north coast. Picture by Margaret McLaughlin
Tomorrow marks the beginning of a huge event sporting event as The Open comes to the north coast. Picture by Margaret McLaughlin Tomorrow marks the beginning of a huge event sporting event as The Open comes to the north coast. Picture by Margaret McLaughlin

THE weekend of the Twelfth has always been a strange one. Everything goes into shut down, time off work is more or less obligatory because nothing is going on, and where I live in Belfast, the beat of drums from the daily band practice has been audible for the past month.

Earlier this week I had to close the windows to keep the smell of burning wood out of the house. Another lesson to me on closing windows.

However, tomorrow marks the beginning of another huge event – The Open is coming to the north coast. I hate golf and I am allergic to the north coast overload. You would think that there’s nowhere else to go on a sunny day.

First to the golf. We used to live beside the golf course. My brother went through a phase of thinking that he was a budding Darren Clarke; he swiftly learned that his talents lay elsewhere. We would sometimes go for a long walk up around the golf course at dusk – and that’s the closest I ever came to golfing.

I understand that it is a highly skilled game, but as a female from a from a solid working-class background, it was never a world that appealed to me. Golf was a sport/pastime for the wealthy and many golf clubs welcomed testosterone only.

The rich and the famous, the great and the good, and, of course, the wannabies will make their way to the north coast this week for an event I have heard too much about already.

Now to the ‘North Coast’. In recent years, Portrush, Portstewart and that general area have been rebranded as such. Every tourism ad aimed at attracting visitors from foreign shores (and the south) promotes this area heavily. It is beautiful, it has lovely beaches, a few tourist attractions but, to be honest, by times, you would think that the only things worth seeing in this part of the world are The North Coast (including Carrick-a-Rede and the Giant’s Causeway), Titanic and the Game of Thrones filming locations. There’s the Troubles tours of Belfast as well.

So what? If it gets tourists north of the border, surely this is a good thing, you may think.

It is. But aren’t we selling ourselves short? I think we have a lot more to offer and are missing a trick. We have more to market ourselves on than sport, which can be very divisive at the best of times, for many reasons.

A few years ago the west coast of Ireland was rebranded as The Wild Atlantic Way. Not everyone is a fan of this idea either, but its success cannot be denied.

Then came strategic campaigns to promote the rest of the Republic, and Ireland’s Ancient East and Ireland’s Hidden Heartlands subsequently came into being. A bit like the train network, though, there is a forgotten area in all this branding and strategy – the border region – from Enniskillen right across to Carlingford and Rostrevor. It could well be argued that Inishowen and Derry also fall into this bracket.

There are beautiful mountain walks, undulating landscapes, ancient monuments and historic sites, a rich literary and linguistic legacy to tap into, but crucially, there is music.

I was involved recently in a discussion about Belfast securing Unesco status as a city of music. This status is achievable and should be pursued but, again, we have an even richer proposition to offer.

Over the next few weeks, small, rural towns and districts will host music festivals which bring the locality to life for their duration and attract visitors to the area.

Most of these festivals are run on a voluntary basis. They are organised by members of the local community who believe in what their area has to offer, with very limited public funding available to them. Everything is done on a shoestring budget.

In the coming weeks, I urge readers to check out something within an hour’s drive of them if they can. Try something different. The Soma Festival in Castlewellan, Fiddler's Green in Rostrevor, The Ulster Fleadh, Ceol na Croise in Crossmaglen, The Brantry Fleadh in rural Co Tyrone, Arts Over Borders which celebrates the literature of Wilde, Beckett and Friel with events organised over four counties, Stendall festival in Limavady, which again has a stellar line-up planned.

These are only examples of what is going on within small communities right across the north. Imagine what could be achieved if a strategy or plan existed which would help promote them all as a collective?

Wouldn’t it be great if funders or perhaps the Tourist Board could identify the value of something that already exists?