It was an exciting and successful weekend of competitions, concerts, céilithe and sessions as the Comhaltas 64th Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann was celebrated by an estimated 400,000 throughout Sligo. The biggest event to have ever been hosted in Sligo, organisers estimate that attendance was up 30% on the previous year. Sligo seemed to pulse with Irish rhythm and revelry as age-old traditions were celebrated by fresh generations. The Fleadh Cheoil featured a week-long festival of fun with over 250 events and in excess of 8,000 competitors taking part in the All Ireland Fleadh competitions. Sligo spared no effort ensuring an entertaining event-packed programme that brought the world’s premier festival of […]
Overseas visitor numbers to Ireland grew by 12.1pc in the first five months of the year. The growth sets Ireland on a course for its best ever year in tourism. “If this trend continues we will be looking at a record year for overseas visitor numbers,” said Minister for Transport, Tourism & Sport, Paschal Donohoe. Ireland is now in its fifth consecutive year of growth in visitor numbers, with the economic recovery, expanding air routes, a 9pc VAT rate for the sector and marketing initiatives like the Wild Atlantic Way and The Gathering all apparently paying dividends. 2007 was Irish tourism’s busiest year to date, with 7.7m visitors. “These are […]
Six Irish attractions have made it onto a list of the world’s top 500 must-see sights of all time, compiled by guidebook publisher Lonely Planet. The Cliffs of Moher are placed 378 on the list, “where Co Clare plunges off 214m-high cliffs”. The immense sea swell and craggy offshore islands attract big-wave surfers and puffins alike. “Northern Ireland’s most popular tourist attraction”, the “multimedia extravaganza” at Titanic Belfast, is the only museum on the island of Ireland to make the list, at number 424. With talking holograms, film footage, computer “fly-throughs” and rides depicting the ship’s doomed history, the museum “doesn’t feel macabre, celebrating instead the achievements of shipbuilders”. The […]