As your American-based golf correspondent, I’ve got a confession to make. I didn’t fancy my first pints of Guinness. In fact, I didn’t acquire a taste for it until my first trip to Ireland a little more than a decade ago and a visit to Temple Bar’s cobbled streets between the River Liffey and Dame Street in Dublin.

A record 10.6m tourists visited Ireland this year, with 2017 hailed as the greatest ever year for the sector.

Tourism Ireland is to be asked to explain why a paid half-page advertorial on the Wild Atlantic Way in a British newspapers made no mention of West Cork.

Screen tourism highlighting Irish connections to movies and TV shows like Star Wars and Game of Thrones is one of the key areas being targeted to encourage visitors from North America to visit Ireland.

One of the country’s landmark castles, visited by tens of thousands of tourists, has made the cover of a prestigious travel magazine with millions of readers.