Irish tourism: Realising every area’s potential by knowing its limitations

The country is full of areas of cultural and historic interest to visitors but a co-ordinated approached is needed to become successful, writes Liam Mannix of the Heritage Council

JUST down the road from where I grew up is a ruined medieval church. As one of hundreds of its type, it is in many ways unspectacular.

However, for me as a child it was a puzzle. In the countryside there is not much to do and poking around a ruin seemed as good a thing to do as anything else. Over time, the more I explored, the more I saw. There were arched stones on the ground, large square humps of grass, and a circular stone set in the middle of a wall. Eventually, the puzzle led me to UCC and a degree in archaeology.