North Tipperary Tourism Continues To Be Ignored

Thurles, The Cathedral Town

This weeks local newspaper, the “Tipperary Star,” here in Tipperary, bears to the reader the catchy headline, “Lonely Thurles Not On The Planet.” Their article indirectly, yet correctly highlights the total neglect of tourism in North Tipperary.

This article highlights the failure of travel guide Lonely Planet to recommend Thurles as a tourist destination. The latter publication of course hallucinates more with each publication, while imagining and marketing themselves as the “Backpackers Bible,” giving the impression that their representatives have visited and surveyed quality holiday destinations, thus attempting to control where tourists will visit and travel in countries around the world.

In Lonely Planet, published 1999 / 2000 edition, Thurles was ‘tarred,’ with the following brush; Quote: “Thurles ( Durlas) is a large market town 22km north of Cashel which was founded by the Butlers in the 13th. century. Little of note has been built there since & the town square is little more than an ugly car park.”

This was despite a new 3rd Level College, a new Theatre, two new Museums, a state of the art Research Library and Exhibition Centre, latter staffed by quality helpful trained staff, etc, etc. This was despite the fact that Thurles is the ancestral home of the present heirs to the British Throne, the home of the Gaelic Athletic Association, etc, etc, the list is long.

The publication “Ireland : A Rough Guide,” had similar misinformation to offer tourists; ” Thurles is of very little interest in itself.” “Having seen the Rock of Cashel, most people head out of Tipperary for the west, and frankly this isn’t a bad idea – the north of the county has little to distract you.”  “Templemore is even less interesting than Thurles.”

Truth is both of these so called “Tourism Guide Publications,” continuously display their total ignorance and lack of research, choosing instead to operate like protection racketeers, coercing reticent potential Hotels, Restaurants etc, into buying into their publications.

Unlike the protection racketeering of the Kray Twins, of the 1950’s in the UK, these publications do not set about doing physically damage to their victims’ property during the night. Far worse, they ignore and fail to truthfully recommend top quality licenced hostelry’s, hotels and eating houses, who refuse to respond to this type of racketeer marketing.

This in turn means that these publications point tourists to the most expensive areas of Ireland, which, I regret to report, latter do not always grant best real value to the visitor. To prove a point I recently sent an email to Lonely Planet under the guise of a being a tourist, intending to visit Thurles.

See email and reply hereunder. (True copies of this communication and it’s reply may be viewed on request.)

Hi,
I wish to visit Thurles, Co. Tipperary, Ireland. Are there any Hotels / good accommodation closer than Cashel? Are there any Castles, Museums, Heritage Centres etc, in this area.
Best regards, etc.

Reply Received by return from Lonely Planet
Dear Sir,
Please select the below link to find lots of information on Ireland:
Sadly we do not offer any accommodation in your selected area through the Lonely Planet Hotels and Hostels website yet. I hope you have a fantastic time travelling and please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any more queries.

As you can see we could have repaired, far more easily, any damage undertaken by the likes of the Kray Twins.

North Tipperary on your knees and ‘Thank God,’ that Lonely Planet have failed to give us a mention this year.

I will be discussing, on this site, the failure to properly market Tourism in Thurles and ‘that area,’ just east of the Shannon, in more infinate detail, in the coming days. After all ‘blame is the name of the game,’ in today’s Ireland and we must therefore ‘name and shame,‘ those responsible for our neglect, before we begin to change the way we do business in the future.

In the meanwhile, any Tourists coming to Tipperary this year, stop wasting money on glossy brochures, use the Internet.(e.g. The new Hidden Tipperary.com site.) Here in Tipperary we do not sell a pig in a poke, rather we like to display our wares and guarantee our products to our customers.