With ‘grief tourism’ booming, we could add sites to our list
Awoman in my spinning class just came back from a weekend in Poland, and a tour of the Auschwitz concentration camp. “Dark and depressing, yet so hauntingly beautiful,” she said, calling up smartphone videos of gas chambers, crematoriums and a million pairs of spectacles.
In this month where the tourist season proper gears up following the St Patrick’s Day influx, the hospitality industry waits nervously on how successful the year will be.
Given the wide arc of holiday interests this year, perhaps we might consider a greater promotion of Ireland’s “grief tourism” sites. Defined as an interest in places of tragedy and catastrophe, it’s clearly a sector with obvious potential.
If your idea of vacation bliss is a beach on the Costa Brava or a walking tour of Tuscany, delving into humanity’s darkest corners might seem a morbid way to chill out. Yet, for many travellers, these pilgrimages to scenes of historical tragedy stand as a mark of respect to the fallen and a reminder of mankind’s capacity for savagery.
When holiday bucket lists are assembled, locations of horrific events such as Cambodia’s Killing Fields or New York’s Ground Zero carnage are high on “must do” itineraries.
At Stansted Airport last December, I met a young Galway couple on their way back from Chernobyl, scene of the world’s worst nuclear disaster.
Inspired to go as a result of the recent TV series, their “deep curiosity to visit a place that would leave a lasting impression” was the motivation behind such an unusual Christmas.
Tourism to the nuclear exclusion zone has rocketed, with bookings up by 50pc to visit Reactor 4 and the ghost town of Pripyat, complete with its rusting amusement park and a giant Ferris wheel. The demand for this kind of visit has also been noted by Jamaica, currently planning to develop its brutal slave plantations as a tourist attraction.
It will doubtless join South Africa’s Robben Island, Russia’s Perm 36 gulag and Rwanda’s Kigali genocide museum in attracting greater numbers each year, as the tourism industry delves deeper to satisfy the demand for these dark experiences.
Professor John Lennon of Glasgow Caledonian University originally coined the phrase “dark tourism”, explaining: “Human beings have always been attracted to sites and events that are associated with disaster, suffering and violence. From ancient Rome’s gladiatorial combat to London’s public executions, death has always held an appeal.”
Ireland is not short of its own dark places – with the National Famine Museum in Strokestown, the cells of Kilmainham Gaol and the former penal colony on Spike Island having long attracted tourist visits. Perhaps we can now look to preserving the Magdalene laundries, the Tuam mother and baby home, and the notorious St Joseph’s Industrial School in Letterfrack as the more recent examples of our history’s dark side.
If the world wants grief, sadly we have more than enough to satisfy the most demanding pilgrim.