Put our tourist sites in pride of place

Sir — In last week’s Sunday Independent, one sentence in Sean Healy’s article caught my eye, when he spoke of “promoting and investing in local and regional tourism initiatives”.

For many years I have pondered over how I could contribute towards raising the tourism profile of my Monaghan home. Somehow we have become part of “Ireland’s Ancient East”, though this geographic anomaly has not helped very much in improving our lot as a tourist destination.

The answer came to me recently when I read a dog-eared copy of a book entitled (forgive my language) Bollocks to Alton Towers.

The book concentrates on accounts of lesser-known British tourist attractions — such as the British Lawnmower Museum, Eden Ostrich World, Mother Shipton’s Cave, Gnome Magic and Morpeth Bagpipe Museum. There are in total 42 separate sites recorded, all well off the beaten track — geographically and philosophically.

However, this book went on to become a best-seller. So perhaps this is the way to go to publicise the various fascinating and relatively unknown sites in Monaghan?

A recent publication advertising the glories of, ahem, Ireland’s Ancient East includes a mention of Monaghan, but there is only one entry — for the town of Clones. (And there are some anomalies in the account which makes me view the remainder of the book with scepticism.)

But never mind. Should an urge of literary energy possess me I will fill the void, and write an account of some of our amazing and sometimes hidden sites. With apologies to my ex-colleagues in the OPW I will perhaps title the book Newgrange My Arse.

George R Knight, Clones, Co Monaghan