“People come to Monaghan for its hospitality, heritage, unique and authentic experience ”

Thursday, May 24, 2018

Dympna Condra, Tourism Officer of  Monaghan County in Ireland, in an exclusive interview with Travel and Tour World speaks about the luxury properties, heritage and literary connect in Ireland.

Travel And Tour World:  Tell us about your county and facilities offered to the national and international tourists.

Dympna Condra: Dublin is very well-known, we are a little lesser known and are a rural county but very close to Dublin. But that is very positive because we have a strong welcome for visitors .We are little off the beaten track and we don’t get a huge amount of international visitors.

We have a number of high quality hotels, good outdoor activities, sectors with unique products and some unique visitor traction sector as well.

Travel And Tour World: Tell us about the properties you have and how is MICE tourism flourishing here?

Dympna Condra: We have some luxury properties and one of the most well known is Castle Leslie. It is a castle property which is a few miles from here. It is still owned by the same family since the 17 century  in Ireland. It has wonderful facilities from the Equestrian Centre  to other activity walks and heritage trails in unique villages. That certainly from an incentive point of view could be an ideal property.

Also in the south of the county we have Adare Manor hotel which is a luxury country club and they also have a Park Lane golf course  on one side which is a great facility as well.

Here, in Monaghan town there is a selection of hotels which offer different facilities but all have  excellent meeting rooms and conference facilities.

All the properties are  centrally located within the town so that the delegates can walk through the towns, go to restaurants, visit pubs which it is famous for and the music at night time which will appeal to the incentive and conference visitors  as well.

Travel And Tour World:  What do you offer in terms of heritage tourism?

Dympna Condra: We have some strong heritage property here for example one of the most famous poet Patrick Kavanagh, an internationally renowned poet in terms of English literature, we have Kavanagh Interpretation Centre in the south of the county.

But also in the county  we have some wonderful round towers, Celtic crosses, the old town of Clones which is an old Christian town  and some heritage trails around there.

Monaghan is famous for flax industry, linen making  and we have many properties related to that around the county. I would say there is something for everyone here.

Monaghan is also famous for lace making and there are two famous laces-Carrickmacross Lace and Clones lace, that is the lace which is featured on wedding dresses over the years and very proud of that tradition here.

Travel And Tour World:  In terms of inbound tourist from most parts of Europe and also far east, which are the countries from where tourists are coming?

Dympna Condra: Most of the tourist are from UK as we are very close to northern island, a lot of visitors are from USA, and Canada as a lot of people emigrated over the years, and have a strong connection with these countries.

We have visitors from Europe  but we don’t have visitors further afield from  and we are interested in attracting more visitors from China and India. We have a strong welcome here and would love to see more visitors coming.

Travel And Tour World:  Considering the weather do you suggest any preferred weather for the international tourist?

Dympna Condra: It is difficult to predict the season as the weather is unpredictable. I would say people don’t come to Ireland or Monaghan for weather, people come for the friendliness,  hospitality, heritage, the unique and authentic experience that they get here.  It is a destination for four seasons.

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