A bite to remember

Never mind the Loch Ness monster, hard evidence of which has yet to be found. The most fearsome creature known to exist in Scotland is the biting midge - or so an article in this week's Economist suggests. Unlike the alleged monster, the midge is not shy about providing proof of its existence to tourists. And, although petrol prices and the strength of sterling are mainly responsible for a sharp decline in the number of foreign visitors to Scotland, the threat of midge-related violence is a big factor too, it seems.

One survey suggested more than half of first-time visitors would think twice about coming back because of all the insect bites. Apart from anything else, this shows what a great job Bord Failte has done in covering up the Irish midge problem. Because according to the just-released Irish Indoor Insects: a Popular Guide (published by Town House) - a copy of which was sent to me for highlighting the indoor ant threat in this column - biting midges, or "ceratopogonids", are almost as rampant here as in Scotland.

The guide says midges are "widely distributed" in Ireland, but adds: "Some vicious ones are very abundant in scenic areas, particularly boggy, mountainous regions. Parts of Wicklow, the south-west, the west and the north-west are notorious for these pests. In one incident in Lower Lough Bray in Co Wicklow, we witnessed tourists and anglers running for their lives to escape the attentions of ceratopogonids."

There's an implication both in this and Scotland's experience that tourists are particularly susceptible to bites. Big, juicy Americans seem to suffer most. While US visitors here are sometimes accused of lacking taste, this is clearly not a view shared by the Celtic midge community. In any case, midges seem to be increasingly dependent on tourism. Insects aside, the other interesting thing in the Economist article is that Scottish tourism is now following the lead of Bord Failte, by "devising holidays themed around traditional music, which is highly popular in Germany and Scandanavia" and even asking musicians "to collect addresses from their audiences when they tour the continent".

It's well known that Irish musicians have been collecting addresses and, indeed, phone numbers for years. But this is the first I've heard they were doing it for Bord Failte. Still, anything that helps our Scottish cousins is fine by me; even if some would say we've done enough for them already.

It's an established fact in Ireland - and it may even be true - that we invented whiskey and then gave it to the Scots, who went on to be vastly more successful at marketing the product, despite being unable to spell it. A much more recent example is the filming here of Braveheart, which was shot in Wicklow (all the midges were Irish) and, ironically, resulted in a massive boost to Scottish tourism.

On the other hand, it's equally true (or not) that we gave Scotland the bagpipes and the kilt, and they were good enough to take both. Kilt-wearing is a particularly bad idea in a country with vicious biting insects, so either way the Scots deserve our sympathies. Personally, I think we should give them some of our tourists as well.

Or better still, we could lend them Bord Failte for a while, because the company has been a bit too successful for comfort in Ireland. Visitors are swarming all over the country at the moment - particularly the boggy, mountainous parts - and everywhere seems to be crowded. I don't know what the Ring of Kerry is like, but Dublin currently has more open-top tour buses than taxis.

As I've pointed out before, the time when a hundred thousand welcomes was adequate to meet tourism needs here has long passed. And yet, while visitor numbers have gone up and up, the number of welcomes available is, in fact, declining. Bord Failte has no statistics on this, but some industry sources estimate we're down to about 50,000 welcomes now, and many of those are in Spanish.

Scotland, on the other hand, seems to have excess capacity. So, since we already know that Irish and Scottish scenery is interchangeable, why don't we send the overflow to our neighbours, just like B&Bs do?

Visitors could be told at the airport: "We're full up at the moment, but have you tried Scotland? It's only up the road." There'd still be the midge problem, of course. But if we only sent the thin, low-spending, backpacker tourists - statistically proven to be less attractive to biting insects and hoteliers - even that could be overcome.

Another traveller who might like to visit Scotland is Eric Abbott, the eccentric sailor who - as you may have read on Thursday - was rescued by coastguards this week for the sixth time in a year when he got lost in the Irish Sea. He was attempting to navigate using only the AA Road Atlas of Great Britain.

Abbott, from Cheshire in England, has cost the lifeboat services an estimated £330,000 sterling and has promised to remember them in his will: an eventuality the lifeboat services may consider expediting. Explaining that he goes to sea to "find himself", he has a habit of losing himself instead; at which point he radios the coastguard with hints of his position, such as "I can see mountains".

But as he explained to reporters: "The Irish Sea can be a very big place." And this, I think, is where Scotland could help. Loch Ness is a much smaller place, while still big and windy enough for sailing. Perhaps Eric could take his holidays there for a time, while he's working on his navigation skills.

You never know, maybe he and the monster would find each other.

Frank McNally is at fmcnally@irish-times.ie