You're knee deep in holiday brochures, maybe? Lovely sunny covers, happy people with not a care in the world dipping in swimming pools or sea. And this one is most striking. The dominant picture on the cover shows, under a sparkling blue sky with rolling white clouds, a beach glistening with incoming tide, while surfers provide the action. To many people, the background will be unmistakable, a long line of white cliffs and the coastline beyond, circling round to what we know to be the Giant's Causeway.
Yes, it's the new Northern Holiday breakaway brochure inviting you to try a tempting selection of hotels, guesthouses, B&B's, hostels and self catering cottages and apartments in all of the six counties, a lot about sporting facilities. What makes it different? It's our own country In a different sense from Daniel
Corkery's, it is the Hidden Ireland of today for so many who live south of the Border. Taken county by county, the photographs, mostly small but brilliant, bring us over known and unknown spots. Runkerry Beach on north Antrim, where the Bush river runs out over the sand. Armagh, applecountry, the site of Navan fort where the Ulster Kings sat, Lough Neagh, the planetarium. Down is dominated by the Mournes, but it has magnificent beaches, is home to sailors on Belfast and Strangford Loughs, magnificent gardens, including Rowallane. And Cultra the unique Folk and Transport Museum. (More like an estate.)
Fermanagh, of course, means, to many, the Upper and Lower Erne, and the new Shannon Erne waterway. County Londonderry they call it, but the city is Derry; again so much seacoast; and Derry as a magnet for shoppers is stressed, with special mention for the Craft Village. There is Seamus Heaney, whose home land is celebrated at Bellaghy Bawn. Tyrone to many means the Sperrins, with a lovely picture of a deer in Gortin forest. Has any guide book on Ireland given so much simply keyed information on accommodation! Do they take dogs? Babysitting service available? Today's big question in the Republic - can we do any thing to help in the North? Simple; just go there, and often. And it is not expensive. Your bit for your country.