Long before there was an official, established Irish tourist organisation - indeed, long before the new State was founded - such information and persuasion seems to have been left to the steamship and railway companies and to the individual hotels. If a book just come to hand is typical, A Practical Handbook, Galway, Connemara and the west of Ireland, they made a fair job of it. This is a stout, pocket-book size, about 140 pages plus an advertisement section, illustrated with some 60 excellent photos by such masters as Welch and Lawrence. A lively era for travellers, with trains running on time and the same no doubt for the five sailings each day, each way, from Holyhead to the North Wall, Dublin.
About the West, in particular, while there is criticism here and there, hyperbole is not excluded. "Clifden itself has bits of coast close at hand that would make a fortune of many an English seaside resort." Fair enough. And then an advertisement: "A fortnight at Clifden is worth a month at most holiday resorts." But very honest, for the times: "We do not recommend the whole road to Roundstone or Toombeola to be followed, as it is monotonous beyond the head of Ardbear Bay." Well, that's an opinion.
Achill Island is headed in the advertisement as "The British Madeira". Could they not stretch it to Irish? Achill brings out diverse opinions in the script. How, the writer wonders, do so many people manage to exist there (5,064). There is, of course, the work in England and Scotland in the harvest, and fishing is profitable "now that the iron horse has made markets accessible", but the land is so bare. "Let the queer little public houses show with their Martell and Hennessy with the proper number of stars that Achill is particular about its eau de vie."
Angling, of course, gets a good show and the hotels themselves advertise such bonuses as Mongans of Carna with its "Yacht, free of extra charge" and white and brown trout fishing on 20 lakes and rivers convenient to the hotel, all free of charge, including use of boats. And no car needed to get to them. Car, of course, in this sense meant horse-drawn. And in a list of fares there is an addition of "whip-money" which seems to be a tip for the driver. Or is it? Hotels stress moderate prices. The Four Courts Hotel in Dublin has "100 first-class bedrooms" from two shillings per night. Renvyle House Hotel 10 shillings per day, £3 per week. Y