On the road to god knows where

The border, hard to spot on the ground, is clearly visible from space, as satellite photos show.

Spare a thought during this fine spell of early summer promise for the poor tourist circling forever on an M1 roundabout at Faughart. Or the other perhaps languishing and lost in the wilds of north Leitrim’s glens, both wandering and wondering how to get to this place called Belfast that their Satellite Navigation systems insist does not even exist.

It is surely a wonder of the modern world that our fickle frontier, unseen by the human eye, is so readily visible to electronic systems, including Google Earth. I have long marvelled that the border appears as a vivid white or yellow line on Google's satellite photos, surely rivalling the Great Wall of China as a man-made structure that is clearly visible from space.  

Even SatNav guide Hugo Duncan gets lost.

Back on planet Earth, meanwhile, we simply follow the roads across the Border with an occasional nod to the change from kilometres per hour to MPH. 

Yet many strangers on our shores do not even realise we are divided between political jurisdictions with their own jealously guarded geographies. They often have to rely on SatNav systems ranging from the dulcet British tones of Tom-Tom to our unique variations with ‘celebrity’ voiceovers featuring among others, Hugo 'the Wee Man from Strabane' Duncan.

Arlene Foster – not for turning.

These tourists are bemused at best by our presumption that if they managed to get here, then they should know how to get about. So we leave them to their devices on our labyrinth of highways and byways and expect them to pick up on our nuances of political positioning along the way.

A senior American travel advisor brought this to the notice of the Stormont Executive’s Tourism Minister Arlene Foster this month at a conference organised by the Northern Ireland Tourist Board (NITB).

The maid from Magheraveely – about one Irish mile from the Border as the tourist crow flies – wasn’t for turning. She insisted there would be no relinquishing on the ‘unique identity of Northern Ireland’ in the stakes to become 'a global holiday destination' this year.

The problem, as outlined by Roger Brooks, president of Destination Development International, is that we do not appreciate how visitors perceive our island. Add to this our failure to even agree on naming terminology for north and south – or even east and west and all places in between – only adds to the confusion.

A few years ago, there was widespread outrage when a young Canadian visitor was told at the Belfast bus ticket office that she could not board for Derry because no such place existed. The ticket-seller was making a political point, it seems, about our legendary Maiden City and took the consequences, although the problem persists. Our failure to tackle our multiple identity disorder has merely exacerbated the problem and now, it seems, Belfast has disappeared too.

Just don't key in 'Belfast' and 'Ireland'.

Roger Brooks, whose Seattle-based company advises countries on how to maximise their tourism potential, told the NITB conference that a funny thing happened to him on his way to the theatre.

He was setting off from Dublin to drive to Belfast using his rented car’s SatNav system: ‘I had to type in the city so I typed in Belfast and then I put in the address of the Merchant Hotel and then do you know what it said? It said there is no Belfast in Ireland.’

The story gets even better, or worse, depending on your vantage: ‘So then I went, let me type in Belfast, United Kingdom, and it said there is no Belfast in the United Kingdom, but we found one in Ohio. So I had to type in Northern Ireland and then it came up.

‘If I put in Ireland, it doesn’t find you,’ Roger Brooks told the conference and the Tourism Minister.

Giant's Causeway goes missing.

So in an age of Google holiday planning, the Seattle advisor advised, this probably means that even prime destinations north of the border do not figure under a search for the keyword ‘Ireland’. The Internet itinerary manages to gobble up the Giant’s Causeway, the Mourne Mountains and more and wash them away with Lough Neagh and the Erne, not to mention entire towns and cities.

He advised tourism operators in the north to buy keywords, including ‘Ireland’ so they get a look in.

‘You have to do that because we see Ireland as this great island and we don’t see it as countries,’ Roger Brooks said, ‘so we have a hard time finding your cities using search engines.’

One would expect that should practical advice would be widely noticed and acted upon. Yet the Belfast NewsLetter carried the only report I could find and it even sought a reaction from Minister Foster on what she had heard from Seattle's SatNav explorer. 

She could see only one road ahead for her jurisdiction, the NI2012 marketing programme of Tourism Ireland, the joint promotion body set up after the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.

This, she said, ‘offers a unique opportunity to change perceptions and confidently put Northern Ireland on the global tourism map – and the signs are already encouraging.’

The Creighton corner in Clones.

I am reminded, however, of an anecdote from my native town of Clones – about two Irish miles from Arlene Foster's Magheraveely as the tourist crow flies. A local ‘character’ was loitering about the Creighton corner at the foot of Fermanagh Street when a large car pulled up from the Newtownbutler Road. The driver rolled down the window and called out, ‘Could you tell me how to get on the road to Dublin?’ The local guide was dismissive: ‘I wouldn’t bother my arse if I were you,’ says he. ‘Sure if you’ve got yourself lost in Clones, you’ll not have a hope down in Dublin!’ 

Who gives a 'thrupenny damn' for the Irish hare?

HARES would be well advised to remain on the northern side of the Border where they will be cosseted and cared for as a protected native Irish species. By crossing over into the Republic, they face the risk of being harried and hunted down for sport.

It is one of the great anomalies of our land that the two jurisdictions take such a divergent approach to blood sports. A former newspaper colleague in Dublin once observed that the reason for the pervasive political deference to the bloodlust of coursing fans was the annual conclave of Roman collars in the crowd at the National Coursing Meeting in Clonmel – the Hare of the Dogma, if you will!

Clearly the bastions of church and state don't give a thruppeny damn for the indigenous species once depicted on that Irish coin.

Running for its life

A leap of fate

I am not aware if attendance at Clonmel has diminished since the dogs were muzzled in 1993 after an outcry following photos and film footage of a couple of greyhounds pulling a hare limb from limb in a gory display of triumph. Now the dogs can only frighten the wits out of their unfortunate quarry as the baying crowds cheer them on.

For coursing hares and hunting stags and foxes remain the preserve of country pursuits in Ireland with the latter defended as control of vermin. As if other means of culling wildlife were less efficient or humane than a bunch of Hoorah Henrys and Henriettas galloping  their horses over the countryside – the unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable, as Oscar Wilde so aptly put it .

Thankfully, badger-baiting has been outlawed in both jurisdictions, although it is still conducted covertly – with cock-fighting and dog-fighting – along the Border by those who would doubtless defend bear-baiting on the pretext that our bear population might otherwise get out of control.

Shane McEntee

As for hare coursing, Dublin’s Minister of State for Agriculture Shane McEntee has defended it robustly, describing it as part of our Irish way of life (contrary to evidence that it was introduced by British Army officers at the Curragh in the early 19^th century.)

‘We have to make sure no one comes near to taking that away from us,’ the Irish junior minister said earlier this month. His remarks were prompted by news that two independent Dáil Deputies will table a Private Members Bill before Easter to have hare-coursing banned, following disclosure that a public park in Milltown, Co. Cork is used for the blood sport.

D.J. Histon

Chief executive of the Irish Coursing Club, D. J. Histon said that a Department of the Environment survey in 2007 found a population of 565,000 hares in Ireland and coursing clubs required 1% of these. That’s 5,650 hares harried and chased merely for the pleasure of the coursing crowd. 

The Hare Preservation Trust, meanwhile, estimates that the population of the Irish species is falling by 25% every three years.

The southern minister of state insists, however, that hares are ‘not an endangered species’.

That will come as news in Northern Ireland where a ban on coursing introduced in 2003 under direct rule, has been continued by subsequent minister such as the DUP’s Arlene Foster, despite trenchant opposition and repeated attempts to overturn it by Sinn Féin.

Now the opposition to hare coursing is strengthened by the worrying news that a number of native wildlife species, including the Irish hare, face extinction if protective action is not taken throughout the island.

The alarm also includes the already depleted red squirrel and red deer which are also in danger of extinction, according to a two-year study by scientists at Queen's University in Belfast (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-17099536).

Prof. Ian Montgomery

Led by Prof. Ian Montgomery, the research team at the School of Biological Sciences in Queen’s found that invasive species pose such as threat to indigenous Irish wildlife that some species such as the pygmy shrew have vanished in many parts of the island. Wood mouse numbers have also dropped by 50% in places.

The Queen’s University research team leader described an ‘invasional meltdown’ in the international scientific journal Biological Invasions, claiming that native small mammals in Ireland would die out in at least 80% of their available habitat.

Belfast protester at Queen's University.

Prof. Montgomery stressed the importance of small mammals in the established food chain and urged joined-up action to redress the biological balance.

‘Governments, both north and south of the border, are urged to work together to address the overall problem,’ he said, saying that invasive mammals pose a risk throughout Ireland.

‘We should establish a realistic plan identifying the mammal species that are key to maintaining our unique biodiversity and ecology and those that we should eliminate or control.’

Few could possibly argue that one of the species we must protect and promote is the Irish hare, but its welfare now depends on which jurisdiction it lives in. Like most of the inhabitants of this island, however, hares are unaware of the Border that protects them for now.