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Ireland No 2 to Iceland

Ireland is the second-best country in the world for excellent service, according to a new ranking of destinations by global review website, TripAdvisor.

Iceland topped the list of tourism destinations with the highest percentage of TripAdvisor Certificate of Excellence recipients, pipping Ireland to the post.

Roughly 7pc of properties listed on TripAdvisor have received a Certificate of Excellence for 2018, the site says, but the percentage of properties is higher in some countries and cities than others - the basis for its latest awards.

Bloomsday Video

Tourism Ireland has unveiled a new online video, titled "Bloomsday in Dublin – a celebration of James Joyce’s Ulysses".

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Created to highlight Dublin and our literary heritage to ‘culturally curious’ travellers around the world, the video features places like The James Joyce Centre, Dublin Writers

The film is being promoted to potential visitors through Tourism Ireland’s social platforms, including Facebook (around 4.25 million fans worldwide), Twitter (496,000 followers) and YouTube. Museum, the James Joyce Tower & Museum and Sweny’s Chemist. It is encouraging prospective visitors to don their finest boater hat and come celebrate Joyce’s most famous book, Ulysses, here in Dublin!

Botanical Cuisine Degree

The Institute of Technology Tallaght in partnership with Airfield Estate, has developed a unique Honours Degree in Botanical Cuisine to enable chefs grow their own produce and creatively and confidently

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innovate food in line with current food and dietary trends. The one-year part-time programme is the first of its kind in Europe and is aimed at chefs with extensive experience in the industry or those that have previous culinary qualifications.

The current focus on food provenance and sustainability within the culinary landscape sees many chefs exploring; ‘restaurant farming’- the growing of their own produce, learning more about wild food and foraging, new methods of preservation and minimising food waste and adapting menus in line with current dietary trends.

Myrtle Allen- Irish |Cuisine Pioneer

Myrtle Allen, who died yesterday (Wednesday) was a pioneer who transformed her home into a Michelin star restaurant myrtle

Her culinary philosophy, based on using only the very best of local, seasonal, Irish produce, grown and harvested or even foraged in a sustainable way, became a template for modern Irish cuisine.

Myrtle Hill was n architect’s daughter, born in Cork City in 1924, who married a pogressive fruit and vegetable farmer, Ivan Allen, in 1943.

In 1948, they bought a farm at Ballymaloe, in East Cork, which included the manor home that was to become the renowned Ballymaloe House. Initially, Ivan ran the mixed farm, growing a variety of fruit and vegetables while Myrtle raised their six children.

Ivan encouraged Myrtle to cook this produce imaginatively. She took cookery classes in the College of Commerce in nearby Cork City and began to contribute a recipe column to the Irish Farmer’s Journal.

Tourism Motors On

In the period April - June 2017, the total number of trips to Ireland increased by 6.6% to 2,769,400 - an overall increase of 170,500 compared to the same period twelve months earlier.

Trips by residents of Great Britain decreased by 6.4% to 949,200 while trips by residents of European Countries other than Great Britain (Other Europe) increased b

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y 10.1% to 1,022,000. Trips by residents of North America to Ireland increased by 20.9% to 628,900 while trips to Ireland from Other Areas increased by 23.8% to 169,300.

The total number of overseas trips made by Irish residents during the period April - June 2017 increased by 7.3% to 2,119,000.