This week on Morning Ireland, Reporter Cian McCormack is once again packing his bicycle clips and taking to the road on a tour of some of the lesser-known highlights this island has to offer. His first stop: Co. Clare.

Cian met with Joe Arkins, Chairman of the Munster Fleadh, in Ennis. The town hosted the All-Ireland Fleadh in 2016 and 2017. How does the Munster Fleadh compare?

“In terms of what I call the ‘festival atmosphere’, Munster Fleadh would normally not be big but because it’s in Clare [and] because it’s in Ennis, because there’s a carry-over of the good feeling from 2016 and 2017, we’ve had absolutely massive crowds on the street. It was like the all-Ireland Fleadh again. There’s no point in having the name of ‘the musical capital of the West of Ireland’ unless you go and prove it now and then.“

Scattery Island, or Inis Cathaigh, is a small uninhabited island just off the coast of Kilrush which is seeing a boost in visitors thanks to the introduction of a regular ferry service. Local historian Rita McCarthy told Cian that it has a lot to offer to those who make the journey.

“It is a microcosm of the history of Ireland really. The Vikings invaded the island more than once. In fact, they had a settlement on the island. As well as the monastic site, you have a Napoleonic battery. Brian Boru himself invaded the island. Around the time of the Armada, the ships from the Armada came. You have a village, which would be 17th, 18th and 19th century.”

Irene Hamilton gave up her career as a newspaper executive and to run Scattery Island Ferries. The catamaran, An Breandán, is named for her father. It sails to Scattery twice a day, 7 days a week during the summer months.

“Scattery now sits at number 3 on the top things to do in County Clare having been ranked at number 60 in 2017…It’s a wonderful island and it’s a real tourist attraction which is benefiting the town of Kilrush, I think. You know, it’s helped growing the numbers in terms of tourism, it’s attracting people into the town and those people are seeing the other attractions that Kilrush has to offer, such as the Vandeleur walled gardens or the Irish Rural Museum [The Museum of Irish Rural Life] or just the wonderful coastline out around Cappagh and Aylevaroo.”

Diarmuid Whelan from The Scattery Island Heritage Group thinks that the ferry has been a positive development when it comes to attracting tourists but says that more infrastructure is still needed in Kilrush in terms of employment.

“We won’t be fooling ourselves and thinking it’s going to solve all our problems…I think the real thing to solve Kilrush’s problem is jobs.”

Miriam Kennedy, Fáilte Ireland’s Head of The Wild Atlantic Way initiative told Cian that they’re trying to encourage local ‘experts’ to point tourists towards local attractions, rather than relying on the old stalwarts.

“What we found was that when visitors were asking locals where to go, they were kind of defaulting to the iconic attractions and they might have been a 2-hour drive away and what the visitor actually wanted was to hear what was in the area, what are the hidden gems, the local things to do…it’s all about what’s on your doorstep.“

Listen back to the whole segment on Morning Ireland here.