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Irish at NEC Trade Show

Seventeen tourism companies from around the island of Ireland joined Tourism Ireland at the British Tourism and Travel Show, at the NEC in Birmingham.

Pictured are Jim Maher, Select Hotels of Ireland; Judith Cassidy, Tourism Ireland; and Neil Grant, Celtic Ross Hotel in Rosscarbery.

The British Tourism and Travel Show is an annual event for the travel trade in Britain – attracting more than 3,000 coach tour operators and group travel organisers, including leading travel companies like Albatross Travel Group, Expedia.com, First Choice Holidays and JacTravel.

The two-day event provided a valuable opportunity for the participating companies from Ireland to meet, and do business with, key players in the British travel trade – encouraging them to introduce Ireland into their programmes for 2016 and beyond, or to extend the programmes in which Ireland already features.

€47m Hotel sales in Q1

Up to 14 hotels worth €47m. changed hands during the first three months of 2016 according to property agent CBRE.

Further sales are expected this quarter including the Gresham Hotel and Lyrath Estate in Kilkenny.

Irish hotels that sold during the first quarter of 2016 included The Tara Towers Hotel on Dublin's Merrion Road; the Clarion Hotel, Sligo; the Abberley Court Hotel in Tallaght and the Waterford Marina Hotel.

Star Line Up for Doolin

The Hothouse Flowers, Jerry Fish, Finbar Furey, Dervish and Luka Bloom are included in the line-up for this year's Doolin Folk Festival from June 10th to 12th.

The festival features young Irish acts including Wallis Bird, Marc O’Reilly, Lynched, Ye Vagabonds and Rackhouse Pilfer. Doolin's rich musical heritage also is celebrated with local acts including Moher, James Cullinan, The Trí Tones and Tara Howley.

Festival organiser and Hotel Doolin manager, Dónal Minihane explained, "The festival is relatively new on the scene but it feels like it has been going on forever. When I tell people it is only in its fourth year they can’t believe there wasn’t a festival here before."

Prisons Upgrade Menus

Menus in Ireland’s prisons have been “updated and refreshed” by the Irish Prison Service to include more fresh produce and cut down on fat, as well as making better provision for diabetics and vegetarians.

The changes follow a review conducted over the past 12 months to ensure “varied and nutritious” meals are provided to prisoners, including halal and kosher food on request.

Despite the changes, however, the food bill for prisons has actually fallen from €8.7million in 2014 to €7.6 million last year, according to figures released to The Irish Times under the Freedom of Information Act.

The new menus, which were approved by the prison service’s consultant dietician, were launched earlier this year “with really good reviews from all prisons”, official documents record.