‘Fair play’ for Doolin Cave

Public representatives are calling for “fair play” after it emerged that a tourist attraction in North Clare has more than twice the number of publicly-funded signs pointing tourists towards it as a competing attraction.

In a letter seen by The Clare Champion from Doolin Cave proprietors John and Helen Browne to the National Roads Authority, senior officials in the local authority and members of Clare County Council, the couple complained “very strongly” about the official tourist signs that they said are “heavily favouring our main competitor in the area”.
“Our business has just four signs, all on the southern side of Doolin Cave, whereas there is a total of 11 signs for our competitors, Aillwee Cave, both to the north and south of their attraction. That is almost three times as much State-funded signage for Aillwee Cave than for Doolin Cave,” they said.
The couple described this as “very unfair for a state body to use taxpayers’ money to promote one privately-owned tourist attraction to the disadvantage of another. We would ask you to remedy this unfair situation by erecting another seven signs for Doolin Cave” in locations proposed by the Brownes.
Doolin Cave has been in operation for the past five years and was initially serviced by a park-and-ride facility from the North Clare village. However after a visitor centre was built and opened last year, tourists now drive directly to the cave.
“We are still in the initial stages of growth and promotion and need all the help we can get from the State and find it surprising that our main competitor gets two-and-a-half times the number of official signs as we do. All we are asking for is parity and fairness,” the Brownes continued.
“There is much talk of tourism being one of the most important industries to develop to counteract the recession in Ireland and the promotion of new world-class tourist attractions like Doolin Cave is surely the duty of the State in these difficult times,” they said, asking the NRA to “remedy this extremely unfair situation”.
The Brownes described the distances shown on the signs for Doolin Cave as “wrong” explaining: “Where it says 6kms, it is actually 9.5km and where it says 5kms, it is 8.5kms.”
Councillor Michael Kelly, newly elected chairman of the North Clare electoral area representatives, tabled a motion at a meeting last Monday calling for Doolin Cave to be afforded the same number of state-funded signs as its main competitor, Aillwee Caves.
“Fair play through signage is all Helen Browne wants. They had great difficulty getting the Doolin Cave project off the ground and signage based on numbers of visitors is unfair and works against start-up projects, rather than giving help that is badly needed. Projects like this are the engine drivers to the economy of North Clare,” he stated.
“If the number of signs is based on visitor numbers, people who are rich get richer and people who are just starting off would go nowhere,” he added.
Councillor Joe Arkins described a situation where the number of signs followed the number of visitors to an attraction as “chicken and egg,” adding, “if anything, we should be leaning towards the new project”.
Councillor Michael Hillery urged Clare County Council to promote Doolin Cave because of “its unique offering”, while Councillor Bill Slattery said “in the interest of fair play, it is only right that they get the same signs as their counterparts”.
In a written response, Clare County Council stated that it has engaged a consultant to “amend elements of the signage plan to deal with the issues highlighted” and that Doolin Cave is included in this.