WITHOUT doubt, one of Ireland’s greatest – and largely untapped – resources for tourism and significant future job creation lies within our equestrian industry.
There is hardly an area in our country, big or small, over the 32-counties ungraced by beautiful scenery and with skilled horsepeople to its name.
The essential elements are already there to be encouraged, fostered and developed.
Why then has the development of equestrian tourism remained on the back hoof in a country that prides itself as the Land of the Horse?
Some 99,000 overseas visitors engaged in equestrian activities in Ireland in 2013 and in 2012, these visitors spent an estimated €79m.
The RDS Dublin Horse Show generated €43m in 2012 – overseas tourists accounted for an estimated €3m of that according to data in the Reaching New Heights 2015-2025 strategy.
Individual families, particularly those dotted around some of the country’s most scenic areas like Connemara, Cork, Kerry, Wicklow and Donegal, have largely carried the tourism torch themselves, offering pony trekking and horse riding packages. This effort is and has been almost entirely their own, it is they who have ponied up for the facilities on offer with little or no grant assistance, painstakingly built up their client networks themselves, rider by rider. They rely on the mobile phone call, the internet and word of mouth to get them through the seasons.
The contribution of the hunt networks nationwide combined with Ireland’s equestrian tourism families and individual operators remains largely overlooked by the powers that be.
A nationwide network of Bridlepaths would be widely welcomed by riders everywhere.
Meanwhile, simple financial initiatives such as a small grant scheme; easy access to an affordable insurance group scheme and the extension of the low-cost loan scheme for farmers announced recent by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine could make all the difference to those operating businesses in this sector.
Job creation is one of the key planks of any government. Political success is largely measured on jobs created, jobs sustained, increased tax take.
The emphasis of modern political administrations is very much on creating sustainable “green’’ jobs – and better still if they can be rolled out across rural areas, keeping people in local jobs and helping to keep the lifeblood flowing to small communities which so often lose out to the larger population centres.
A comprehensive government strategy for equestrian tourism would create more rural jobs, with the support of local authorities and the enterprise boards.
Isabel Hurley
Letters to the editor welcome
horseworld@theirishfield.ie