Almost twenty years ago I began researching British travel writing relating to the first century of Irish tourism, 1750–1850. Gradually, two paths of enquiry opened up. One concerned how the travelers looked at and sought to account for the Irish landscape and the people they encountered during their tours. This involved investigating the aesthetic, social and ideological biases British tourists brought to the encounter with Ireland and how these preconceptions influenced their ultimate inability to understand pre-Famine Ireland. Based on this research, I published in 2008 Tourism, Landscape, and the Irish Character: British Travel Writers in Pre-Famine Ireland.

While tourism provided a context for that book, its focus on the travel writers and their opinions left no room for any real exploration of the phenomenon of tourism itself. The century or so prior to the Great Famine (1845–1852) saw the emergence of modern tourism based primarily on landscape, whether in the carefully designed parklands of the great estates or amid mountains, lakes and sea cliffs. Ireland was in the forefront of the development of the scenic pleasure tour. In fact, the foundations of Irish tourism were laid during the century from 1750–1850. The present book is, therefore, concerned with the evolution of tourism in Ireland and the creation of the Irish tourist experience.