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Tourism (Northern Ireland)

May I say what a pleasure it is to speak before you, Mr. Martlew? I give you my best regards for your football team’s performance in winning the championship this year.I welcome the debate—[Interruption.] It is halfwayto Belfast. I thank the hon. Member for East Londonderry(Mr. Campbell) for securing the debate today. I agree with a lot of what he said, particularly the fact that we cannot look at the situation in Northern Ireland as just an add-on to what is happening in the Irish tourist industry. It is different in many ways, and we should recognise, appreciate, respect and promote that difference. I bring apologies from the hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack), Chair of the Select Committee on Northern Ireland Affairs. The Committee has agreed to look next at what is happening in the tourist industry. I shall speak about my experiences, which go back almost 20 years. Despite having a grandmother born in County Cork, I never managed to get to Ireland until the summer of 1989. I had just been made redundant from the coal mines, and my 68-year-old father and I decided that it would be good fun to go camping. We camped in south-west Scotland, and while we were there we saw an advert for a day trip to the Bushmills distillery, which is quite a long way from Kirkcudbright. It meant waking up at 4 o’clock in the morning, getting to Stranraer for 6 o’clock, taking a three-hour ferry trip and then hitting the road, going around the coast to Ballycastle. Ballycastle was the first place in Northern Ireland where I spent any time, and if I do one thing before I die, it will be to go back there and take the boat to Rathlin island, which I understand is a very impressive place. Perhaps we could build that into the Northern Ireland Committee’s itinerary. We went to the Bushmills distillery, my father being something of an expert on whiskey. He was certainly an expert in how much he could drink. I do not know about quality, but he certainly understood quantity. That made the bus drive back to Belfast very interesting. That was the start of a lot of happy trips to Northern Ireland. My old man and I used to go together and just bum around. We would take the car with no idea where we were going, stopping by the roadside, in hostels and in bed and breakfasts—whatever suited. There was one occasion when I was more worried than on any other. My dad was what I would call a quiet-man republican. He believed in the cause, he sang the songs and he had the craic, but he did not have very good political antennae. One night, we were welcomed into a British Legion—I cannot remember whether it was in Portrush or Portstewart—by an old man wearing a white tuxedo with the biggest bow tie I had ever seen in my life. I said to my dad, ““If you start singing republican songs in here, you’re dead.”” Thankfully, he concentrated more on playing dominoes than on singing that night.