Bushmills: A Tourist Draw Again, Faux Sure

Downtown Bushmills — is it real or is it faux? Photo from theworld.org

Here’s a story I love.

As reported by eTurboNews, a travel industry news reporting service, the northern Ireland town of Bushmills is “faking prosperity” in an effort to draw more tourists.

Bushmills is best known as one of the temples of Irish whiskey, but it has fallen on hard times of late, resulting in a fair number of abandoned homes and shops and a drop-off in tourist visits. Besides its four-century-old tradition of whiskey making, Bushmills is a gateway to the Giants Causeway, a dramatic natural formation that resembles stepping stones leading into the sea.

So the town has called on “cosmetic enhancement,” as eTurboNews describes it, a facelift of sorts for a dozen or so boarded up buildings that had become a blight on Bushmills’ main street.

Known as the “Brighter Bushmills Project,” the enhancements… Continue reading →