Dear Editor,

I had the pleasure of attending the Fermoy International Poetry Festival (Aug 1-5) as one of the winners of the international poetry competition. My 19-year-old son and I travelled from our home in the United States, where I teach at the Pennsylvania State University. I cannot say enough positive things about our experience in Fermoy.

We immersed ourselves in poetry and in the town, making friends with other writers and with local business owners and residents. Everyone was extraordinarily friendly, from the construction worker who relocated the orange cones so that we could park near the Grand Hotel to the owner of Munchies Café, Fiona Hogan who sent us home with a care package for my young daughter. The owners of the the Fermoy GAA gym even gave us a special one-week membership so that we were able to work out daily during our stay.

Festival organiser Gene Barry and his wife Margo, deserve much credit for their work in coordinating the various activities. What I appreciated most was the sense of community that they were able to foster in such a short amount of time. I had shopkeepers and customers in line at the post office asking about my poetry reading, and people we’d only met days earlier greeted us on the street with hugs and smiles. I know from previous experience as an arts administrator that the economic impact of such events reaches far beyond the scheduled dates. Sure, you have evidence of visitors spending money on lodgings, food, and souvenirs while they’re in town for the festival; what is difficult to measure is how much additional revenue is generated by subsequent visits as those visitors return to town or tell their friends and family members to include the area in their itineraries.

Fermoy is definitely on our map of places to visit again, and we have already told others to stop in your charming community when they travel to Ireland.

Sincerely,

Erin Murphy,

Pennsylvania,

United States.