The iconic Derry Girls mural in Derry
Internal emails reveal how the agency said it would be best to call it “the Walled City” in an effort to avoid temperatures rising, especially on social media.
The State body — which promotes tourism across the island of Ireland — had come in for criticism after a quiz asked in which county Seamus Heaney had grown up, with one of the answer options given as Londonderry.
Controversy flared in early May when a creative agency ran the quiz through Tourism Ireland’s corporate Instagram account.
“It has since been deleted but seems to be getting some pick-up on Twitter,” an internal email said.
Controversy flared in early May when a creative agency ran the quiz through Tourism Ireland’s corporate Instagram account.
“It has since been deleted but seems to be getting some pick-up on Twitter,” an internal email said.
Tourism Ireland was also contacted by irate people, with one saying they had been “taken aback” by the post.
“Nobody in the 26 counties refers to it as Londonderry and less than 50pc of the six counties do,” one complainant said.
In a response Tourism Ireland said its job was to promote the entire island as a tourism destination to international audiences, and they stuck with the “official names of towns and cities in the given jurisdiction”.
In internal communications, the agency admitted it was a tricky balancing act.
One email said: “We do call it Londonderry officially on ireland.com — it’s just slightly different on social media where I guess we have a large Irish and UK following who’d pick up on this more than our international audience.”
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