Anyone for a wild and wacky tour of Ireland?

DAY TRIPS:IT'S A TOUGH world out there and travel companies are having to come up with ever more unusual ideas to attract visitors.

A company in Berlin is running a "toilet tour", taking in the city's historic public conveniences. We could think of a few unusual Irish tours, but none as bizarre as those dreamed up by Oddball Tours, a new Galway-based company that explores the offbeat end of tourism. Why not saddle up for the Nama Development Trail, a tour of "ghost estates" left behind in the crash? Or take the Ruinair tour to some quirky attractions in the Shannon region? Or visit the real Craggy Island, where you can immerse yourself in the universe of Father Ted, all to the strains of My Lovely Horse?

Oddball Tours founder Jennifer Condon knows all about the wacky side of tourism – her travels have taken her up Belgian slag heaps, down communist-era bunkers in the Czech Republic, along creepy streets in Transylvania, and into eerie graveyards in New Orleans. Now she wants to take visitors to our less-travelled byways, and give them something to tell the folks back home. The tours “concentrate on the fantastical, bizarre, unusual and downright odd sights and attractions Ireland offers”.

Condon and her team will be leading daytrips to such events as the Irish Bog Snorkelling Championships in Monaghan (today), the Culchie Festival in Ballyjamesduff, Co Cavan (October 23rd) and the 10th World Ghost Convention in Cork (October 29th). Condon’s team will also be dreaming up their own events, such as a tour of Cork and Kerry inspired by John Hinde postcards of the 1960s, and a Blasphemous Religious Relics tour that takes in Knock.

“I’ve done a lot of unusual tours in different countries, and I came back with plenty of weird and wacky ideas,” says Condon. “For a country that places high emphasis on tourism, we seem to have a very rigid strategy.”

Condon hopes oddballtours.com will become the go-to site for anyone looking to see the surreal side of Irish life. Some, however, may not see anything strange or bizarre about the Lisdoonvarna Matchmaking Festival, but Condon insists that her tours won’t be laughing at our quaint little ways. “These tours are not meant to be offensive – we’d be careful not to step over any invisible boundary.”

oddballtours.com