Mullingar and the surrounding midlands are not usually areas associated with tourism, but business in this field is growing at an impressive rate.
The midlands are second only to Dublin in terms of tourist growth, with visitor numbers effectively doubling since the early 1990s, according to Mr Norman Black, senior tourist officer with East Coast and Midlands Tourism.
The most recent addition to the region's attractions is the splendid Belvedere House, opened to the public last April after a £6 million restoration undertaken by Westmeath County Council. Only 5 km from Mullingar, the 18th century house and its gardens are an obvious asset to the town, which has otherwise had to depend primarily on its surrounding waterways and countryside to lure visitors.
"The lakes here have essentially been the attraction for people coming to Mullingar," Mr Black said. Fishing has traditionally been the reason why visitors came to stay, thanks to Mullingar's location between Lough Ennell and Lough Owel. But there is also good fishing to be had in the Royal Canal which laps around the town and which has been developed as a tourist amenity in recent years. The canal is now navigable for considerable stretches and in Mullingar a walk has been developed along the side of the water.
The presence of two equestrian centres close to the town is also helping to increase visitor numbers, but according to Mr Black the biggest draw in recent years has been the construction of new golf courses.
"This is our most rapidly growing tourist resource in the midlands; there are now between six and eight excellent courses within a half-hour drive of Mullingar."
The number of hotel bedrooms and other Bord Failte-approved accommodation has increased by more than one-third since the mid-1990s as some £15 million has been invested in this area over the same period.
Thanks to the improvement in roads, Mullingar is barely more than an hour from the capital, so many of the new tourists are Dubliners on weekend breaks.
A nationwide survey of expectations among hoteliers and guesthouse owners showed that 51 per cent of those in the midlands expected the volume of business to increase this year.
Mullingar's tourist office, based since last year in the late 18th century Market House in the town centre, receives some 10,000 visitors annually, many of them from the domestic market, although anglers also regularly come from Northern Ireland, Britain and elsewhere in Europe.
At present, the midlands gets some 900,000 overseas tourists each year. Mr Black says the target is to increase this by 5 per cent annually over the next five years, with tourist revenue rising by 6 per cent annually during the same period.
However, he points out that there is still room for improvement in Mullingar. Opportunities he considers worth greater exploitation are better use of the Royal Canal; the reopening for steam trains of the line between Mullingar and Athlone, and further development of accommodation.