Mayo and Manchester have joined forces to promote tourism in the west of Ireland. The marketing team behind Mayo County Council’s diaspora website: www.mayo.ie have joined forces with Lawrence Hennigan from the Manchester Mayo Tourism and Business group, and the marketing manager of www.manchesteririshfestival.co.uk Hennigan, whose parents come from Attymass parish, just outside Ballina, said: “We are staging a Manchester-Mayo weekend to officially launch our group at the festival, and a whole series of Mayo events will be taking place to promote all things Mayo in Manchester.”
The Mayo Diaspora team are flying over to Manchester to launch the website and promote business and tourism in the west of Ireland. The visit coincides with the annual two week Manchester Irish Festival which is Europe’s biggest Irish festival outside the Emerald Isle.
Project manager of the Mayo.ie project, Martina Hughes, said: “The aim of the our project is to provide a platform for Mayo communities to connect, share information and form linkages both within their own communities and with other Mayo communities worldwide, and also to link all Mayo people, irrespective of their location in the world, back to their home here on the west coast of Ireland.”
The festival which is now in its 17th year is a 17 day event with more than 200 events staged at 80 different venues throughout the city. Manchester is home to one of the biggest Mayo communities outside London and this year’s festival has a host of Mayo events. Further info at www.manchesteririshfestival.co.uk
