Council Makes Balmoral Show Prize Winners Day

As part of its drive to become the number one tourism destination in Ireland, Newry, Mourne and Down District Council hosted a stand at this year’s Balmoral Show to showcase the beautiful landscape of the Mourne Mountains and the Ring of Gullion and highlight the area’s exciting array of tourism and activity providers.

Over 100,000 people attended this year’s Balmoral Show and it provided a key opportunity to attract people to the area from across Ireland and further afield.  In order to entice people to the stand, a number of local tourism and activity providers kindly offered a variety of unique prizes packaged up under the theme ‘Make Your Day’, providing people with a sample of what to expect when visiting Newry, Mourne and Down.

Prizes included:

•          An overnight stay for two people plus one evening meal at Meelmore Lodge, Bryansford
•          Single Seaweed Bath at Soak Seaweed Baths, Newcastle
•          Overnight Glamping Experience, Half Day Bike Hire, and Banana Boating for four people
•          Plus Half Day Guided Sea Kayaking Experience at East Coast Adventure Rostrevor
•          Guided Heritage Coach Tour of Ring Of Gullion for two people
•          Overnight mid week stay for two people at Birch  Eco Cottage, Ballyward Castlewellan
•          One Day e-Bike package for four people at Life Adventure Castlewellan.

Representatives from the local tourism companies also supported Council staff on the stand over the four days of the Show, to engage with visitors and help them to sell the area as a must see visitor destination.   

Newry, Mourne and Down District Council Chairperson, Councillor Gillian Fitzpatrick said, “I wish to thank everyone for visiting our stand and entering our competition, notably our prize winners, Mrs E Morrow, Ms Maree Kearney and Mr Paul Orr; I wish you all a fun time in Newry, Mourne and Down with your wonderful prizes and we hope these will ‘Make Your Day’. I would also like to offer my sincere thanks to all our prize sponsors Life Adventure, Birch Eco Cottage, East Coast Adventure Meelmore Lodge, Soak Seaweed Baths and Ring Of Gullion Landscape Partnership. The excellent prizes for the draw helped to open up meaningful conversations and provide opportunities to sell our beautiful area as an attractive visitor destination.”