Five-star accolade for Heaney Tour experience

Five-star accolade for Heaney Tour experience

Eugene and Gerardine Kielt accept their plaque from NITB chairman, Howard Hastings

 

Tours around the poet Seamus Heaney’s ‘first world’ in Magherafelt have been rated a five-star experience under a Northern Ireland Tourist Board (NITB) quality grading scheme.

The accolade shows the Laurel Villa Tours of Heaney Country are of ‘exceptional’ standard and follows an earlier NITB four-star rating for the award-winning Laurel Villa Boutique Guest House from which the tours begin.

Laurel Villa – a finalist in the Guest House of the Year category at this year’s LCN Awards – is run by local couple, Eugene and Gerardine Kielt.

The Guardian has described the Heaney Country tours as “One of the top ten outdoor activities in Ireland”, while among widespread positive media coverage and compliments, Hairy Biker and Heaney enthusiast, Si King has also taken the experience for BBC’s The One Show.

Covering the life and works of the major poet, the five-star tours are conducted by Eugene, a historian and experienced Blue Badge guide – and a friend of the late Nobel Laureate.

Eugene has guided poetry aficionados, overnight guests at Laurel Villa as well as non-residents, groups and travel journalists from all over the world around the townlands, places and scenery used in the poet’s work.

As well as the tours of Heaney Country the guest house boasts a full Seamus Heaney experience that includes an exhibition and regular Heaney-related poetry evenings, and it is the epicentre of the On Home Ground Poetry Festival, inaugurated last year and named by the poet before his untimely death.

Most of the 2014 festival events will be held in the stunning grounds of Laurel Villa, a designated UK Poetry Society Landmark and a major tourist attraction for Heaney devotees.

The NITB assesses visitor experiences via an incognito visit from an experienced quality assessor and checks across a number of criteria including hospitality and welcome.