Carlingford puts foot-and-mouth blight behind it in celebration

The foot-and-mouth crisis lifted like a bad sea mist from the Cooley peninsula at the weekend, when a festival in Carlingford marked what locals hope is a return to normality.

The town's deliverance from the plague was celebrated with water-borne activities ranging from races in the harbour to a multi-denominational blessing of the boats, while land-bound entertainments included everything from a fun fair to a full-blown Fossetts Circus.

But in the most symbolic event of the weekend, a group reclaimed the Cooley Mountains with a walk along part of the Tain trail that commemorates Queen Maeve's mythical cattle raid. They included Dawson Stelfox, eight years to the weekend after he became the first Irishman to climb Mount Everest.

"No vacancies" signs have been reappearing at guest-houses as the crisis recedes, and local people hope the festival will act as a springboard for the rest of the season. Indeed, it is being whispered in Carlingford that, bad as it was, the foot-and-mouth episode has at least put Cooley on the map, after years of being one of Irish tourism's better-kept secrets.

Past neglect by the tour buses may have saved it the fate of some honky-tonk seaside towns, but it also meant Carlingford didn't have a tourist office until the Government and Bord Failte threw their weight - and that of a PR company - behind the rehabilitation effort.

"It may not have been for the best reasons, but at least people know where we are now," says Mr Brian McKevitt of Cooley's recent notoriety. Owner of the Oystercatcher Lodge and Bistro, he lost 90 per cent of his turnover in the early weeks of the crisis.

Carlingford's growing adventure sector was among the worst hit. Mark Cummings of the East Coast Adventure Centre says the foot-and-mouth outbreaks in Armagh and Louth made for "the darkest days" of his decade in business. "We nearly went to the wall," he adds, still angry at the extent to which tourism was sacrificed in the initial panic.

The sentiment is echoed by management at the Tain Holiday Village, a complex in which years of expansion culminated in the addition of two swimming pools - just in time for the crisis. The business is returning to normal now, but one of its attractions - a farm with pet goats - will not be reopening. The goats were among the victims of the Cooley cull.

With much of the hills densely wooded, however, a few animals may have escaped the clearance. Three surviving sheep were found at the weekend, and quickly slaughtered.