Traffic jams are now commonplace in Avoca, Co Wicklow, as fans of the BBC television soap opera, Ballykissangel, flock to the location where it was made. At weekends, the village becomes virtually impassable, such is the interest its new role has generated.
The official signs used to indicate heritage-related places of interest do not actually say "Avoca - As Seen On TV", but they come pretty close. They say Avoca - Location for Ballykissangel. Forget Tom Moore's melodies and Charles Stewart Parnell, whose Avondale estate is close by; this village has reinvented itself.
One recent weekend, the car park opposite the Catholic church was full, and cars - many with British registrations - were also parked all along the narrow main street. Add the tour buses, one of them offering a "Jewels of Ireland" experience, and it was fairly close to chaos.
"You've seen the TV series, now experience the traffic jams" might be the right slogan for Avoca these days.
But the owners of some half-a-dozen "craft shops" are not complaining; they seem to be doing very well indeed from the sale of gimcrack gifts from "Ballykissangel".
Even postcards from the Real Ireland series feature Fitzgerald's pub, as seen in the television series, and there are lots of small coloured prints of the same premises, as well as tea towels, T-shirts, whiskey-flavoured fudge, shortbread rounds, marmalade and even "Ballykissangel rock".
You can also buy pens, pencils, key rings, lighters, bookmarks, mugs and mint humbugs, all proclaiming Avoca's association with a TV soap opera which is regularly watched by 14 million people in Britain and is now being packaged by the BBC for distribution worldwide.
One of the "craft shops" is called the Ballykissangel Discount Store, while the village's grocery shop has been reborn as the BallyK Mini Market. Henley's, the local newsagents, does a brisk trade in a BBC paperback, Ballykissangel - A Sense of Place, by Hugh Miller.
Outside Fitzgerald's pub, loudly painted in yellow and blue, fans of the series drink pints in the afternoon sun, some of them posing in newly-acquired green Ballykissangel baseball caps (99p each) while friends take their photographs. The only noticeable improvement to the village is a pocket park laid out last year by the Irish Countrywomen's Association to mark the 45th anniversary of its Co Wicklow federation. It has a little fountain, a few park benches, and a makeshift timber fence along the Avoca River.
But the main street has only one footpath - curiously not on the busy side where most of the shops are located - and this creates some conflict between pedestrians and barely-moving traffic. Wicklow County Council has also erected "traditional-style" lamp standards.
Granard, Co Longford, had all of its enamel street signs sponsored by its main employer, Pat the Baker, whose logo is prominently displayed on each one. In reinventing itself as Ballykissangel, Avoca has also become a company town, trading on what is, for now, its main strength.
How long this will last, nobody knows. Peacocke's of Maam Cross, in Connemara, is still living off The Quiet Man some 50 years after John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara passed through. It is doubtful, however, if the shelf-life of Ballykissangel will last quite as long.
Perhaps Avoca will one day have to revert to being itself again.