While Killarney has been described by the Bridgestone Guide as best seen through a rear-view mirror because of over-development, Lisdoonvarna is in danger of earning the same epitaph due to its inaccessibility.
A Lisdoonvarna hotelier has served notice on Clare County Council that he will apply for an injunction to prevent water-treatment works continuing in the town because it is preventing tourism traffic from getting through.
A council official assured The Irish Times yesterday that the works will stop in time for the September match-making festival. The council's area engineer, Mr Joe Jacob, said work was due to stop for July, August and September.
"The contractor is under instruction now to wind up what he is doing and we are going to give the place another temporary surfacing so that the place looks decent again," he said.
Tourists are being dropped off by coaches at the edge of town, where they then have to take a bumpy taxi ride to their hotel. Some operators prefer to bypass the town altogether on tours of the Burren.
Mr Marcus White, who owns four hotels in the area, said he is getting cancellations from foreign groups as a result of the building works, which began last year on the town's 1,000 metres of road and are part of the £12 million water and sewage-treatment scheme being installed in the region.
Ironically, the scheme began as a result of a long campaign by local people to improve the quality of the drinking water.
Mr White said he understood the main work was due to be completed last month before the tourist season began in earnest. Failing that, he expected a temporary stoppage of the road works for the summer.
Normally he accommodates up to 600 people a night in his hotels, 90 per cent of whom are foreign tourists. Because there are no footpaths and the roads are strewn with debris and potholes, visitors find it difficult even to walk around the town.
As a first step in his protest, he says he will refuse to pay his rates, which amount to about £100,000 annually from the Imperial, Hydro, Burren Castle and King Thomond hotels.
The town, originally famous for its spa and sulphur baths, was immortalised in Christy Moore's song, Lisdoonvarna, which celebrates the annual open-air music festivals, which ended in 1983 but are expected to begin again next year.
At peak times, such as the match-making festival weekend, about 10,000 people pass through, Mr White said. "There are no footpaths, there are huge potholes everywhere. There are pipes and building works everywhere. It is very dangerous."
He has yet to get a reply from the council but says he is willing to compromise. "There is no real planning and nobody has taken any responsibility," he said. He added that some roads have been dug up a number of times. "Every person in the town has complained bitterly about it."
Mr Jacob said there had been four separate excavations: for sewage treatment, water, storm-water gullies and electricity and telecoms ducts.
Cllr Martin Lafferty said the project had fallen behind schedule. "We were told that the work in the town was due to cease on June 1st," he said. He added that another reason for fewer visitors being in the area was that, according to anecdotal evidence, tourist numbers overall were down this year.
Meanwhile, visitors continue to suffer. One cycle-tour operator said it was "like Beirut" and the roads were extremely difficult for cyclists to negotiate. "It is the worst I have ever seen," she said. "There is a constant cloud of dust."
Ms Doreen Drennan, of the Kincora House guesthouse and restaurant, said her business had experienced cancellations because some coach operators now preferred to bypass Lisdoonvarna. "The dirt and the dust and the sludge and the muck" are "absolutely terrible", she said. "It is the wrong time of year to be doing it."