IRELAND’S unique pub culture has long been one of the country’s biggest selling points for tourists.

But moves to transfer that culture to towns and cities outside Ireland by way of Irish theme bars could be changing the real thing irrevocably, according to an Edge Hill lecturer.

Dr Mark McGovern, a lecturer in the Social Sciences, has been looking at the role of Irish pub culture in the development of the Irish tourism industry.

He presented his findings at the 26th Annual Conference on Social Theory, Politics and the Arts in Washington DC in a paper called One Singer, One Song: Irish Pub Culture, Irish Identity and the Impact of Tourism.

Dr McGovern said tourism had been one of the largest growth areas in the Irish economy in the last decade and was set to become the most prominent sector of the economy in the next three to five years. A key feature of selling Ireland as a tourist destination has been its unique night-time culture. Tourist policy and literature focuses on Irish dance, music, conviviality and conversation.

But Dr McGovern said that focus, along with the rise of the Irish theme pub, has led to a ‘commodification’ of Irish identity and culture.

He said: "It has an impact on the perceptions of Irish people in general, but cultural activities are also affected by having to be reproduced to satisfy the tourist market."

Dr McGovern said the traditional Irish session, where people would perform music or dance in a pub setting, has been changed as a result of the demands from tourists.

He said: "Something like 40 per cent of tourist visitors to public houses in Ireland are to ‘singing pubs’, where there is entertainment put on for tourists in a very particular way. Irish traditional musicians and dancers are becoming cultural workers like they never were before.

"I’m not suggesting that this is necessarily a problem - in many ways it has created employment in the performers’ home locations. But I am arguing that aspects of the session are being changed by it.

"What was a participatory culture, where everybody would do a turn, is becoming much more of a player-audience situation."

"Also the range of cultural performance has lessened because people don’t recognise the nuances and variety of different styles.

"There are also issues and problems with the image of the Irish being heavy drinkers when in terms of average per capita intake they don’t drink as much as most people in Europe. What is distinctive about Irish drinking is its public nature."

Dr McGovern was inspired to carry out his research by the emergence of Irish theme bars in the early 1990s.He said: "The Irish theme bar has been a global phenomenon. I wanted to explore the reasons why that developed, the form it was taking and the relationship between that and the expectations of people from abroad when they went to Ireland.

"What has been coming through is because the theme bars portray Ireland as a traditional society, and the people as fun loving and friendly, people expect Irish pubs to look and act like theme bars when they come to Ireland. The result has been a growth of Irish theme bars in Ireland."