Medieval Ireland Tourist Brochure

This brochure promoting tourism to Ireland is based on “The History and Topography of Ireland” by Gerald of Wales. What defined the work for me was Gerald of Wales outlining the benefits of Ireland’s natural features such as the climate and the air. I also liked how he praised the music of the native Irish people. One feature of the text that led me to decide to make a brochure was when Gerald of Wales said that “the country enjoys the freshness and mildness of spring almost all the year round” because that sounded to me like a feature that would attract tourists to the island. I think that a brochure was good for this because I could have a few images to supplement what I am saying about the island: I used an image of the Irish landscape for this purpose. I also included an image of a harp-player from the book to supplement one section where I talk about the Irish people’s skills in music. Having these pictures in a brochure is a nice way to modernize the text and at the same time attract people to visit Ireland. Making this brochure really showed me how Gerald of Wales’ work on Ireland is multifaceted: while he praised the nature of the island, he denigrates the people of it even as he is fond of their music. I could only choose specific features of the text for my medium: obviously I wouldn’t have put the barbarity of the Irish people here in this paper. I had to really pick and choose the best and most eye-catching parts of the text: Gerald coats his descriptions of the climate with fancy words and detail which would be redundant to put in such a brochure since it would be too long and people likely wouldn’t read it due to that. Meanwhile you would need more words and to write fancier in a traditional paper.