A half hour programme on Carlow will feature next Monday night (February 11th) on RTE's Nationwide at 7 p.m.

The programme covers the Day with the Duckett's Festival which took place on September 8th & 9th 2018 and recreated the setting of Duckett’s Grove as it was in the early 1900s through a series of exhibitions, tours and demonstrations. Unused buildings were re-opened and used to illustrate living and working conditions of the Ducketts and their workers while a fantastic range of demonstrations included weaving, basket making, butter making, bread making, horse shoeing, bee keeping, steam engines and horse carts and carriages. The festival sought to highlight the potential of the county's big houses as key tourism assets in the contextof the Ireland Ancient East brand. Contributors include Cllr. John Murphy, Chairman Carlow Tourism, Mr. Dan McInerney, Director of Services, Carlow County Council, Mr. Jimmy O' Toole who was responsible for the initial concept and subsequently progressed the delivery of the festival, Mr. Colin Jones, Head Gardener at Duckett's Grove and Mr. Robert Miller, Chairperson of the Carlow Garden Trail. 

The Nationwide programme will also focus on some of Carlow's other big houses including Altamont House and Gardens who are currently celebrating Snowdrop Month, Huntington Castle and Gardens in Clonegal and Borris House. Contributors on this section of the programme include Alex Durdin-Robertson, Paul Cutler, Morgan Kavanagh and Olivia O' Leary. 

Commenting Cllr. John Murphy noted that "with a viewership of almost 300,000 this is an excellent opportunity to raise the profile of Carlow's big houses and their significant potential for tourism development and marketing. In the short term Carlow Tourism hopes to focus attention on Carlow's big houses through the creation of an annual festival while there is significant opportunity to develop a permanent big houses trail through joint co-operation and collaboration amongst those operating in this area". 

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