I had the opportunity to contribute a bit to this programme, presented by Gerry Kelly and made by Graham Little of NPE Media, which was broadcast last Sunday evening. It's on iPlayer here for the next three weeks. I did my usual in providing a bit of historical content, an old poem, and showed Gerry a few marketing items from the first Ulster Tourism Development Association campaign of 1925.
Golf - and especially depictions of ladies' golf - were a key element in promoting the new state of Northern Ireland to a global audience. Interestingly the newspaper accounts of the time show that a 'cross-border' combined tourism campaign was discussed by the two tourism authorities on the island, with billboards in Times Square in New York proposed.
The location of the 1620s 'green for recreation at goff' in Hugh Montgomery's Scottish town of Newtownards - where golf in Ireland is first recorded - is said to have been somewhere near today's Greenwell Street, which is close to the old Priory and bawn which for a time was his home.
Before the big land reclamation projects of the 1800s, Strangford Lough used to reach right up to that point - good, sandy, well-drained ground. I have seen a better map of the town from that era, than the one I've posted here.
• Go to BBC iPlayer
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