Coach Fellas

The Coach Fellas are known to almost all tourists who traverse the Irish countryside. Ostensibly bus drivers, they are also the tour guides who provide the crucial component in the branding of “people, place, and pace” upon which Irish heritage tourism depends. Kelli Costa’s ethnography of these highly trained and informed working class men highlights a previously ignored component of the tourism industry. She also demonstrates their importance in providing a visitor-specific vision of heritage that contrasts with the realities of contemporary economic development.