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The case, although set in the early 1960s, relates to a topic that has relevance today - the development of tourism products that can gain a competitive edge internationally. The advent of standardisation/packaging and the growth of ''mass tourism'' has resulted in many niche markets. Ireland''s national tourism strategy has been to attract the higher spending visitor with discretionary income. Originally, this meant orientation to the American market. The concept of delivering a tourism product based on sampling a modern representation of medieval entertainment arose from a combination of circumstances. These related particularly to aviation technology which made it possible to overfly Ireland''s main transatlantic gateway, Shannon Airport. The case describes the informal product development process that was at play in the Shannon region in the 1960s and the search for ''one good trick'' to attract visitors, particularly Americans, to Ireland. It provides an opportunity for analysing the performance of Bunratty Banquet vis-a-vis other Irish tourism products over two decades in which conflicts in Northern Ireland had been held responsible to a large degree for the decline and stagnation in the Irish holiday market.