Some of the most popular tourist spots in Ireland could soon have a new safety feature designed to facilitate selfie taking and draw visitors away from unsafe areas.

Jim Daly, Minister of State for Mental Health and Older People, has proposed installing selfie stands or phone seats to several existing lookout markers at stops along the Wild Atlantic Way, a touring route that runs the length of Ireland’s south and west coasts.

“Families and individuals love taking photographs of themselves in areas of natural beauty. But often it is almost impossible to find a steady location or to know where the best shot is,” Daly said in an interview with The Southern Star. “Tourists, being time sensitive, like to know where to go and what to do.”

Many of the Ireland’s top destinations and picturesque vistas are set amid also some of the country’s most precarious landscapes, such as the Cliffs of Moher, where the hiking path is set mere feet from the 500 drop of the cliffs’ edge and rock falls are not uncommon. Just last month a Trinity College Dublin student died after losing his footing at the site while on a photo tour of Ireland.

According to Daly, Brendan Griffin, Minister for Tourism, is already at work on a prototype that could be incorporated into pre-existing Wild Atlantic Way markers. Daly said that a pilot program might be instituted first “in well-known tourist spots like Cork and Kerry,” adding that the seats will be “high on practicality and light on costs,” while being “unobtrusive” and protecting “the character of the area.”

Daly is also a member of the Irish parliament for South-West Cork, where a number of scenic cliff faces are popular stops along the route. Among the possible sites for this trial include the Old Head of Kinsale, a popular golf course that ends at an unprotected sandstone headland; Mizen Head, Ireland’s most south-westerly point known for its uneven footing and sudden drops; the Baltimore Beacon, a conical stone structure located at the edge of a cliff and only accessible via a steep walk that is often muddy and slippery; and Lough Hyne, a marine lake surrounded by mountainous hiking trails.

While these sites and others have long been known to be unstable, the rise of social media and selfie photography has drawn heightened attention to their danger. Anand Goel, the Trinity College student who fell to his death at the Cliffs of Moher, was reportedly taking a selfie, and last August, a study published in the Journal of Family Medicine and Primary Care concluded that from October 2011 to November 2017, at least 259 people, mostly between the ages of 20 and 29, died while taking selfies, with 72.5 percent being male. The authors recommended installing “no selfie zones” at popular tourist sites, “especially places such as water bodies, mountain peaks, and over tall buildings.”

Daly hopes that by making it easier to take selfies from selfie stands in safe areas, fewer people will be drawn to less secure ground where risk of injury is greater. He also hopes to capitalize on the advertising power of the selfie. “When it comes to tourism, informal marketing and word of mouth are as vital as more conventional marketing tools,” he said.

“When it comes to a picture painting a thousand words, the selfie is a very effective marketing tool and we need to harness its potential more.”

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What do you think about installing selfie stands? Will they add to the tourist experience of Ireland’s natural landscape or detract from the dangerous beauty of the scenery? Will you take a selfie from a selfie seat? Let us know in the comments below.