Insight Guides Ireland (Travel Guide with Free eBook)

By Insight Guides

This Insight Guide is a lavishly illustrated inspirational travel guide to Ireland and a beautiful souvenir of your trip. Perfect for travellers looking for a deeper dive into the destination's history and culture, it's ideal to inspire and help you plan your travels. With its great selection of places to see and colourful magazine-style layout, this Ireland guidebook is just the tool you need to accompany you before or during your trip. Whether it's deciding when to go, choosing what to see or creating a travel plan to cover key places like Dublin and Connemara, it will answer all the questions you might have along the way. It will also help guide you when you'll be exploring the Aran Islands or discovering the Glens of Antrim on the ground. Our Ireland travel guide was fully-updated post-COVID-19.

The Insight Guide Ireland covers: Dublin, Excursions from Dublin, The Southeast, Cork and Surroundings, The Southwest, Limerick and the Shannon Region, The Cliffs of Moher, The Burren Galway and the West, and Inland Ireland.

In this guide book to Ireland you will find:

IN-DEPTH CULTURAL AND HISTORICAL FEATURES  
Created to provide a deeper dive into the culture and the history of Ireland to get a greater understanding of its modern-day life, people and politics.

BEST OF
The top attractions and Editor's Choice featured in this Ireland guide book highlight the most special places to visit.

TIPS AND FACTS
Up-to-date historical timeline and in-depth cultural background to Ireland as well as an introduction to Ireland's food and drink, and fun destination-specific features.  

PRACTICAL TRAVEL INFORMATION
A-Z of useful advice on everything, from when to go to Ireland, how to get there and how to get around, to Ireland's climate, advice on tipping, etiquette and more.

COLOUR-CODED CHAPTERS
Every part of the destination, from Cork to Inland Ireland has its own colour assigned for easy navigation of this Ireland travel guide.

CURATED PLACES, HIGH-QUALITY MAPS
Geographically organised text, cross-referenced against full-colour, high-quality travel maps for quick orientation in Dublin, Belfast and many other locations in Ireland.

STRIKING PICTURES
This guide book to Ireland features inspirational colour photography, including the stunning Glendalough and the spectacular Rock of Cashel.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Insight Guides
• Release date: Aug 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9781839053672

Insight Guides

Pictorial travel guide to Arizona & the Grand Canyon with a free eBook provides all you need for every step of your journey. With in-depth features on culture and history, stunning colour photography and handy maps, it’s perfect for inspiration and finding out when to go to Arizona & the Grand Canyon and what to see in Arizona & the Grand Canyon. 

Book preview

How To Use This E-Book

Getting around the e-book

This Insight Guide e-book is designed to give you inspiration for your visit to Ireland, as well as comprehensive planning advice to make sure you have the best travel experience. The guide begins with our selection of Top Attractions, as well as our Editor’s Choice categories of activities and experiences. Detailed features on history, people and culture paint a vivid portrait of contemporary life in Ireland. The extensive Places chapters give a complete guide to all the sights and areas worth visiting. The Travel Tips provide full information on getting around, activities from culture to shopping to sport, plus a wealth of practical information to help you plan your trip.

In the Table of Contents and throughout this e-book you will see hyperlinked references. Just tap a hyperlink once to skip to the section you would like to read. Practical information and listings are also hyperlinked, so as long as you have an external connection to the internet, you can tap a link to go directly to the website for more information.

Maps

All key attractions and sights in Ireland are numbered and cross-referenced to high-quality maps. Wherever you see the reference [map] just tap this to go straight to the related map. You can also double-tap any map for a zoom view.

Images

You’ll find hundreds of beautiful high-resolution images that capture the essence of Ireland. Simply double-tap on an image to see it full-screen.

About Insight Guides

Insight Guides have more than 40 years’ experience of publishing high-quality, visual travel guides. We produce 400 full-colour titles, in both print and digital form, covering more than 200 destinations across the globe, in a variety of formats to meet your different needs.

Insight Guides are written by local authors, whose expertise is evident in the extensive historical and cultural background features. Each destination is carefully researched by regional experts to ensure our guides provide the very latest information. All the reviews in Insight Guides are independent; we strive to maintain an impartial view. Our reviews are carefully selected to guide you to the best places to eat, go out and shop, so you can be confident that when we say a place is special, we really mean it.

© 2023 Apa Digital AG and Apa Publications (UK) Ltd

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Table of Contents

Ireland’s Top 10 Attractions

Editor’s Choice

The New Ireland

The Irish Character

Insight: Ireland in the Movies

Decisive Dates

Ireland’s Invaders

Insight: Ireland’s Finest Ruins

The Making of a Nation

Insight: Dublin at War

Living with Partition

Ireland Transformed

Music

The Irish Way With Words

Insight: Arts Festivals

Contemporary Art

Food

Pubs

A Sporting Nation

Golf

Angling

Walking in Ireland

Insight: Ireland’s Architecture

Places

Dublin

Insight: Bloomsday

Excursions From Dublin

Insight: Horse Culture

The Southeast

Cork And Surroundings

The Southwest

Limerick And The Shannon Region

Insight: The Burren

Galway And The West

Inland Ireland

The Northwest

Northern Ireland

Belfast

Transport

A-Z: A Handy Summary of Practical Information

Further Reading

Ireland’S TOP 10 ATTRACTIONS

Top Attraction 1

Georgian Dublin. The city retains some of its Georgian heritage – for example, the characteristic doors – but the real appeal is the Dubliners’ vibrancy and sense of fun. For more information, click here.

Corrie Wingate/Apa Publications

Top Attraction 2

The Giant’s Causeway. This astonishing assembly of more than 40,000 hexagonal basalt columns on the north coast is a natural wonder. For more information, click here.

Kevin Cummins/Apa Publications

Top Attraction 3

Glendalough. Round towers are a striking reminder of Ireland’s Golden Age when, after the fall of the Roman Empire and Europe plunged into the Dark Ages, monks in Ireland (‘the Land of Saints and Scholars’) kept alight a lone beacon of learning and civilization. For more information, click here.

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Top Attraction 4

The Glens of Antrim. The nine steep valleys with their seemingly magical waterfalls in Glenariff Forest Park reminded the novelist William Makepeace Thackeray of ‘Switzerland in miniature’. For more information, click here.

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Top Attraction 5

The Wild Atlantic Way. This scenic drive takes in the famous Ring of Kerry – expect a panorama of coast and mountain, lush vegetation and sandy beaches. For more information, click here.

Chris Hill/Tourism Ireland

Top Attraction 6

The Burren. The moon-like plateau in Co. Clare contains ancient tombs and a remarkable variety of rich flora. For more information, click here.

Corrie Wingate/Apa Publications

Top Attraction 7

The Rock of Cashel. Towering above Tipperary’s green plain is a dramatic cluster of romantically ruined stone buildings, dating to the 12th and 13th centuries and the former stronghold of the Kings of Munster. For more information, click here.

Tourism Ireland/Stephen Power

Top Attraction 8

Traditional Irish Music. This has influenced so many styles of music around the world, and can be heard at its authentic best everywhere from street buskers to sessions in city and country pubs. For more information, click here.

Corrie Wingate/Apa Publications

Top Attraction 9

Connemara. The far west of Ireland is iconic – a landscape of wild, rocky bog land, its deeply indented coastline covered in autumnal shades of seaweed, its stunted pine trees struggling for a foothold and mirrored in the surprisingly blue water of its many loughs. For more information, click here.

Corrie Wingate/Apa Publications

Top Attraction 10

The Aran Islands. An unspoiled Irish-speaking community, beaten by the Atlantic, the islands are a haven for animals and wildlife. For more information, click here.

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EDITOR’S CHOICE

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Kiss the Blarney Stone to gain the gift of the gab.

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BEST FAIRS AND FESTIVALS

Bloomsday. Fans of James Joyce’s Ulysses celebrate 16 June (the day on which it is set, in 1904) by proceeding around Dublin in period costume. Alcohol is consumed. For more information, click here.

Fleadh Nua. Fleadh means festival, and during May in Ennis, Fleadh Nua (Nua means new or modern) attracts thousands of traditional musicians, amateur and professional, with the music continuing at night in bars. For more information, click here.

The Auld Lammas Fair. The oldest fair in Ireland, dating from 1606, held in Ballycastle, County Antrim, still sees traditional horse trading alongside a busy trade in dulse (edible seaweed) and yellowman (hard toffee). For more information, click here.

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Bloomsday Ulysees re-enactment Glasnevin Cemetery.

Glyn Genin/Apa Publications

ONLY IN IRELAND

Newgrange, County Meath. This ancient passage tomb predates the Egyptian pyramids by centuries. For more information, click here.

Kissing the Blarney Stone. Even if it doesn’t bestow the ‘gift of the gab’, it’s a dizzying experience. For more information, click here.

Trinity College, Dublin. With its cobbled courtyards, elegant Georgian buildings and bustling student population, it has a unique ambience. For more information, click here.

The Ring of Kerry. A day-long drive around the coastal scenery of Kerry’s southwesterly peninsula, renowned for its combination of lush subtropical vegetation, and rugged seascapes. Visit a series of pretty seaside villages while offshore the rugged Skellig Rocks hover mysteriously on the horizon. For more information, click here.

Cruinniú na mBád. Traditional wooden boats with brown sails, laden with turf, race across Galway Bay in August. For more information, click here.

Croagh Patrick. Thousands of pilgrims, many of them barefoot, walk up Mayo’s ‘holy mountain’ on the last Sunday in July, as did their grandparents before them. For more information, click here.

Derry’s walls. The last walled city to be built in Europe is the centre of a vibrant cultural life. For more information, click here.

Dubai Duty Free Irish Derby. Held in June at the Curragh Racecourse in Co. Kildare, this is the most popular event on the colourful horseracing calendar. For more information, click here.

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Guinness, worth raising a glass to.

Glyn Genin/Apa Publications

BEST TRADITIONAL PUBS

The Crown Liquor Saloon. 46 Great Victoria Street, Belfast. Its ornate Victorian interior is cared for by the National Trust. For more information, click here.

The Auld Shebeen. Abbey Street, Ballina, County Mayo. Town-centre bar with music nightly. Good food.

Hargadon’s. 4−5 O’Connell Street, Sligo. A great ‘brown’ pub (furniture, floors, walls, ceilings: brown). Good food, music. For more information, click here.

MacCarthy’s. Main Square, Castletownbere, Beara, County Cork. The front is a grocery shop, used by local trawlermen; behind it is MacCarthy’s Bar. For more information, click here.

M.J. O’Neill. Suffolk Street, Dublin 2. An old-style pub, with a warren of ‘snugs’.

Morrissey’s. Main Street, Abbeyleix, County Laois (on the N8 Dublin–Cork road). Opened as a grocer’s in 1775.

Tigh Neachtain. Cross Street, Galway, has stubbornly retained its old-fashioned painted wooden interior. Music.

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Fota House, Cork.

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BEST BIG HOUSES

Dublin Castle. The State Apartments showcase traditional Irish craftsmanship. For more information, click here.

Castletown House. County Kildare. One of the largest private houses, dating from 1722. For more information, click here.

Fota House. County Cork. Shooting lodge in the classical style. Arboretum. For more information, click here.

Strokestown Park House. County Roscommon. Grandiose Georgian residence. For more information, click here.

Castle Ward House. Magnificent site overlooking Strangford Lough. Two facades: one classical, one Gothic. For more information, click here.

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Traditional pubs showcase traditional music.

Kevin Cummins/Apa Publications

TOP MUSEUMS AND GALLERIES

National Museum. A wealth of priceless Irish treasures, including Celtic antiquities, Bronze Age gold jewellery and early Christian crosses. For more information, click here.

National Gallery. Paintings by Vermeer, Rembrandt, Poussin and Goya: plus a major collection of Irish art. For more information, click here.

Chester Beatty Library. Exquisite collection of Islamic and Far Eastern art housed in a wing of Dublin Castle. For more information, click here.

Irish Famine Museum. Strokestown, County Roscommon. Visit for a compelling account of the Great Hunger (1845–49), which devastated Ireland. For more information, click here.

Hunt Museum. Limerick. Celtic and medieval treasures in historic Customs House on the River Shannon. For more information, click here.

The Model. Sligo. Converted ‘model school’ houses superb collection of paintings by Jack Yeats. For more information, click here.

Ulster Folk and Transport Museum. Reconstructed houses and cottages bring Ulster c.1910 to life. Transport ranges from huge locomotives to the DeLorean sports car (one of which featured in the film Back to the Future). For more information, click here.

Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane. Imposing 18th-century town house in the Palladian style; collection of Impressionists plus 19th- and 20th-century Irish art. For more information, click here.

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Ulster Folk and Transport Museum.

Kevin Cummins/Apa Publications

RECOMMENDED FOR FAMILIES

Viking Splash Tours. Use amphibious vehicles for a hilarious orientation tour of Dublin by land and water. (Departs St Patrick’s Cathedral and St Stephen’s Green) www.vikingsplash.com.

The Ark. Eustace Street, Temple Bar, Dublin. This cultural centre for children has a gallery and workshop space. For more information, click here.

Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge. Ballycastle, County Antrim. Spans a 60ft (18-metre) gap between mainland and Carrick-a-Rede Island. Strictly for thrill-seekers. For more information, click here.

Dublinia. St Michael’s Hill, Dublin. A reconstruction of life in medieval Dublin with high-tech displays. For more information, click here.

Malahide Castle. Escape from the city to 22 acres (9 hectares) of pleasure gardens with playground and pitch and putt course, and sweet treats at the Avoca Café. For more information, click here.

Cobh Heritage Centre. Cobh, County Cork. Compelling recreation of the emigrant experience. For more information, click here.

Muckross Traditional Farms. Muckross Park, Killarney. Walking tour of three farms inhabited by farming families and their animals, including a friendly pair of giant Irish wolfhounds. For more information, click here.

Bunratty Castle and Folk Park. Bunratty, County Clare. The huge 15th-century castle is authentically furnished, while the village is inhabited by real people and animals. For more information, click here.

Sheep and Wool Centre. Leenane, County Galway. Twenty breeds of sheep graze around the house, where craftspeople show how sheep’s fleece is turned into wool. For more information, click here.

Fota Wildlife Park. Giraffe and wallabies roam free, while the cheetahs have a huge run in their cage. For more information, click here.

Titanic Belfast. Visitor centre built to the same scale as the fated ocean liner, and located beside the dry dock in which it was built: hours of fascinating multimedia exhibits on the ship and the men who built her. For more information, click here.

Cliffs of Moher. Trails lead to viewing points above the towering cliffs. For more information, click here.

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Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge.

Northern Ireland Tourist Board

BEST BEACHES

Irish beaches are generally undeveloped, with free car parking Beaches are popular with walkers outside July and August.

Banna Strand. County Kerry. West-facing beach backed by dunes big enough to get lost on. Fine views over Tralee Bay. For more information, click here.

Brittas Bay. County Wicklow. White sand backed by dunes interspersed with small coves. Popular holiday spot for Dubliners. For more information, click here.

Curracloe Strand. County Wicklow. Stood in for Normandy for the D-Day landing scenes in the 1998 film Saving Private Ryan. Stretches for 5.5 miles (9km). Nature trails and birdwatching hides to observe winter migrants. For more information, click here.

Lahinch. Surfers flock to Lahinch on the west coast of County Clare in search of huge waves offshore, but the waves on the beach, which is in the village centre, are ideal for beginners. For more information, click here.

Inch Strand. Dingle, County Kerry. Stretch of golden sand running for 5 miles (8km) on a spit of land protruding into Dingle Bay. For more information, click here.

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Mullaghmore beach, County Sligo.

Corrie Wingate/Apa Publications

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Belleek Pottery.

Tourism Ireland

BEST CRAFT SHOPS

Avoca Handweavers. Killmacanogue, County Wicklow (also Dublin, Kenmare and Letterfrack). Flagship store of a family-run chain known for their jewel-coloured, handwoven rugs and throws. Also famed for fresh, wholesome food. www.avoca.com

Blarney Woollen Mills. Blarney, County Cork (also Killarney and Tipperary). Amid the leprechaun key rings and Guinness T-shirts is good, Irish-made clothing. www.blarney.com

Waterford Crystal Experience, The Mall Waterford. A 50-minute tour takes visitors through the various stages of production. Wide range of crystal on sale in the shop. www.waterfordvisitorcentre.com

The Kilkenny Design Centre. Kilkenny Castle. Well-designed Irish-made ceramics, jewellery, clothing and textiles. www.kilkennydesign.com

Judy Greene Pottery. Kirwan’s Lane, Galway. The best of hand-crafted design: ceramics by Judy Greene, wood, textiles, glass and basket ware. www.judygreenepottery.com

Belleek Pottery. Co. Fermanagh. Fine bone china. For more information, click here.

Thomas Ferguson. 54 Scarva Rd, Banbridge, County Down. Wide range of goods in Irish linen for sale in Ireland’s last remaining linen weaving factory. www.fergusonirishlinen.com

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Walking in Connemara.

Kevin Cummins/Apa Publications

BEST WALKS

Ireland’s scenery can be enjoyed on waymarked paths suitable for all levels of fitness

The Grand Canal Way. Flat canal-bank walk from the Dublin outskirts to the little-visited Midlands (highest point, Lowtown, 280ft/85 metres). For more information, click here.

The Kerry Way. Passes through some of Ireland’s most beautiful scenery between Glenbeigh and Killarney. For more information, click here.

The Slieve Bloom Way. Inland route close to the exact centre of Ireland. Quietly spectacular. For more information, click here.

The Ballyhoura Way. Easy walking on an inland pastoral route though low hills with views of the Golden Vale. For more information, click here.

Beara Way. A variety of coastal and mountain scenery on one of the southwest’s less frequented peninsulas. For more information, click here.

The Sperrin Mountains. Sparsely populated area in the northeast of County Tyrone; bog, heather and moorland. For more information, click here.

Lough Corrib, Connemara.

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Giant’s Causeway, N. Ireland.

Kevin Cummins/Apa Publications

The Samuel Beckett Bridge, Dublin city at sunset.

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The Dark Hedges, County Antrim.

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THE NEW IRELAND

Ireland has changed dramatically in recent years. The Republic has become a secular, multiracial, European state, while Northern Ireland has progressed from sectarian violence to power-sharing.

An alluring brand image has been created for Ireland over the years, portraying an unspoilt green land full of hospitable people, living life at a leisurely pace and possessed of an uncanny ability to have fun. Much of it is genuine – this is an ancient land full of human narrative and natural wonder – but there’s a little bit of traditional ‘Blarney’ in the mix too.

A changed society

Today’s visitors who don’t mind having their preconceptions smashed will enjoy Ireland, on both sides of the border.

A dramatic transformation has taken place in the Republic. Viewed 40 years ago by some as an economically-deprived, priest-ridden country whose most prolific product was emigrants, Ireland has gone full circle socially and economically since joining the European Union in 1972. Adopting the euro in 2003 distanced it from its old imperial master, Britain, which clung to sterling. Irish culturetravelled well, both in the form of the comically clichéd ‘Irish pub’, which took root in 42 countries, and as cunningly modernised traditional music and dance extolled by Riverdance and the Pogues. The global success of artists ranging from stadium rockers U2 to indie singer-songwriter Hozier helped give Dublin a new hip identity, consolidated by its buzzing Temple Bar district. Most dizzying of all has been the revolution in social attitudes, with the conservative Catholic Church finally losing its stranglehold on an increasingly young, diverse and progressive population, stimulating several seismic changes in the law.

Generous tax breaks and a job market flooded with well-educated graduates encouraged multinationals – from Pfizer and other pharmaceutical companies, to Google and Facebook – to set up Irish operations, often basing their European headquarters in this Eurozone country. Many of those who had emigrated returned to a new Ireland with a booming economy, and were joined by emigrants from eastern European countries and elsewhere, diluting the former homogeneous population of white, Irish-born Catholics. Embracing globalisation, the Republic took as its model the US, with its stress on individual achievement. It was, the saying went, ‘more Boston than Berlin’. Low-fare Irish airline Ryanair shamelessly modelled itself on America’s Southwest Airlines, and became the biggest carrier in Europe.

Boom, bust, brexit

In 2009, the Republic suffered a crash and severe recession, when the global economic downturn revealed short-sighted and occasionally criminal behaviour by some Irish banks and developers. Projects paused and emigration soared. Ireland introduced austerity measures, impacting people’s pay and pensions, and an 85-billion euro rescue package was agreed with the EU and IMF.

By 2017, the economy had stabilised, unemployment was falling and the cobwebs were being blown off stalled developments. Ireland was back in business, and as a warning against future greed, several disgraced bankers received prison sentences in 2018.

Meanwhile, however, more clouds had gathered across the Irish Sea. Each year, billions of euros of Irish trade goes to or through the UK, and Brexit has thrown all of this into uncertainty. On the other hand, some international companies are relocating from Britain to Ireland, to stay within the EU. The future is anything but predictable.

Social upheaval

Social change has accompanied Ireland’s economic metamorphosis, recently at lightning pace. Divorce was not decriminalised in the Republic until 1995 and homosexuality until 1993. However, in recent years, revelations about paedophilia in the church, the cover up of child abuse by Catholic Bishops, and the exploitation of women in church-run ‘Magdalen Laundries’ have led to widespread anger, a decline in attendance at Sunday Mass, and a massive weakening of the church.

In 2015, Ireland voted by a landslide to legalise same-sex marriage – despite the Catholic Church’s opposition – and in 2018, Irish people voted by 66.4 percent to remove the Eighth Amendment and allow abortion to be legalised, after a highly emotive referendum. Abortion remains illegal in Northern Ireland (even in cases of rape and fatal foetal abnormalities), but buoyed by their success in the south, civil rights campaigners are focussing on changing that, now with the support of Sinn Féin (although the DUP remain firmly against it).

The Northern transformation

Once known for terrorism, Northern Ireland today is a great place for outdoor adventures, golf, history, wildlife and art. This is largely thanks to the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which ended three decades of violence. The Republic amended its constitution, which had included a claim of sovereignty over Northern Ireland, the IRA laid down its arms and a devolved Northern Ireland Assembly was created, in which Unionist and Republican leaders could share power. In 2007, the British army officially ended its operations in Northern Ireland, removing soldiers from the streets and making the border almost invisible. It’s not all been easy, though. In 2017, the power-sharing deal in the Assembly collapsed, and is yet to be restored, and border procedures post Brexit is causing concern.

Ireland’s continuing allure

Ireland manages to combine modernity with traditional hospitality and unspoilt scenery. The weather may be wet and windy at times and the prices steep, but the people’s great capacity for fun is happily shared with visitors.

Exploring Ireland’s woodland on horseback.

Fáilte Ireland

THE IRISH CHARACTER

Justifiably famed for their hospitality, loquacity and wit, the Irish are generally gregarious people, with a love of laughter, conversation, culture, stories, poetry, politics and sport.

With trademark dark humour, Irish people take delight in seizing the stereotypes and jokes made against them, and turning them inside out. This trait is brilliantly exemplified in the much-loved TV sitcom, Father Ted, where all the characters are grotesque exaggerations of one kind or another, to great comic effect.

Embracing cultural identity

Millions of visitors respond to this captivating charm by falling in love with Ireland at first sight. An increasing number, be warned, choose to consummate this love affair by giving up their life elsewhere, and moving to Ireland full time. Yet many in Ireland consider that the colossal social and economic changes that have taken place (see page ) have eroded the traditional Irish values of courtesy, hospitality, spontaneity, sportsmanship and sense of fun.

English as spoken in Ireland is influenced by the grammar and vocabulary of the Irish language.

These critics argue that Ireland is selling its soul in return for a rootless cosmopolitanism, ruining the attraction of its unspoilt countryside by ill-thought-out and badly designed developments (planning permission has gotten much stricter), while ignoring the widening gap between the rich and the poor.

Certainly, the Republic, with its car-dependent, increasingly suburban commuter lifestyle, and its preference for British and American TV and film, has become more like everywhere else. But enough people have realised the danger of diluting Ireland’s unique cultural identity, and are working hard to promote a pride in, and affection for, all things Irish, including the language, the music, even the football team, and the (sometimes elusive) idea of a less stressful way of life. Visitors, therefore, once they have recovered from the shock of discovering how expensive everything is – don’t take Oscar Wilde’s dictum, that those who live within their means suffer from a lack of imagination, seriously (he died penniless) – are likely to find that the time-honoured sense of hospitality has survived, sustained by an innate gregariousness.

Local stallholder in Dalkey.

Tourism Ireland

The two Irelands

After achieving the status of a dominion within the British Empire, an event followed by a bloody civil war, the new Irish Free State (declared 6 December 1922, Ireland didn’t officially become a republic until 1949) signalled its priorities in its currency, with coins displaying emblems evoking a rural idyll and Celtic mythology: pigs, hens, hares and salmon.

But since those seismic events in the early 20th century, there has been two Irelands. One consists of the 26 counties of the Republic, generally seen as a friendly and easy-going destination. Then there are the Six Counties of Northern Ireland, still part of the United Kingdom, a more complex place to characterise, where society is more fragmented and scarred by the decades of modern conflict known as The Troubles, which raged between 1968 to 1998 and still bubble close to the surface at certain times. The border between North and South, which became much less visible post the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, has come back into sharper focus since Brexit.

Celebrating Bloomsday at the James Joyce Centre.

Conor McCabe Photography

In terms of personality, the Northern Protestant is often regarded as being more earnest, more unimaginative than the Northern Catholic, who is in turn seen as less outgoing, less impulsive than the Southern Catholic. In reality, like all such stereotypes, these are absurd over-simplifications with grains of truth running through them. Perhaps because of their recent history, Irish people do tend to be relatively politically aware, and quite philosophical about life.

The German writer Heinrich Böll identified two turns of speech most characteristic of the Irish: ‘It could be worse’ and ‘I shouldn’t worry’. In a world where worries proliferate daily, Ireland retains its optimism. A popular poster when Ireland was experiencing the economic devastation that followed the boom, featured the optimistic slogan ‘Keep going, sure it’s grand’ – an Irish version of the British wartime advice ‘Keep calm and carry on’. It would be a mistake to read this as having blind faith in the status quo, though, as the reaction to the scandals in the Catholic Church revealed. Long held back by conservative values imposed on them by the church, the Irish enthusiastically threw off the shackles when multiple members of the once all-powerful institution were revealed as hypocrites, bullies and, in too many cases, abusers.

Shannon locals make the most of river life.

Brian Morrison/Fáilte Ireland

A strong theatricality

Occasionally contradictory and quick to change, the Irish character is an elusive concept to pin down. Unarguably, there is a nationwide love for good stories and a bit of drama, and Irish raconteurs have an almost reckless tendency towards exaggeration. This characteristic is a key feature in the darkly funny series Black Books penned by Dylan Moran, and also in the pantomime-esque (and polarising) Mrs Brown’s Boys, the reflective Moon Boy and irreverent Derry Girls. But there’s an introversion, too, the proneness to melancholy captured by George Bernard Shaw in John Bull’s Other Island, a play set in the land of his birth: ‘Your wits can’t thicken in that soft moist air, on those white springy roads, in those misty rushes and brown bogs, on those hillsides of granite rocks and magenta heather. You’ve no such colours in the sky, no such lure in the distance, no such sadness in the evenings. Oh the dreaming! the dreaming! the torturing, heartscalding, never satisfying dreaming, dreaming, dreaming.’

Street performers in Galway.

Corrie Wingate/Apa Publications

WHY DUBLIN IS DIFFERENT

Just as London is not representative of England, nor New York of the US, so the gap has widened between Dublin and the rest of the country in the last few decades. Dublin has long been Ireland’s busiest and most cosmopolitan city and the place of choice for big multinationals to set up a base, and with it the city in which to find work. While, 30 years ago, almost everyone you met in the capital’s streets or pubs would be Irish – drawn from all counties of the island – immigration has diluted that homogeneity as Ireland has become a multiracial society. To fully experience Ireland and its culture, you have to travel beyond the city limits of Dublin.

You can sometimes sense this aspect of the Irish character in a pub when, after the talk – once called ‘a game with no rules’ – has achieved an erratic brilliance, the convivial mood abruptly changes to one of wistful melancholy.

The Irish are as much at home with sorrow as with laughter. This characteristic, sometimes manifesting itself as a natural pessimism, is the same one that makes Irish sporting fans such good losers. This was much remarked on during Ireland’s disastrous performance at Gdansk in Euro 2012, as the Irish side headed for a 4-0 defeat by Spain. In about the 86th minute of the game the fans en masse broke into a beautiful and melodic rendition of The Fields of Athenry, one of the saddest songs in the repertoire, recalling the deporting to Australia of a man who stole to feed his family during the Great Famine. The intention was to encourage the team, who were outclassed by the eventual champions, but it was also seen as demonstrating the fans’ very Irish resignation in the face of an unavoidable defeat.

It is significant that the same sad song is also often sung by fans at rugby matches, where the demographic of the crowd tends to be very different than at a football (soccer) match, demonstrating an almost unexpected unity within Irish culture.

Violence and vendettas

The poet Louis MacNeice, described Ireland as a nation ‘built upon violence and morose vendettas’. This less flattering aspect of the Irish personality was nicely summed up by another poet, Seamus Heaney, writing in 1975 at the height of the sectarian violence euphemistically referred to as ‘the Troubles’ in a poem entitled ‘Whatever You Say, Say Nothing’. The title in fact came from a poster common in Belfast at the time, beginning ‘Loose-talk costs lives’ warning people that their conversations might be monitored by security forces. As another great Irish poet, W.B. Yeats in the poem ‘Remorse for Intemperate Speech’ (1931) reflected on the notorious Irish ability to bear a grudge: Out of Ireland have we come. / Great hatred, little room, / Maimed us at the start. / I carry from my mother’s womb / A fanatic heart.

TradFest is a lively gathering of musicians, singers and dancers.

Fáilte Ireland

The history of this ‘wretched little clod, broken off a bigger clod, broken off the west end of Europe,’ as Shaw called it, encouraged it to view itself as a victim of colonialism, which lies behind the moral authority that singers such as Bono and Bob Geldof assumed when they lectured world leaders on the need to get to grips with the causes of world poverty. Enya’s take on traditional Celtic rhythms, Only Time, was judged poignant enough to be used as the soundtrack to TV replays of the collapse of the World Trade Center.

An attitude to life

In an age that esteems brand awareness, Ireland’s international image is a potent one. It contains an echo of an 18th-century pace of life that has not completely faded away, a psychological climate in which a racehorse attracts more glances than a Rolls-Royce.

It’s this attitude to life, never far beneath the surface despite the upheavals that makes Ireland such a rewarding place to visit. As the US-born novelist J.P. Donleavy, an exemplar of the less folksy style of Irish writing, expressed it winsomely in The Ginger Man: ‘When I die I want to decompose in a barrel of porter (dark beer) and have it served in all the pubs of Dublin. I wonder would they know it was me?’

INSIGHT: IRELAND IN THE MOVIES

While Irish films once played on stereotypical images aimed at the lucrative Irish-American market, these days they are more likely to be about rock bands than red-headed colleens.

Ireland’s first dedicated cinema, the Volta in Dublin’s Mary Street, was opened in 1909 by James Joyce. But the country had no film studio until 1958, when Ardmore Studios opened in Bray, County Wicklow. It was thus left to Hollywood to portray Ireland to the world, and it did so by peddling whimsicality to the huge audience of Irish Americans who had a sentimental attachment to the pastoral ideal most potently portrayed in John Ford’s The Quiet Man. The Irish, who were in reality facing hardship and chronic emigration, didn’t object to such a portrayal: indeed, they built a tourist industry on it.

More recently, Ireland’s social and political reality has assumed centre stage. Several films have tackled the Troubles, including Neil Jordan’s The Crying Game, Jim Sheridan’s In the Name of the Father (1993) and Some Mother’s Son (1996), starring Helen Mirren. Perhaps the best film about the Irish War of Independence (and the internal conflict that followed it) is Ken Loach’s The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006), shot on location in rural Cork and starring Cillian Murphy.

The movie that did most to cement the image of the Irish as fighting boyos with a pre-feminist outlook was John Ford’s 1952 production The Quiet Man, in which John Wayne slugged it out with Victor McLaglen and Maureen O’Hara in a virulently green landscape. Americans loved it – and unexpectedly, so did the Irish.

Ronald Grant Archive

Fresh Voices

Lenny Abrahamson is one of Ireland’s success stories. His debut film was the darkly comic tale of two hapless Dublin junkies Adam and Paul (2004); Garage (2007) tells the story of a lonely garage attendant in a country town and won a prize at the Cannes Film Festival; What Richard Did (2012), starring Jack Reynor, focuses on a group of privileged South Dublin teenagers; and Room (2015), based on Emma Donoghue’s book of the same name, tells the story of a boy and his mother held captive in a small room.

John Carney played bass in Irish rock band The Frames before moving into filmmaking. His romantic musical drama Once (2006) enjoyed enormous success, with an Academy Award for Best Song. Sing Street (2016) is a musical comedy set in 1980s Dublin in which a teenage boy meets the girl of his dreams and starts a band in the hopes of impressing her.

The Guard (2011), an Irish cop comedy written and directed by John Michael McDonagh, and starring Brendan Gleeson and Don Cheadle, is great fun, and Song of the Sea (2014), an animated film about a selkie (shapeshifting seal folk) is excellent for younger viewers. Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell, stars of McDonagh’s debut film In Bruges (2008), have been cast together again in tragicomedy The Banshees of Inisherin (2022), as lifelong friends whose friendship ends abruptly.

Grittier themes are dealt with in Michael Inside (2017), about a young man from a Dublin housing estate who ends up in prison, written and directed by Frank Berry, and Black 47 (2018), a film about the Great Famine. Aisha (2022), tackles asylum in Ireland through the eyes of a Nigerian refugee. Colm Bairéad’s coming-of-age film The Quiet Girl (An Cailín Ciúin, 2022) is about a neglected nine-year-old girl sent away from her dysfunctional family to distant relatives. It is the first Irish-language film to make the Oscar