The culture of Ireland is well known all across the world. From the infamous St. Patrick’s Day holiday to legendary “luck of the Irish”, even superstitions and myths about leprechauns. Traditional Irish music has been maintained for hundreds of years and is still written and performed to this day. Irish dancing has also become hugely popular worldwide, thanks in part to the feature film Riverdance.
St. Patrick’s Day is the national holiday of Ireland that celebrates one of the patron saints of Ireland, St. Patrick. The holiday is commonly celebrated on March 17th, the anniversary of St. Patrick’s death in the 5th century. The day falls during the Christian season of Lent, so Irish families traditionally would attend church in the morning and then celebrate the holiday in the afternoon. The usual Lenten restrictions were waived for this day, and part of the celebrations included the traditional Irish meal of bacon and cabbage.
With the miles and miles of rolling green meadows, Ireland is a golfer’s dream. People come from all around the world to experience the unique golfing experience that Ireland has to offer. It is home to 440 golf courses, some of them collectively comprising 30% of the world’s natural links courses.
From Kerry in the Southeast to Londonderry in the Northern tip, Ireland is a beautiful and culturally enriched land that no traveler should miss. Nicknamed “The Emerald Isle” after the bright green grass draped hillsides that can be found all throughout the countryside, Ireland also boasts some of the finest architecture in the world. Take for instance, the Art Deco church in Turners Cross, Cork, and also Michael Scott’s Busáras (bus station) in Dublin.
The Ireland of today is a beautiful and flourishing island in Europe. It is comprised of the country of Ireland (Republic of Ireland) and Northern Ireland, which is governed by the United Kingdom. Currently, the entire island boasts a population of over six million. However, the first known residents, Mesolithic Stone Age inhabitants, arrived as far back as 8,000 BC. Due to the drastically lower sea levels at the time, Ireland was not actually yet an island, but still connected to the great continent of Europe, making it accessible by foot. Agriculture developed some 4,000 years later with the Neolithic era. Irish civilization reached a new plateau around 2500 BC with the arrival of the Bronze Age, when bronze and gold began being used to forge weapons and tools.