148 Fun Facts About Ireland and Irish Culture

Saint Patrick is said to have used a shamrock to explain which Christian teaching?

The Holy Trinity, three persons in one God, matched the plant's three leaves; the story first appears in writing only in 1726, well over a thousand years after Patrick died.

Before green took over, which colour was linked to Saint Patrick through the Order of St Patrick?

Blue: founded in 1783, the Order of St Patrick needed a colour unlike the Garter's dark blue and the Thistle's green; orange was judged too sectarian, so its knights wore sky-blue mantles.

Which present-day country held the first recorded Saint Patrick's Day parade, in 1601?

United States: records show a parade on 17 March 1601 in St. Augustine, then a Spanish colony in Florida; Ireland's own first parade came three centuries later, in Waterford in 1903.

Light floods the inner chamber of Newgrange through its roof-box at sunrise on which day of the year?

The winter solstice, the year's shortest day: the Neolithic builders aligned the 19-metre passage so it lights the chamber, and places in the annual lottery are heavily oversubscribed.

Newgrange is the principal monument of which World Heritage Site complex in County Meath?

Brú na Bóinne also holds the great mounds of Knowth and Dowth; Newgrange itself looked like a plain grassy mound until labourers digging it for stone uncovered the entrance in 1699.

In hurling, what is the small ball struck with the stick called?

The sliotar is a cork-cored leather ball; players may carry it in the hand for only four steps, so they run with it balanced on the end of the stick.

On a hurling scoreboard reading 2-10, what does the first number count?

Goals come first: a ball under the crossbar into the net is worth three points and one over the bar is worth a single point, so 2-10 adds up to 16 and beats 1-12.

Hurling fields fifteen players a side, the same as which sport?

Rugby union also fields fifteen a side, against rugby league's thirteen; hurling teams could run to 21 a side under the GAA's first rules and were cut to today's fifteen in 1913.

The Book of Kells, made around 800 AD, was written in which language?

Latin: the Book of Kells holds the four Gospels, mostly in the Vulgate text; the Annals of Ulster record that it was stolen for its ornate shrine and found months later under a sod, stripped of its gold.

Which Dublin institution puts the Book of Kells on public display?

Trinity College Dublin has held the Book of Kells since the 17th century, when it left the town of Kells for the capital; its pages are turned several times a year for conservation.

Carrauntoohil, the highest mountain in Ireland, rises within which range?

MacGillycuddy's Reeks hold all three Irish peaks over 1,000 metres; the steel cross on Carrauntoohil's summit was cut down in 2014 in a protest against the Church and put back up a week later.

Ireland's highest peak stands on the Iveragh Peninsula, in which county?

Kerry: the Iveragh Peninsula is circled by the Ring of Kerry road, and from Valentia Island just off it the first transatlantic telegraph cable was run to Newfoundland in 1858.

How long was the lease Arthur Guinness signed in 1759 for a disused Dublin brewery?

9,000 years, at £45 a year: the lease on the disused brewery ran to the year 10759, but the company later bought the site outright, so it no longer applies.

At which Dublin site did Arthur Guinness begin brewing ales in 1759?

St James's Gate began with ales, not stout: Arthur Guinness started selling dark porter in 1778, and the first beers to carry the word 'stout' came only in the 1840s.

What name is given to the districts where Irish survives as a community language?

The Gaeltacht lies mostly along the western seaboard, but it also takes in two pockets of County Meath, settled with Irish-speaking families in the 1930s and added in 1967.

Which of these letters is missing from the traditional 18-letter Irish alphabet?

W is one of eight letters the traditional alphabet leaves out, with j, k, q, v, x, y and z, so they turn up only in loanwords; Viking-founded Wexford is Loch Garman in Irish.

On a Claddagh ring, what does the crown stand for?

The heart is love, the clasped hands friendship and the crown loyalty. Which way the heart points is said to signal whether the wearer is spoken for.

The Claddagh ring is named for a fishing village beside which city?

Galway: Claddagh was a fishing village on the city's edge, and the ring is said to be the work of Richard Joyce, a Galway goldsmith who learned the craft while enslaved in Algiers.

Phytophthora, the blight behind Ireland's Great Famine, takes its name from Greek for what?

Plant destroyer: Phytophthora infestans is a water mould rather than a true fungus, and from 1845 it wrecked successive Irish potato harvests.

What were the Great Famine's emigrant ships grimly nicknamed?

Coffin ships earned the name because so many passengers died of disease and hunger on the crossing; thousands of the emigrants of 1847 lie buried at Canada's Grosse Isle quarantine station.

The 'uilleann' of the uilleann pipes comes from the Irish word for which body part?

Píb uilleann means 'pipes of the elbow', because the player works the bellows with the arm rather than blowing.

On the uilleann pipes, what is the pipe that plays the melody called?

The chanter carries the melody while three drones hold steady notes and keyed regulators add chords; resting its end on the thigh closes the bottom hole, so a piper can cut notes short for a staccato effect.

Samhain, the Gaelic festival that fed into modern Halloween, marks the start of which season?

Samhain marks the start of winter, the dark half of the Celtic year. It falls on 1 November, with celebrations beginning the previous evening because the Celtic day started at sunset.

Which lough, with shores in five of Northern Ireland's six counties, is the largest lake in the British Isles?

Lough Neagh is, in legend, the hole left when the giant Fionn mac Cumhaill scooped up a clod of earth to hurl at a rival; the clod landed in the sea and became the Isle of Man.

Which country joined the EEC with Ireland and Denmark in 1973?

The UK joined with Ireland and Denmark on 1 January 1973; Norway had been due to join too, until its voters said no in a 1972 referendum.

Which Irish potato pancake belongs to the northern midlands and Ulster?

Boxty mixes finely grated raw potato into the batter and belongs to the north midlands and southern Ulster; an old rhyme warns that if you can't make boxty, you'll never get a man.

Which Irish author wrote the 1897 Gothic horror novel Dracula?

Bram Stoker, born in Clontarf, Dublin, wrote Dracula while managing London's Lyceum Theatre for the actor Henry Irving; he toured the world with Irving yet never visited Eastern Europe, where the novel opens.

What is the Irish language called in Irish itself?

Gaeilge is the name used in the constitution's Irish text, which ranks Irish as the national and first official language, ahead of English; Gàidhlig is Scottish Gaelic, Cymraeg Welsh and Kernewek Cornish.

What is Ireland's national anthem, 'Amhrán na bhFiann', called in English?

"The Soldier's Song" came first in English: Peadar Kearney wrote the words and Patrick Heeney the music, and the Irish translation now usually sung is Liam Ó Rinn's later version.

How many traditional counties make up the entire island of Ireland?

32: partition in 1921 put six of the traditional counties in Northern Ireland and left 26 in what became the Republic, yet Gaelic games still run their championships across all of them.

What is the women's stick-and-ball sport closely related to hurling called?

Camogie is hurling's women's code, run by its own association; it required skirts or skorts until 2025, when two county teams turned out in shorts in protest and 98 per cent of delegates voted to allow them.

Which grain did Robert Peel's government import from America in 1845 to relieve the famine?

Maize, or Indian corn: Peel secretly ordered £100,000 worth from the United States in November 1845, and the unfamiliar yellow meal was nicknamed 'Peel's brimstone'.

Irish pirates snatched sixteen-year-old Saint Patrick from his home in which land?

Patrick was born in Roman Britain; by his own Confessio he was seized at sixteen by Irish raiders and kept as a slave herding animals for six years before he escaped.

Which novel, set on a single Dublin day, do fans celebrate every 16 June as Bloomsday?

Ulysses follows Leopold Bloom through Dublin on 16 June 1904, a date James Joyce chose to mark his first outing with his future wife, Nora Barnacle; admirers have retraced the route since 1954.

The Giant's Causeway in County Antrim consists of roughly 40,000 interlocking columns of which rock?

The columns are basalt: highly fluid lava from a Paleogene fissure eruption forced up through the chalk beds of Antrim and cracked into hexagonal pillars as it cooled and contracted.

On which day do Ireland's 'Wrenboys' traditionally go door to door with a mock dead wren?

Wren Day is 26 December, St Stephen's Day: wrenboys once hunted a real wren, and modern groups carry a mock one on a decorated pole, singing door to door for money.

Which saint's feast day on 1 February became an Irish public holiday in 2023?

St Brigid of Kildare is said to have won the land for her abbey by asking a king for as much as her cloak would cover; the holiday falls on the first Monday of February, or on the 1st itself when that is a Friday.

Which 1690 victory of William III does the Twelfth of July commemorate in Northern Ireland?

The Boyne was fought on 1 July 1690 in the old calendar; the Twelfth first marked Aughrim, a 1691 victory fought on 12 July, and the two anniversaries were later merged into one day.

According to legend, Fionn mac Cumhaill built the Giant's Causeway to reach which land without wetting his feet?

Scotland was home to the giant Benandonner, whom Fionn set out to fight; in one telling Fionn's wife disguises him as a baby, and the rival, imagining the father's size, flees home ripping up the causeway.

Which Irish writer was the first to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, in 1923?

W. B. Yeats won in 1923 for poetry that, in the Nobel citation's words, 'gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation'; he was then a senator of the year-old Irish Free State.

Which Irish poet published a verse translation of Beowulf in 1999?

Seamus Heaney grew up on Mossbawn, his family's small farm in Northern Ireland, and turned the farm labour he watched there into his early poems; his Beowulf won the Whitbread Book of the Year.

What is the name of the largest festival of Irish traditional music held each year?

Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann, run by Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann and first held in Mullingar in 1951, pairs competitions with street sessions and is the largest festival of Irish traditional music.

In 2004 Ireland became the first country in the world to impose a nationwide ban on what?

Smoking at work, every pub and restaurant included, became illegal on 29 March 2004; Micheál Martin, the health minister who pushed the ban through against tough opposition, later became head of government.

In which month is the three-day National Ploughing Championships held each year?

September: the National Ploughing Championships grew out of a 1931 contest at Athy between the ploughmen of Kildare and Wexford, and now draws crowds in the hundreds of thousands to its tented trade village.

The BBC's 2BE went on air in 1924, before Dublin had a station, from which city?

Belfast's 2BE went on air with the voice of Tyrone Guthrie, a young announcer who went on to found the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis; Dublin's 2RN did not follow until 1926.

Which prehistoric site in County Mayo lay hidden under blanket bog until a schoolteacher cutting turf noticed its stone walls?

The Céide Fields came to light in the 1930s when Patrick Caulfield saw lines of stones deep under the peat; his son Seamas, an archaeologist, dated the walls to Neolithic farmers, a dating some researchers dispute.

Which city is the seat of the archbishops who hold the title Primate of All Ireland?

Armagh: by tradition St Patrick founded his principal church there in 445, and both the Catholic and Church of Ireland archbishops of Armagh are styled Primate of All Ireland.

Which Irish name for May is also the ancient festival that opened summer?

Bealtaine opened the summer half of the year on 1 May: people walked their cattle around or between bonfires for protection before driving them out to summer pasture, and the word is still the Irish for May.

Riverdance began life in 1994 as a seven-minute interval act at which event?

The 1994 Eurovision Song Contest at Dublin's Point Theatre: Bill Whelan's score and Jean Butler and Michael Flatley's dancing turned a seven-minute filler slot into a global touring show.

Which singer won Eurovision for Ireland twice, in 1980 and 1987?

Johnny Logan won with 'What's Another Year' in 1980 and 'Hold Me Now' in 1987, and wrote Linda Martin's 1992 winner 'Why Me?', a hand in three Irish victories.

On the Irish tricolour, which community is symbolised by the orange stripe?

Protestants, the followers of William of Orange: introducing the flag in 1848, Thomas Francis Meagher said the white in the centre signified 'a lasting truce between Orange and Green'.

Which site is traditionally identified as the seat of the High Kings of Ireland?

The Hill of Tara in County Meath was the ceremonial seat of the High Kings; between 1899 and 1902 British Israelites dug into it in the belief that the Ark of the Covenant lay buried there, badly damaging one enclosure.

In legend, what would the Lia Fáil stone do under the foot of the true king?

The Lia Fáil, or Stone of Destiny, was said to cry out when the rightful king stood on it; legend has the Tuatha Dé Danann carrying it to Ireland as one of their four treasures.

The Cliffs of Moher rise from the Atlantic at the edge of which county?

Clare's cliffs run about 14 km and reach 214 metres near O'Brien's Tower, which landlord Cornelius O'Brien built in 1835 as a viewing point for the tourists already coming to see them.

Skellig Michael's ancient monastery stood in for the planet Ahch-To in which film series?

Star Wars filmed Luke Skywalker's refuge there for The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi; the island is covered in protected puffins, which inspired the porgs that share his island on screen.

Which Dublin building served as the rebels' headquarters during the 1916 Rising?

The General Post Office on O'Connell Street, then Sackville Street, was the rebels' headquarters; two republican flags flew over it during the six days before the surrender on 29 April 1916.

What is the Irish-language name of the Constitution of Ireland?

Bunreacht na hÉireann came into force on 29 December 1937 after a plebiscite the previous July, replacing the 1922 Free State constitution; Saorstát Éireann was the Free State's own name.

Who became Ireland's first female president in 1990?

Mary Robinson, a lawyer and former senator, beat the popular Fianna Fáil candidate Brian Lenihan in 1990; after her term she became the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Which Dublin stadium is the largest in Ireland, holding 82,300?

Croke Park was closed to soccer and rugby under the GAA's Rule 42 until the rule was eased in 2005; both sports then played there from 2007 to 2010 while Lansdowne Road was rebuilt.

The GAA was founded in 1884 in the billiard room of Hayes' Hotel in which town?

Thurles, County Tipperary: Michael Cusack and Maurice Davin founded the Gaelic Athletic Association at Hayes' Hotel on 1 November 1884, and the town is home to Semple Stadium, a major hurling venue.

Chef Joe Sheridan is credited with inventing Irish coffee at a flying-boat terminal where?

Foynes, on the Shannon estuary, was the flying-boat terminal where Sheridan first served the drink in the early 1940s; he later worked at San Francisco's Buena Vista Cafe, which made Irish coffee famous in America.

Colcannon combines mashed potato with which vegetable?

Cabbage: the name comes from the Irish cál ceannann, 'white-headed cabbage', though some recipes swap in kale.

Which charm do shop-bought Halloween barmbracks hide inside?

A ring: whoever finds it is said to marry within the year. Older bracks also hid a pea, a stick, a scrap of cloth and a coin, each with its own fortune; food-safety rules have since stripped most of them from shop loaves.

Which County Antrim whiskey prints 1608 on its label, the year of a royal licence to distil in its district?

Bushmills takes 1608 from the licence James I granted Sir Thomas Phillips, a County Antrim landowner; the company that built the distillery itself was formed only in 1784.

Tayto of Dublin is credited with the world's first flavoured crisp, in which flavour?

Cheese & Onion came first: Joe 'Spud' Murphy found the crisps of his day dull, salted only from a little bag in the packet, so in 1954 he started Tayto with one van and eight employees.

Samuel Beckett wrote 'Waiting for Godot', first staged in 1953, originally in which language?

French, as En attendant Godot, written in 1948–49: Beckett, a native English speaker, said French made it easier to write 'without style', and he translated the play into English himself.

W. B. Yeats is buried at Drumcliff in which county?

He died in France in 1939 and asked to be quietly reburied in Sligo once the newspapers had forgotten him; an Irish Navy corvette brought him home in 1948.

Which satirist was Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, from 1713 to 1745?

Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliver's Travels, is buried in the cathedral beside Esther Johnson, his 'Stella'; he left the bulk of his fortune to found a hospital for the mentally ill, which still operates.

Which Irish frame drum is played with a short stick called a tipper, or cipín?

The bodhrán belonged to rural celebrations until Seán Ó Riada brought it into concert halls in the 1960s; players now press a hand against the inside of the skin to change its pitch.

Which band formed in Dublin in 1976 after a 14-year-old drummer pinned a note to his school's notice board?

U2 began in Larry Mullen's kitchen: the Mount Temple pupils who answered his note first called themselves Feedback, then The Hype, and were, as Bono put it, a band before they could play.

According to legend, kissing the Blarney Stone grants what?

The gift of the gab, meaning eloquence or skill at flattery, takes nerve to win: kissers lean over backwards from the castle's parapet with a helper holding them, though iron rails now guard the drop.

Which is Ireland's longest river, rising in County Cavan and reaching the Atlantic below Limerick?

The Shannon was dammed at Ardnacrusha in the 1920s by the new Irish Free State, in a scheme that cost about a fifth of the state's annual budget and sent the country's electricity use soaring.

In Irish, Dublin's name Baile Átha Cliath means 'town of the' what?

Baile Átha Cliath is 'town of the hurdled ford', a wattle crossing of the Liffey; the English name comes instead from Dubh Linn, the 'black pool' where the River Poddle met the Liffey.

Which Northern Irish shipyard built the Titanic?

Harland and Wolff of Belfast launched Titanic on 31 May 1911; White Star let the yard spend whatever it needed on the ship plus a five per cent profit margin.

At Killorglin's Puck Fair each August, which animal is crowned king?

A goat: a wild male is caught in the mountains and crowned King Puck by a local schoolgirl, the Queen of Puck; he once spent three days on a high stand over the town, cut to a couple of hours after protests.

How long is a single term of office for the President of Ireland?

Seven years, renewable once: the president is elected by the people, but if only one candidate is nominated there is no poll at all, which has happened six times.

Which Dublin green space contains Áras an Uachtaráin, the president's residence?

Áras an Uachtaráin stands in the Phoenix Park: built in the 1750s as the home of park ranger Nathaniel Clements, it housed the British viceroys as the Viceregal Lodge before becoming the president's residence.

What is the official title of Ireland's head of government?

Taoiseach, the Irish word for chief or leader, is used in both languages; other countries' prime ministers are called príomh-aire in Irish. The deputy head of government is the Tánaiste.

The sitcom 'Father Ted' is set in which fictional place off Ireland's west coast?

Craggy Island: Bishop Brennan banished the three priests there for past misdeeds, including Dougal's mysterious 'Blackrock Incident'; its rival parish is Rugged Island.

St Kevin's 6th-century monastic settlement at Glendalough lies in which county?

Wicklow's Glendalough, the 'valley of two lakes', began as a retreat: Kevin went there to live as a hermit away from his followers, and legend says a blackbird nested in his outstretched hand.

Who wrote 'Ireland's Call', the anthem used by the all-island rugby team?

Phil Coulter, the Derry songwriter, wrote it after the IRFU commissioned an anthem for the 1995 Rugby World Cup that players from both jurisdictions could sing; hockey and cricket teams adopted it too.

Katie Taylor carried Ireland's flag at London 2012 and then won gold in which sport?

Boxing: London 2012 was the first Games with women's bouts, and thousands watched Taylor's fights on big screens in her hometown, Bray; at 15 she had fought in Ireland's first officially sanctioned women's match.

Annie Moore, first immigrant processed at Ellis Island in 1892, came from which county?

Cork: Annie Moore sailed from Queenstown, now Cobh, on the steamship Nevada and was the first through the new Ellis Island station, where an official handed her a $10 gold piece.

How much money did the Choctaw people send to Ireland during the Famine in 1847?

$170, raised in 1847 only sixteen years after the Trail of Tears; the Kindred Spirits sculpture at Midleton, County Cork, unveiled in 2017, commemorates the gift.

The Ardagh Chalice was found in 1868 by two boys digging where?

A potato field beside the Reerasta ring fort, near Ardagh in County Limerick, gave up the hoard to Jim Quin and Paddy Flanagan; Quin's mother then sold it to the Catholic Bishop of Limerick.

By which abbreviation is a member of Dáil Éireann known?

TD stands for Teachta Dála, officially translated as 'Dáil deputy', which is why members are addressed in debate as Deputy; each constituency elects three, four or five of them.

Irish became an official language of which international body in 2007?

The European Union had listed Irish only as a treaty language since Ireland joined in 1973, and even after 2007 a derogation limiting what was translated kept it short of full status until the start of 2022.

Cork's nickname 'the Rebel City' is traced to its backing of which cause in the 1490s?

The Yorkists: Cork backed Perkin Warbeck, the pretender who claimed the English crown from Henry VII, and his ally John Atwater, a former mayor of the city, was executed with him at Tyburn in 1499.

The 120-metre Spire of Dublin stands on the former site of which monument?

Nelson's Pillar, a column of 1809 topped by a statue of Horatio Nelson, was blown up by former IRA members in March 1966; the Anna Livia fountain later filled the gap until it made way for the Spire.

The Rock of Cashel was the traditional seat of the kings of which province?

King Muirchertach Ua Briain handed the fortress to the Church in 1101. St Patrick is said to have converted the King of Munster there.

Which meat is traditional in an Irish stew?

Mutton: sheep were kept for wool and milk, so only old animals ended up in the pot, needing hours of slow cooking. Purists allow only neck chops, potatoes, onions and water.

Croagh Patrick, climbed by thousands of pilgrims each Reek Sunday in July, overlooks Clew Bay in which county?

Mayo's holy mountain, nicknamed the Reek, is where Saint Patrick is said to have fasted for forty days; some pilgrims make the 764-metre climb barefoot as an act of penance.

Which is the largest of the three Aran Islands off Ireland's west coast?

Inishmore, about 31 square kilometres, is the largest; with no natural topsoil on the limestone, islanders made their own fields by layering sand and seaweed over bare rock.

Cú Chulainn, hero of the Ulster Cycle, was born with which name?

Sétanta: the boy killed the smith Culann's guard hound and offered to serve in its place, earning the name Cú Chulainn, 'Culann's hound'.

Around 563, the Irish saint Columba founded his abbey on which Scottish island in the Hebrides?

Iona, where he settled with twelve companions, became a base for converting the Pictish kingdoms.

Which is the only city in Ireland whose 17th-century walls survive completely intact?

Derry's walls, finished in the 1610s, were never breached despite repeated sieges, the most famous lasting over a hundred days in 1689, which is why it is nicknamed the Maiden City.

Who wrote Sinéad O'Connor's signature hit 'Nothing Compares 2 U'?

Prince wrote it in 1984 and gave it to his side project The Family, whose 1985 album track drew little notice and was never a single; O'Connor's 1990 cover turned it into a number one.

What was Oscar Wilde's only novel?

The Picture of Dorian Gray first ran in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine in 1890, after its editor cut about five hundred words he feared were indecent without telling Wilde; the longer book followed in 1891.

Which musical instrument, shown on Irish coins and passports, became the state emblem in 1922?

The harp on state documents copies a late-medieval Gaelic instrument, and the government registered only left-facing versions of it.

In legend, which creatures did Saint Patrick chase into the sea during a fast on a mountain?

Snakes were already known to be missing from Ireland in the third century, when the Roman writer Solinus remarked on it, long before Patrick's time.

Which English word comes from the name of a land agent in County Mayo whom tenants shunned in 1880?

Boycott became a word after the blacksmith, postman, laundress and local shops all stopped serving Captain Charles Boycott.

Which famous reference book grew out of a 1951 argument in Wexford over Europe's fastest game bird?

Guinness World Records began after brewery boss Sir Hugh Beaver missed a golden plover and found no book to settle the row. The first thousand copies went free to pubs.

Which form of horse racing is said to have begun with a 1752 wager on a race between two County Cork churches?

Steeplechase riders once steered across country by a church steeple, which gave the sport its name. That first race ran four miles from Buttevant to Doneraile.

Relics of which Roman martyr draw pilgrims to a shrine in Dublin's Whitefriar Street Church every February?

Saint Valentine's partial remains were sent from Rome to the Dublin Carmelite John Spratt under Pope Gregory XVI, and the shrine is busiest every 14 February.

In the legend of the Children of Lir, a jealous stepmother turns four siblings into which birds?

Swans they stayed for 900 years, spent on three different waters, though their stepmother Aoife let them keep human voices to sing with.

Which people founded Dublin around 841 and made it western Europe's biggest slave port?

Vikings ruled Dublin for almost three centuries and called themselves Ostmen, or East-men. The Irish drove them out in 902, but they were back by 917.

Which type of vessel did Irish engineer John Philip Holland develop and sell to the US Navy in 1900?

Submarine research was first bankrolled by the Fenians, Irish revolutionaries who paid Holland enough to give up his job as a schoolteacher.

Which US president visited his ancestors' cottage at Dunganstown, County Wexford, in June 1963?

John F. Kennedy later told aides those were the best four days of his life. He was assassinated in Dallas five months afterwards.

Which river flows through the centre of Dublin, crossed since 1816 by the iron Ha'penny Bridge?

The Liffey footbridge takes its nickname from the halfpenny toll once charged to cross it, a fee set to match the fares of the run-down ferries it replaced.

Which fictional fishmonger, given a statue in 1988, lends her name to Dublin's unofficial anthem?

Molly Malone has her own day, 13 June, declared by Dublin's millennium commission, yet no evidence shows the song was based on a real woman.

In Irish folklore, which trade occupies the solitary leprechaun when he is not playing jokes?

Shoemaker is the leprechaun's usual trade, and he is often shown at work on a single shoe. Before the 20th century he was generally said to wear red, not green.

In Irish folklore, which female spirit warns a family of a coming death by wailing or keening?

Banshee comes from the Irish for 'woman of the fairy mound', and some legends say she can only keen while combing her long hair.

Which nickname for Ireland is traced to William Drennan's 1795 poem 'When Erin First Rose'?

The Emerald Isle was the image of a physician who helped found the Society of United Irishmen, the movement behind the 1798 rebellion.

Irish soda bread rises when baking soda reacts with the lactic acid in which dairy ingredient?

Buttermilk let bakers skip yeast, which suited Ireland's soft wheat: its flour was too low in gluten to rise well in an ordinary loaf.

Which nickname, echoing East Asia's boom economies, was given to Ireland's mid-1990s growth?

Celtic Tiger first appeared in a 1994 Morgan Stanley report by Kevin Gardiner, likening Ireland to Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan.

Which 1998 accord, approved by voters on both sides of the Irish border, largely ended the Troubles?

The Good Friday Agreement was backed in two referendums held on the same day, 22 May 1998. The DUP was the only major party in Northern Ireland to oppose it.

Which Irish leader, nicknamed 'the Big Fellow', was killed in an ambush at Béal na Bláth in 1922?

Michael Collins was chairman of the Provisional Government and commander-in-chief of the National Army when anti-Treaty fighters shot him during the Civil War.

Which future Irish president, born in New York City, was sentenced to death after the 1916 Rising?

Éamon de Valera, registered at birth as George de Valero, was spared the firing squad partly because of his American citizenship and his late trial.

Which 'Liberator', who won Catholic emancipation in 1829, gave his name to Dublin's main street?

Daniel O'Connell so dominated Irish politics that George IV reportedly complained that O'Connell, and not he, was king of Ireland.

Which poet and schoolmaster read out the Proclamation of the Irish Republic to open the 1916 Rising?

Patrick Pearse had founded a bilingual boys' school, St Enda's, and was the main drafter of the document he read. He was among the first rebels executed, on 3 May.

Which English commander's army stormed Drogheda and Wexford in 1649 amid massacres at both towns?

Oliver Cromwell landed at Dublin in August 1649 and seized the two fortified ports to secure his supply lines from England. The brutality of that conquest still defines his name in Ireland.

Which High King of Ireland was killed at the Battle of Clontarf in 1014 even though his army won?

Brian Boru, in the most common accounts, was cut down by the Norse mercenary Brodir while praying in his tent as the fighting ended.

Which Mayo sea captain, known as 'The Pirate Queen', took her petition to Elizabeth I at Greenwich?

Grace O'Malley is missing from the Irish annals, so most of what is known about her comes from English records, including a list of written questions put to her for the queen.

Which Irish countess won election to the UK House of Commons in 1918, the first woman to do so?

Constance Markievicz won her Dublin seat from a cell in Holloway Prison and, in line with her party's policy of abstention, never sat at Westminster.

Which Cunard liner was torpedoed off the Old Head of Kinsale in 1915 and sank in about 18 minutes?

Lusitania went down with nearly 1,200 people, 128 of them US citizens, and the outrage pushed American opinion towards entering the war.

Which aviators ended the first non-stop transatlantic flight in 1919 nose-down in a Connemara bog?

Alcock and Brown mistook Derrigimlagh Bog for a smooth green field, and their converted Vickers Vimy bomber from Newfoundland dug in and tipped onto its nose.

Which author of 'Finnegans Wake' did most of his writing abroad, in Trieste, Zurich and Paris?

James Joyce saw his most famous novel first published in Paris in 1922, because its perceived obscenity kept it out of print in the UK and the United States.

Which Irish playwright was the first person to win both a Nobel Prize and an Oscar?

George Bernard Shaw won the Oscar for the 1938 screenplay of 'Pygmalion' and called the award an insult, coming as it did from Hollywood.

Which Ulster-born fantasy author was inspired by the Mountains of Mourne to invent his magical land?

C. S. Lewis was born in 1898, before partition, and the landscape of the Mournes fed into 'The Chronicles of Narnia'.

Which Pulitzer-winning memoir by Frank McCourt recounts a childhood of poverty in Limerick?

Angela's Ashes begins in Brooklyn, where McCourt was born in 1930, before the family returns to his mother Angela's home city in Ireland.

Which Limerick band, fronted by Dolores O'Riordan, had a 1994 hit with the protest song 'Zombie'?

The Cranberries began in 1989 as The Cranberry Saw Us, and the 'Zombie' video became the first by an Irish band to pass a billion views on YouTube.

Which Donegal family band did Enya leave in 1982 before 'Orinoco Flow' made her a solo star?

Clannad came from Irish-speaking Gweedore, and when Enya left, the band's former manager Nicky Ryan became her producer.

Which stage show did Chicago-raised Michael Flatley create after quitting 'Riverdance' in 1995?

Lord of the Dance opened at Dublin's Point Theatre in 1996, less than a year after Flatley quit the sold-out show that had made his name.

Which 1966 World Cup winner with England managed the Republic of Ireland to the 1990 quarter-finals?

Jack Charlton's side went out 1–0 to the hosts, Italy, in Rome, and six years later he was awarded honorary Irish citizenship.

Which town's festival, begun in 1959 on a £750 budget, crowns a woman of Irish heritage its 'Rose'?

Tralee's festival takes its name from a 19th-century ballad about a woman called Mary, whose beauty earned her the title.

In Irish legend, the boy Fionn gained the world's wisdom by tasting which fish as he cooked it?

Salmon fat burnt the boy's thumb as he cooked, and for the rest of his life Fionn could call on its knowledge simply by biting that thumb.

In Irish myth, which land of eternal youth does Oisín leave after what proves to be 300 years?

Tír na nÓg is reached on a magical horse that crosses water, and Niamh warns Oisín never to touch the ground when he rides home.

Dublin's English name comes from the Irish 'Duiblinn', a feature behind Dublin Castle, meaning what?

Black pool describes the dark tidal pool on the River Poddle, a site now covered by the castle gardens.

Which Irish party, founded by Arthur Griffith in 1905, has a name meaning 'We Ourselves'?

Sinn Féin is often mistranslated as 'ourselves alone', a mix-up with an early-20th-century slogan that added a third word.

Which Irish-born scientist, seen as the first modern chemist, gave his name to a gas pressure law?

Robert Boyle was born at Lismore Castle, the fourteenth child of an earl, and first set out his gas law while answering a Jesuit critic.

Which scale is named after the Navan-born naval officer who devised it for his own journals?

The Beaufort scale was devised in 1805 aboard HMS Woolwich and became official only in the 1830s, once its inventor was the Royal Navy's chief hydrographer.

Which Kildare-born explorer led the Antarctic expedition that lost its ship Endurance to pack ice?

Ernest Shackleton left Ireland at ten, when his Anglo-Irish family moved to London. The wreck of his ship was found just over a century after his death.

Which Dublin stew of pork sausages, bacon rashers and potatoes is often made to use up leftovers?

Coddle takes its name from the verb for cooking gently in water below the boil, as with a coddled egg, and it has no fixed recipe.

By which name did neutral Ireland refer to the Second World War years, when its press was censored?

The Emergency was proclaimed as war broke out in 1939 and outlived the fighting on paper: the Dáil did not formally declare it over until 1976.

Which co-founder of the Gaelic League was elected unopposed as the first President of Ireland?

Douglas Hyde published Irish verse under a pen name meaning 'the pleasant little branch', and the parties agreed on him for the presidency after a suggestion from Fine Gael.

Which Dublin mathematician carved his formula for quaternions into a canal bridge on a walk in 1843?

William Rowan Hamilton used his penknife on Broom Bridge beside the Royal Canal. The carving has vanished, but a plaque marks the spot and mathematicians still retrace his walk.

Which early Irish alphabet of strokes and notches was carved along the edges of standing stones?

Ogham is read from the bottom left of the stone upwards along its edge, and several hundred of the oldest inscriptions still survive.

Which queen of Connacht starts the Cattle Raid of Cooley to seize a prize bull from Ulster?

Maeve, or Medb in Old Irish, wanted wealth equal to her husband Ailill's, and he was one powerful stud bull richer. The two rival bulls ended up fighting to the death.