Ireland: 1001 Things You Need to Know

267 Pages·2017·1.67 MB·English

by  Richard Killeen

IRELAND
ALSO BY THE SAME AUTHOR
A Brief History of Ireland
A Short History of Dublin
A Short History of the 1916 Rising
A Short History of the Irish Revolution
A Short History of Ireland
IRELAND
1,001 Things You Need to Know
R K
ICHARD ILLEEN
First published in Great Britain in 2017 by Atlantic Books,
an imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd.
Copyright © Richard Killeen, 2017
The moral right of Richard Killeen to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in
accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Lines from ‘Dublin’ by Louis MacNeice, from Selected Poems, Faber & Faber, 2007, reproduced by kind
permission of David Higham Associates Ltd.
Map artwork by Jeff Edwards Hardback ISBN: 978-1-78649-158-9
E-book ISBN: 978-1-78649-1-596
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-78649-1-602
Printed in Great Britain Atlantic Books
An Imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd Ormond House
26–27 Boswell Street London WC1N 3JZ
www.atlantic-books.co.uk
This book is for Richard, my son.
CONTENTS
Map
Acknowledgements
1. Land, Landscape and Society
2. People: From pre-Celts to Polish plumbers
3. National Characteristics
4. Heroes and Villains
5. Nation, State and Parish Pump
6. Irish English / English Irish
7. One to Ten
8. Literature and Language
9. Food and Drink
10. Places to See and Things to Do
11. Not Literature
12. Sport
13. Institutions of the State(s)
14. Religion
15. Education
16. Army, Navy and Police
17. The Public Sphere
18. Ten Success Stories
19. Whimsy
Index

This lovely land that always sent Her writers and artists to banishment And in a spirit of
Irish fun
Betrayed her own leaders, one by one.
’Twas Irish humour, wet and dry,
Flung quicklime into Parnell’s eye;*
’Tis Irish brains that save from doom The leaky barge of the Bishop of Rome For everyone
knows the Pope can’t belch Without the consent of Billy Walsh.†
James Joyce, from Gas From a Burner
I live in Ireland by choice, after experience of living many other places, and I am happy
here. Our neighbours are friendly, our view is beautiful, my political friends are fine
upstanding people, my political enemies fascinating in their own way. I don’t mind the
gossip any more than the rain. The censors are no longer eating writers in the street. We are
not as bad as we are painted, especially by ourselves. In fact I love Ireland, as most Irish
people do, with only an occasional fit of the shudders.
Conor Cruise O’Brien, States of Ireland (1972) What ish my nation? Ish a villain and
a bastard and a knave and a rascal.
The Irishman Macmorris in
Shakespeare, Henry V, act 3, scene 3