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WHY
IRELAND? I
- Island - Ireland is an island on the edge of Europe, untouched by the
industrial revolution. Land of mist & mysteries, of saints and scholars, a place to explore elegant antique galleries, back street brocante dealers and stately home collections, a chance to visit the streets, villages, lakelands, mountains, and seashores that are the inspiration for the works of Ireland's famous writers and enjoy luxuriant unexplored & untrampled gardens where a glorious profusion of plants and flowers grow with unparalleled exuberance, or play lovely links and famous fairways with friendly caddies and cozy clubhouses.
Ireland also has some of the loveliest countryside in Europe and you will be lured deep into it. And when you get there you will find yourself among friends, a glittering collection of appealing people, living in houses that are a mix of the spectacular, the cosy and the unusual. Here’s another ludicrous generalization: they make terrific friends, for friendship is much of what life is about.
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you go, try to get off the beaten track and find off-the-beat walks; perhaps
along a road that is tree-high with rhododendrons, all growing wild in
different shades of mauve, or a wood to wander in where bluebells grow in
great profusion; or sit beside a quiet lake, just to think and let your mind
do the wandering, as it will in the peace and quiet that is Ireland. Again,
whatever your final destination, one of the most entertaining places to
visit, especially at night, is a pub that plays music; this will vary from
the traditional Irish to up-to-date well known songs. In another pub it
would seem that a group of musicians will suddenly and surprisingly get
together and play, and in both instances the people will be asked to join
in. If there is room a dance or 'set' will start, and before you know it the
evening has ended, you will have enjoyed it immensely and find that the time
had passed very quickly indeed, and you will sleep beautifully tired and
happy.
Where will you travel - what will you see? So many, many things in this small island of ours, but one thing for sure, you won't want to leave - and you will come back.
With its wealth of literary greats, rebellious spirits, inventors and
craftspeople it is hard to think of a hobby that cannot be pursued on an
Irish holiday. Mass tourism hasn't hit Ireland, where everyday
life moves at its own pace. People, politics and traditions here live on
as if it were another century.
The
island is steeped in rich artistic heritage, spanning literature,
theatre, film, music and fine art. The cities and towns abound with
theatre, including the Abbey, Gate and Gaiety Theatres in Dublin and the
Millennium Forum in Londonderry. Ireland's cultural feasts include The
Belfast Festival At Queens and the Dublin International Film Festival.
Lovers of contemporary art are in for a real treat, with several
galleries that are definitely worth a visit, including the Irish Museum
of Modern Art in Dublin and the Ormeau Baths Gallery in Belfast.
Ireland has inspired many literary greats, with four Nobel Prize-winning
writers in the last century alone: Yeats, Beckett, Shaw and most
recently, Heaney. .
Music is everywhere you go, from the Castle Ward Opera in County Down or
the Wexford Opera Festival, right down to the buskers on the street
corners.
Traditional
Irish music is aplenty and varies from sing-along sessions with a
bódhran, violin or piano accompaniment, to organised festivals such as
the Fiddler's Green Folk Festival in Rostrevor or the Fleadh Cheoil na
hÉireann in the Republic of Ireland. More recently Ireland's great
musical successes include, Van Morrison, James Galway and U2.
Trace the paths to the fame of our artists and performers, comics
and wits, soldiers and statesmen, saints and scholars. Visit the
landscapes that inspired them, listen to the music that moved them, see
the manuscripts that shaped them.
The Gulf Stream, peninsula micro-climates, island showers and cooling
breezes make Ireland a gardener's delight with the yellows of spring, rich
reds of Summer and the golds of autumn being blended in cottage as well as
stately gardens.
Georgian Architecture in Dublin and Armagh, walled cities, round towers
and high crosses are all highly evident and prominently featured in
guidebooks and tours. But students of Norman, Victorian and
Industrial heritage will find Ireland a surprising and rewarding
experience.
 Our
sportsmen compete to the highest of standards in soccer, motor-racing,
golf, athletics, everything to do with horses and angling. The huge
range of facilities is here for you to share and many private clubs open their
doors to visitors with particular relish.
It has to be said that shopping is also a cultural experience not to be
missed. No visit to Waterford or Tyrone is complete without a tour of the
Crystal works and if you are in Fermanagh, you should visit the Belleek
Pottery works, where you can buy fine pottery. You can pick up some of
Northern Ireland's famous linen at the Irish Linen Centre in Lisburn. In
fact, everywhere you go, you'll find countless handmade and traditional
items that will make the perfect memento of your visit to Ireland.
When
you've finished your shopping, why not simply enjoy the pleasures of a
pint in a real Irish pub and enjoy the conversation with the locals.
If you fancy discovering where some of the drink behind the bar comes
from, you should visit the famous distilleries in Ireland such as the
Bushmills Distillery in County Antrim, which is the world's oldest whiskey
distillery or the Old Jameson Distillery in Dublin. Or visit the Guinness
Storehouse in the centre of Dublin, where you'll learn all about the
famous black stuff!
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Reading and Viewing:-
FILMS The Quiet Man Blarney and bliss, mixed in equal proportions. John Wayne plays an American boxer who returns to the Emerald Isle, his native land. What he finds there is a fiery prospective spouse (Maureen O'Hara) and a country greener than any Ireland seen before or since--it's no surprise The Quiet Man won an Oscar for cinematography Into The West Set mainly in the Ireland the tourist board didn't tell you about, Into the West is the story of a "traveling" family who have given up their traditional life of roaming, and find themselves trying to make it in the gritty, violent projects of Dublin. Gabriel Byrne is excellent as Papa Reilly, a once-proud father and leader whose grief over his wife's death has turned him into a booze-sodden has-been. The Purple Taxi Starring: Fred Astaire, Charlotte Rampling, Peter Ustinov, Southern Ireland provides the picturesque setting for this drama about 3 wealthy foreigners who take refuge there. The Commitments Alan Parker's film follows the rise and fall of a young Irish soul band; the story is based on the first part of Roddy Doyle's 'Barrytown Trilogy'. The films strong soul music soundtrack includes A Little Tenderness, Mustang Sally and Midnight Hour. Ryan's Daughter The score (by Maurice Jarre) and the photography (Freddie Young) won a most deserved Oscar for) is breathtaking and Sarah Miles is so beautiful she takes your breath away. Set in Ireland during World War I. Starring: Robert Mitchum, Trevor Howard, The Field The place and time: Ireland, 1939. Memories of the great potato famine (1845-49) still persist, as do the country's feudal farming practices. Richard Harris is Bull McCabe, a patriarchal tenant farmer with a ferocious temper and an obsession with the field he has rented for most of his life from a wealthy widow (Frances Tomelty). Far and Away A tale of spunky Irish immigrants. The movie is really just a vehicle for married stars Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman as (respectively) the poor tenant farmer and rich landlord's daughter who flee Ireland to be American pioneers. Barry Lyndon starring Marisa Berenson, Patrick Magee, Ryan O'Neal A picaresque story about an Irish lad (Ryan O'Neal, then a major star) who climbs his way into high society, Barry Lyndon bewildered some critics (Pauline Kael called it "an ice-pack of a movie") and did only middling business with patient audiences. The film was clearly a technical advance, with its unique camerawork (incorporating the use of prototype Zeiss lenses capable of filming by actual candlelight) and sumptuous production design. But its hero is a distinctly underwhelming, even unsympathetic fellow, and Kubrick does not try to engage the audience's emotions in anything like the usual way. Circle of Friends Based on the Maeve Binchy novel of the same title - a coming-of-age story involving the lives and loves of three young Irish girls in late 1950s Dublin. Stifled by the small village community in which they grew up, the girls jump at the chance to leave Knockglen to attend college in Dublin. Three Catholic innocents, the girls become involved with the social whirl of college dances, parties and men... Widow's Peak A quaint Irish town is set buzzing when a sexy, secretive stranger arrives, seducing the men and manipulating the women in this comic murder-mystery. High Spirits When impoverished actor Peter O'Toole decides to save his ancestral estate by advertising it to tourists as a "haunted castle," he never dreamed the real ghosts would show up! Hauntingly funny comedy Waking Ned Devine When local wag Jackie O'Shea (Ian Bannen) discovers that one of his neighbors in the village of Tulaigh Mohr is a lottery winner he sees a chance to share in the wealth. Things get complicated when Jackie and his pal Michael O'Sullivan (David Kelly) discover that the winner, Ned Devine, died of shock at the very moment he learned of becoming a millionaire. Undaunted, Jackie and Michael dispose of the lucky stiff and hatch a plot to impersonate him and claim the prize. Soon the whole village is involved and the plot rapidly thickens. War of the Buttons Out of the mouths and minds of babes: When kids from two Irish villages battle for turf and pride in a movie called War Of The Buttons, their world is brought into sharp focus. Dancing at Lughnasa The summer of 1936 is beautiful, but Europe is on the verge of terrible change. Through that glorious summer, at the very edge of Europe, in Ballybeg, Donegal, the Mundy family shelter in their small home - five sisters, on brother and Michael, the love child of Christina, the youngest sister. The film is seen through the eyes of the boy as he feels the joy and security of his close-knit clan, but its secrets and sorrows begin to break through. They will tear this world apart. The arrival of Gerry, Michael's father, on his way to fight for Franco in Spain, unleashes repressed passion. The Eden of Ballybeg is changed forever. The memory of that summer haunts Michael forever, memories of love and loss, of women dancing, dancing as if their lives depended on it. The Last September Danielstown is the country home of Sir Richard Naylor and his wife, Lady Myra around the time of the Irish struggle for independence. Behind the façade of set-piece dinners, tennis parties and army-camp dances, however, all know that their essentially feudal way of life is coming to an end. Lady Myra's niece, Lois, who is being courted by a captain in the British army, is lured by the menacingly playful and violent young man who has taken up residence at the bottom of the garden. What unfolds is a portrait of the demise of a way of life and a young woman's coming of age in a dangerous time. A Love Divided Set in a seaside town in 1950's Ireland, this is the passionate story of love that is challenged by the dogma of an insular society. Based on an actual event, this film explores the shattering impact of one woman's decision to stand up for her principles. Sheila, a young Protestant woman marries her true love, Catholic farmer Sean Cloney and they take the 'Ne Temere' pledge to bring up their children as Catholics. Father Stafford, the local parish priest, exerts pressure on Sean to send their children to the local Catholic school. Sheila resists and their commitment to one another is put to the ultimate test. All Things Bright and Beautiful Set in Ireland in the 1950s, this is the story of nine year old Barry
O'Neill, altar boy and innocent, who has a vision of the Blessed Virgin Mary
and the ensuing snowball of religious euphoria that threatens to turn him
into a saint. Frankie Starlight Based on Chet Raymo's novel The Dork from Cork, Frankie tells the story of his mother, Bernadette, a beautiful French girl who stows away on an American troopship returning from the Second World War. Discovered, she is put ashore in Cork where she gives birth to Frankie, who is a dwarf. Bernadette then has an affair with Jack Kelly, a Customs officer. He has a passion for astrology and teaches Frankie about the stars. Many nights on the rooftop and telescopic sights later, little Frankie rationalises his own fate through the stars. His astral affinity and his passion for knowledge finally enables him to triumph in both love and life. Books History Thomas Cahill How the Irish Saved CivilizationSubtitled "The untold story of Ireland's heroic role from the fall of Rome to the rise of medieval Europe," this national bestseller explores the origins of the Irish soul and offers insights into the Irish character. During the Middle Ages, when learning, scholarship and high culture disappeared from Europe, the Irish preserved classical learning for later centuries and civilizations. In this island of saints and scholars, monks and scribes labored to reproduce these works and then spread the learning as they evangelized Europe. This book is a very interesting look at this forgotten chapter in history. Roy Foster The Oxford History of Ireland or Modern Ireland 1600-1972 Cecil Woodham Smith, The Great Hunger (Penguin). Definitive, harrowing history of the Famine Guide Books Eyewitness Travel Guide Ireland • Accounts of life in Ireland Tomás Ó Criomhtháin, (sometimes Thomas O'Crohan), An tOileánach; in English, The Islandman (Oxford University Press). Similar to Ó Conaire but non-fiction and, if possible, even more raw. Peig Sayers, An Old Woman's Reflections (Oxford University Press). Unfortunately, Sayers's complacent acceptance of her own powerlessness is still held up as an example to Irish schoolchildren. Still, in spite of itself, a frightening insight into the eradication of the Irish language through emigration, poverty and political failure. A funny deconstruction of the Sayers style is Flann O'Brien's An Beál Bocht; in English, The Poor Mouth (Paladin/Dalkey Archive). Tony
Hawks Round
Ireland With a Fridge Pete McCarthy McCarthy's Bar: A Journey of Discovery in Ireland Novels Maria Edgeworth, Castle Rackrent (Penguin/Oxford University Press). Best of the "Big House" books, in which Edgeworth displays a subversively subtle sympathy with her peasant narrator. Would have shocked her fellow aristos if they'd been able to figure it out. J.G. Farrell Troubles James Joyce, Dubliners (Penguin); Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Penguin); Molly Keane, Good Behaviour (Abacus/Knopf, o/p). Highly successful comic reworking of the "Big House" novel Edna O'Brien, Johnnie I Hardly Knew You (Weidenfeld/Avon Books, o/p); The Country Girls (Penguin/NAL-Dutton). Sensitively wrought novels from a top-class writer sometimes accused, unjustly, of wavering too much towards Mills and Boon Flann O'Brien, The Third Policeman (Penguin/NAL-Dutton). O'Brien's masterpiece of the ominously absurd and fiendishly humorous. At Swim-Two-Birds (Penguin/NAL-Dutton) is a complicated and hilarious blend of Gaelic fable and surrealism; essential reading E.O. Somerville and (Violet) Martin Ross, Some Recollections and Further Experiences of an Irish RM (UK Dent). The needle pushes the begorra factor a little too heavily here and there, but Somerville and Ross write with witty flair and are very significant for what they reveal. James Stephens, The Crock of Gold (US Irish Books & Media); The Charwoman's Daughter (Gill & Macmillan, o/p/North Books). Two fabulous masterpieces from the country's most underrated genius. William Trevor, Stories (Penguin). Five of Trevor's short-story collections in one volume, revealing more about Ireland than many a turgid sociological thesis. Often desperately moving, Trevor is one of the true giants of Irish fiction. James Plunkett Strumpet City Elizabeth Bowen The Last September Eoin Colfer Artemis Fowl Twelve-year-old Artemis Fowl is the most ingenious criminal mastermind in history. With two trusty sidekicks in tow, he hatches a cunning plot to divest the fairyfolk of their pot of gold. Johnston, Jennifer. How Many Miles to Babylon, The Gates, Llywelyn, Morgan.Granuaile
: The Pirate Queen Poetry Paul Durcan, A Snail in My Prime (Harvill/Penguin); O Westport in the Light of Asia Minor (UK Harvill); The Berlin Wall Café (Harvill/Dufour). Ireland's most popular and readable poet. Berlin Wall is a lament for a broken marriage, recounted with agonizing honesty, dignity and, ultimately, forgiveness. Seamus Heaney, Death of a Naturalist (Faber); Selected Poems, Station Island and Seeing Things (Faber/Farrar Straus & Giroux). The most important Irish poet since Yeats. His poems are immediate and passionate, even when dealing with intellectual problems and radical social divisions. The Redress of Poetry (Faber, o/p/Farrar, Straus & Giroux) is an example of his energetic prose, consisting of the lectures he gave while Professor of Poetry at Oxford from 1989 to 1994. Patrick Kavanagh, Collected Poems (Martin Brien & O'Keefe/Flat Iron). Joyfully mystic exploration of the rural countryside and the lives of its inhabitants by Ireland's most popular poet. See also his autobiographical novel, Tarry Flynn (Penguin/Proscenium). William Butler Yeats, The Poems (Papermac/Cassel). They're all here, poems of rhapsody, love, revolution and eventual rage at a disconnected and failed Ireland "fumbling in the greasy till."
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It
is first of all a country of poets. Indeed, Irishmen play upon their
language as well as they play upon their musical instruments, plunging us
into despair one moment and rapture the next. And they do love playing.
(‘My one claim to fame in Ireland is that I have never made a speech’.)
They seem to have time, when the rest of us have ulcers. They see humour
where we see trouble, and are wry with it. (‘A woman drove me to drink and
I never even had the courtesy to thank her’.) They are lyrical, romantic,
tough and hopeful – banking heavily on God having a sense of humour.