Irish Interest

Grand, awe-inspiring and beautiful, the `Big House' is widely viewed as a jewel in the Irish landscape today. Despite this, the relationship between the country house and the state has...

The Million Dollar Decision incisively diagnoses the causes of educational disadvantage in Ireland. From creche to university, we see how educational practices nurture or negate a student's potential. Stretching beyond...

Sean Lysaght first saw sea eagles on a visit to Norway in 2001 and since then has been captivated by their fortunes, and those of Ireland's other species - the...

Irish houses have a character and personality quite different from that found anywhere else. Quixotic, often whimsical and definitely quirky, they provide a sanctuary from the Irish climate, which is...

The Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland (EMIR) is the first comprehensive attempt to chart Irish musical life across recorded history. It also documents Ireland's musical relations with the world at...

This revised edition of a bestseller was Kevin Dwyer's response to a steady flow of constructive feedback from all around Ireland. In a spectacular bird's eye journey around Ireland's glorious...

This beautifully illustrated volume examines the nationally and internationally important holdings of the Library of the Royal Irish Academy, Dublin. The book celebrates the diversity of the works that the...

What can we learn from the folk wisdom of our ancestors? For centuries, Irish proverbs or seanfhocail have provided memorable insights into everyday experiences such as love, marriage, happiness and...

The Irish landscape is alive with pagan powers, gods and spirits. Inside every hill are feasting halls of otherworldly beings who sometimes emerge into our realm, or entice the unwary...

What kind of a world was St Patrick born into? Why were his visions and dreams considered so dangerous by the early church? How much do we really know about...

Did you know that Muckross literally means 'the pleasant place of swine'? Or that the poet Percy B. Shelly thought the Arbutus Islands of Killarney superior to Lake Como of...

In 2019, Caz Mooney and her family embarked on a Low-Spend Year - a year without spending unnecessarily on takeaways, nights out, new clothes, holidays or extracurricular activities. By the...

This atlas consists of around ninety articles from over fifty contributors covering a wide range of topics that are central to the cultural and natural heritage of Donegal. While the...

This is a major update of this bestselling work on the Irish landscape. When it appeared in 1997, it was instantly hailed as a pioneering volume in increasing appreciation of...

In 1879 local people reported an apparition of the Virgin Mary and other supernatural personages at Knock, a poor rural village in western Ireland. In contrast to devotional or dismissive...

A collection of legends from early Christian times, in which the author retells the stories with a directness and simplicity which makes them refreshingly modern. The stories have a literary...

Mapping the changes that have occurred in Irish literature over the past fifty years, this volume includes twenty-one writers, poets, and playwrights from the North and South of Ireland, who...

With the next, big ten-part series in 2014, the BBC will be celebrating the 10th anniversary and the 100th episode of Who Do You Think You Are?, providing a fantastic...

How does a city survive its worst recession in living memory?Cork entered the 1980s with swagger. The 1970s had been dominated nationally by the city's favourite son, Jack Lynch, who...

`I can think of no other edifice constructed by man as altruistic as a lighthouse. They were built only to serve.' George Bernard ShawSince ancient times, long before GPS, radio...

Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way, With blossomed furze unprofitably gay, There, in his noisy mansion, skill'd to rule, The village master taught his little schoolOliver Goldsmith, `The...

Step back in time with this accessible walking guide to the revolutionary history of Dublin. John Gibney and Donal Fallon have spent years leading historical walking tours through the city,...

Born Abraham Feldman in 1901, Arthur Fields was from a Ukrainian Jewish family who fled anti-Semitism. From the 1930s to the 1980s, he stood on Dublin's O'Connell Bridge taking photographs...

Scrambling is a hands-on sport and without the stop-start of rock climbing, the joy of it can be appreciated more freely. Here, Alan Tees guides mountaineers to exhilarating scrambles in...

There's more to Irish bird folklore than the 'wran' boys and the Children of Lir. Birds have been part of our culture from very early times and there are countless...

Carrowkeel Passage Tomb in Sligo is an extensive Neolithic passage tomb undisturbed since its excavation in 1911. Robert Praeger, one of the excavators, described being one of the first to...

Before Aer Lingus made its first transatlantic flight, in a time when few Irish people could dream of taking to the air, intrepid aviator Alexander 'Monkey' Campbell Morgan (1919-1958) roamed...

From medieval Carlingford in Louth to Blarney Castle in Cork, discover the top 100 places to visit in Ireland's Ancient East. Wander through time at sites such as Clonmacnoise, Newgrange...

Niall Mac Coitir provides a comprehensive look at the folklore, legends and history of animals in Ireland, and describes their relations with people, being hunted for food, fur, sport, or...

River and canal walks can have special appeal, the scenery always changing due to flowing water, weirs, locks and the changing countryside. Ireland's rivers and canals are rich in wildlife,...

How do you take your tea? Tea leaves or teabag? Milk or sugar, weak or strong? Mug or fine bone china? Tea fanatic Juanita Browne investigates our tea habits and...

Studying geology in the field will draw anyone curious about how our planet works into the field time and time again. Ireland is endowed with a spectacular variety of geology....

Duine de sharscealaithe na GaeilgeIn Eanair 1952, se bliana sula bhfuair Peig Sayers bas, thionscain Coimisiun Bealoideasa Eireann agallaimh lei agus i in ospideal Naomh Anna, Baile Atha Cliath. Bhi...

The Oratory of the Sacred Heart was built by the Dominican nuns of St Mary's Convent, Kingstown (Dun Laoghaire), to celebrate peace at the end of the First World War....

In his travelogue of the abandoned 50-mile route along the Ulster Canal, Darach MacDonald presents a close-up narrative history of Ireland. On his journey through five of Ulster's nine counties,...

A book that met with stern opposition from both the publishing industry and the Gaelgeoiri they were afraid of offending when the manuscript was first circulated in 1999, this collection...

It's exhausting, being Irish. The constant self-flagellation is enough to put anybody off their breakfast.Why are we so hard on ourselves? Is it the post-colonial overhang following centuries of oppression...