Ireland, an island of the Atlantic Ocean, is part of the British Isles. It comprises the Republic of Ireland and the British nation of Northern Ireland.

Regions

Northern Ireland Despite being off the traditional tourist trail, Northern Ireland offers a colourful history, exceptional natural beauty, rapidly-developing cities and warmly welcoming inhabitants.

Republic of Ireland The Republic has a rich culture that, along with its people, has been exported around the world. It has an expansive and fascinating history, with a landscape that never ceases to astound.

Cities

• 1 Armagh — The ecclesiastic capital of Ireland, for both the (Anglican) Church of Ireland and the Roman Catholic Church.
• 2 Belfast — The capital of Northern Ireland and a cultural meeting point between Britain and Ireland.
• 3 Cork — Founded c. 600 CE by St Finbarre and known for great food (especially seafood), pubs, shopping and festivals. If you venture outside of the city along the coastline which borders the Atlantic Ocean, you will find long windy beaches, beautiful villages with history, castles and an array of outdoor activities.
• 4 Derry (Londonderry) — The fourth city of Ireland is well worth a visit for its famous stone city walls (which date from the 16th century and are the only complete city walls in Ireland).
• 5 Dublin — Home of Guinness and Western Roman Catholicism, the Republic's capital is more than just a pretty face.
• 6 Galway — A colourful party town: lots of great food, trad music and ales. Just west is the haunting mountain scenery of Connemara.
• 7 Waterford, Ireland's oldest city, has a rich mix of Viking, medieval and Georgian heritage.

Other destinations

Giant's Causeway, known for its remarkable basalt columns

• 1 Brú Na Bóinne in County Meath are impressive neolithic monuments, the oldest dating back to 3100 BC.
• 2 The Burren is a haunting, barren limestone upland in County Clare. It ends abruptly in the great Cliffs of Moher.
• 3 Giant's Causeway — 40,000 basalt rocks rise spectacularly out of the sea at Northern Ireland's only UNESCO site.
• 4 Dingle Peninsula — an Irish-speaking region in the southwest corner of Ireland
• 5 Lough Neagh (Loch nEathach) — at 51 square miles (392 km²) is the largest lake by area in the British Isles. Five of the six counties of Northern Ireland have shores on the Lough. Popular destination for fishing and birdwatching.

Understand

Known as the "Emerald Isle", Ireland is the second-largest island of the British Isles, the third-largest in Europe, and the twentieth-largest on Earth. Ireland has two cultures: the historical Gaelic culture (including one of the oldest literatures in Western Europe) and the more recent English-speaking culture which largely replaced it.

History

The earliest evidence of human presence in Ireland goes back to 10,500 BCE. During the Iron Age (beginning c. 800 BCE) a Celtic language and culture emerged in Ireland. The island was Christianised from the 5th century onward. The Normans invaded in the early 12th century CE and set in place Ireland's uneasy position within England's sphere of influence. However, English rule did not extend over the whole island until the end of the Elizabethan period.

Irish society and culture were most severely disrupted during the Cromwellian period in the 17^th century. With the Acts of Union in 1801, Ireland became a part of the Kingdom of Great Britain, which was renamed to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

A war of independence in the early 20th century was followed by the independence of 26 of Ireland's counties known as the Irish Free State; the remaining six counties remained part of the United Kingdom as Northern Ireland. In 1949 the Irish Free State became "Ireland", also known as the Republic of Ireland.

Ireland's history post-partition has been marked to some extent by violence. A period known as "The Troubles", generally regarded as beginning in the late 1960s, saw large scale confrontation between opposing paramilitary groups seeking to either keep Northern Ireland as part of the United Kingdom or bring it into the Republic. A peace settlement known as the Good Friday Agreement was finally approved in 1998 and is being implemented.

Talk

A trilingual sign in Northern Ireland showing Irish (middle) and Ulster Scots (bottom) translations

Almost everyone speak English as their first language. However, it may surprise visitors that in some areas English is not the first language used for local communication, and the second most widespread language of Ireland is Irish, natively called Gaeilge. There are traditional native speakers of Irish in remote (and usually scenic) rural areas known as Gaeltachtaí. Generally speaking, you are far more likely to meet an Irish speaker in the Republic than in Northern Ireland. Ulster Scots, an Anglic language developed from the Northumbrian dialect of Old English, is spoken mainly in Northern Ireland.

Get in

Visitors may find more useful information in the "Get in" sections of the specific region they wish to enter.

By plane

See also: Flying in Europe

The island of Ireland has five major international airports: Dublin (DUB ^IATA), Shannon (SNN ^IATA) in County Clare, Cork (ORK ^IATA), Belfast City (BHD ^IATA) and Belfast International (BFS ^IATA).

Ireland's two major airlines are Aer Lingus and Ryanair.

By boat

Britain and Ireland are linked by a number of ferry routes, with the busiest and quickest crossing being Holyhead to Dublin, operated by Irish Ferries and Stena Line in competition. Ferries ply to Ireland from France and Spain as well.

Get around

The Common Travel Area

Crossing between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland is often hardly noticeable

The Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland maintain a common travel area, somewhat akin to the Schengen Area on continental Europe. Broadly speaking, crossing the borders is very simple compared with most other international borders.

Ireland and the United Kingdom have been separate countries for almost a century, but for the most part both have found it beneficial to maintain relatively open borders. However, because of the way it has developed over the years, the Common Travel Area arrangement is not as formalised as other similar arrangements (such as the Schengen Area), and so the exact rules can be quite complex for some third country nationals.

By train

See also: Rail travel in Ireland

The Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland have nationalised systems, with just one company operating services in each and cross border services jointly operated.

Trains in Northern Ireland are operated by "Translink" who run all buses and trains in Northern Ireland including the cross border train service between Northern Ireland and Ireland the enterprise jointly with their counterparts in Ireland Irish rail

By bus

Bus is the predominant form of public transport across Ireland. Buses ply hourly between Belfast, Dublin Airport and Dublin Busáras the main bus station, taking about 3 hours. Other cross-border routes are between Dublin and Derry, Belfast and Monaghan, and Belfast and Enniskillen with connections to Sligo and Galway.

By car

Apart from changes to the road surface and road signs, you probably won't notice much of a difference when actually crossing the convoluted and often obscure international boundary between the six counties of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. One key difference, though, is that road signs in Northern Ireland are in miles and mph, while those in the Republic are in kilometres and km/h.

Road signs in Northern Ireland are written in English only. Road signs in the Republic of Ireland are bilingual in Irish and English, except for the Gaeltachtaí, where signs are exclusively in Irish. You can drive your hire car from any Common Travel Area (see above) country to any other, although many hire companies charge an extra fee for doing so.

By plane

A handful of internal flights operates within the Republic, but there are no cross-border routes.

See

Cliffs of Moher

• Dublin, the obvious centre and primate city of Ireland, is a must-see and one of a very limited means of entry to Ireland via Dublin Airport and Port.
• Giant's Causeway is a World Heritage Site and National Nature Reserve. The Giant's Causeway is essentially an area of coastline and cliffs with very unusual and distinctive volcanic stone formations.

Do

• Ireland has a bustling scene for folk and popular music; see Music in Britain and Ireland.
• Rugby union is played on an all-Ireland basis, with the Irish national team featuring players from both Northern Ireland and the Republic.
• Learn Irish: a minority language in Ireland and an official language of the Republic, but it's making a comeback.

Buy

Currency

The currency in the Republic of Ireland is the euro and the currency in Northern Ireland, as part of the UK, is the pound sterling. So be sure to exchange your euro into pounds (or vice versa) before crossing the border.

There's a lot of cross-border trading in Ireland, and therefore many outlets in border areas and urban centres accept the euro. Most retailers will display whether they accept euros or not.

Eat

Irish cuisine encompasses the cooking styles, traditions and recipes associated with the island of Ireland. It has evolved from centuries of social and political change and the mixing of different cultures, predominantly with those from nearby Britain and other European regions. The cuisine is founded upon the crops and animals farmed in its temperate climate and the abundance of fresh fish and seafood from the surrounding waters of the Atlantic Ocean. Chowder, for example, is popular around the coasts.

Common food

• Dairy: butter, milk, buttermilk, cheese
• Grains: barley, oats, wheat
• Freshwater fish: pollan, trout, salmon, smoked salmon, smoked trout
• Seafood: mackerel, cod, hake, haddock, smoked haddock, mussels, oysters, lobster, crab, sea vegetables (seaweeds), dillisk
• Meat: beef, chicken, duck, lamb, pork, turkey, goose, offal
• Vegetables: curly kale, potatoes, carrots, onions, cabbage, rhubarb
• Fruits: apple, pear, plum, blackberry, strawberry, raspberry, tomatoes
• Herbs: parsley, thyme, rosemary, chives.
• Spices: cinnamon, nutmeg, mixed spice, black pepper.

Breads

• Barmbrack—a kind of currant cake which contains a golden ring. Traditionally eaten around Halloween.
• Blaa—a doughy, white bread bun
• Goody—a dessert
• Oatcake
• Potato bread
• Soda bread—a yeast-free bread
• Soda farl—a traditional food in Ulster, especially in East Donegal, Inishowen and Northern Ireland
• Veda bread (popular in Ulster)
• Wheaten bread

Pork dishes

• Bacon and cabbage
• Black pudding—a traditional dish made from pig's blood, barley and seasoning
• Coddle—main ingredients: pork sausage, back bacon and potato
• Crubeens—pig's trotters
• Skirts and kidneys—a kind of pork stew
• White pudding—suet, oatmeal or barley, pork meat or liver

Potato dishes

• Boxty—a potato pancake
• Champ—main ingredients: mashed potato, scallions, butter and milk
• Colcannon—main ingredients: mashed potato, kale or cabbage, and butter

Seafood

The consumption of seafood, despite Ireland's enormous coastline, is not as common as in other maritime countries. Irish people eat seafood well below the European average. It may have been more common in the past but declined markedly in the last few centuries.

Irish-owned shipping was severely restricted under English governance from the late 16th century on. Ireland was traditionally a cattle-based economy and fish was associated with religious fasting. It was the traditional food of fast on Fridays, in common with other Catholic countries. Also, seafood—particularly shellfish—became associated with the poor and the shame of colonisation. However, seafood has remained an important part of the diet in coastal communities, and the consumption of fresh fish and seafood is now undergoing a resurgence all over Ireland.

In Dublin, the fish seller is celebrated in the traditional folk song Molly Malone, and in Galway the international Galway Oyster Festival is held every September. An example of a modern Irish shellfish dish is Dublin Lawyer (lobster cooked in whiskey and cream). Salmon and cod are perhaps the two most common types of fish eaten. Carrageen moss and dulse (both types of red algae) are commonly used in Irish seafood dishes.

Seaweed, by contrast, has always been an important part of the Irish diet and remains popular today. Two popular forms are dillisk (known in Ulster as dulse; Palmaria palmata) and Irish moss (carageen moss, Chondrus crispus, Mastocarpus stellatus).

Others

• Breakfast roll
• Chicken fillet roll
• Drisheen—a kind of black pudding
• Irish breakfast
• Irish stew—lamb and mutton stew
• Porridge
• Spice bag

Drink

Non-alcoholit

• Brown lemonade (usually only found in Ulster)
• Red lemonade
• Cavan Cola
• McDaid's Football Special (usually only found in the west of Ulster)
• Irish breakfast tea
• Cidona
• Tanora
• Club

Alcoholic

• Whiskey (particularly pure pot still whiskey) such as Jameson Irish Whiskey, Paddy Whiskey, and Bushmills
• Porter or stout such as Guinness, Murphy's Irish Stout, and Beamish stout
• Irish red ale such as Smithwick's
• Lager
• Irish coffee, made with strong black coffee, whiskey, sugar, and whipped cream
• Irish cream such as Baileys
• Irish Mist
• Mead
• Poitín, a very strong (often homemade) spirit made from potatoes or barley
• Cider, such as Magners / Bulmers

Stay safe

Dial 999 or 112 for all emergency services. On the whole, this is a very safe region of Europe, with few direct threats to visitors, but you should consult the Stay safe section of the areas you're visiting as most safety issues are localised.

Respect

Generally speaking, the people of Ireland are welcoming, friendly and well-humoured. Foreign nationals claiming they are ‘Irish’ just because of an ancestor will likely be met with amusement, although this may become annoyance or anger should they then express their views related to The Troubles.

Politically, the people of Ireland are divided into two groups:

• The Nationalists support separating Northern Ireland from the UK to join it with the Republic.
• The Unionists support integrating maintaining Northern Ireland as part of the UK.

Go next

• England
• Scotland
• Wales