Portal:Ireland

The Music of Ireland has shown an immense inflation of popularity with many attempting to return to their roots. Ireland is internationally known for its folk music, which has remained a vibrant tradition throughout the 1st century, when many traditional forms worldwide lost popularity to pop music. In spite of emigration and a well-developed connection to music imported from Britain and the United States, Irish music has kept many of its traditional aspects. Read more...

George Best (22 May 1946 – 25 November 2005) was a Northern Irish football player best known for his years with Manchester United. He was a winger whose game combined pace, acceleration, balance, two-footedness, goalscoring and the ability to beat defenders. In 1968, his annus mirabilis, he won the European Cup with Manchester United, and was named the European Footballer of the Year. When fit, he was an automatic choice for the Northern Ireland team, but he was unable to lead them to the FIFA World Cup tournament.

In 1999 he was voted 11th, behind Marco van Basten, at the IFFHS European Player of the Century election and 16th, behind Lothar Matthäus, in the World Player of the Century election. Pelé named him as one of the 125 best living footballers in his 2004 FIFA 100 list and Best was named 19th, behind Gerd Müller, at the UEFA Golden Jubilee Poll. In his native Northern Ireland the admiration for him is summed up by the local saying: "Maradona good; Pelé better; George Best."

He was one of the first celebrity footballers, but his extravagant lifestyle led to problems with alcoholism which curtailed his playing career and eventually led to his death at the age of 59. His cause of death was a kidney infection, a side-effect of the immuno-suppressive drugs he was required to take after a liver transplant. Best's lovable, cheeky image won him many fans, during his career and after, despite his public drunkenness on TV, his convictions for drunk driving and assaulting a policeman, allegations of domestic violence, and his inability to give up drinking even after the transplant. 100,000 people turned out on a rainy day for his funeral in East Belfast. Read more...

Dublin is the capital and largest city of Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, part of the Wicklow Mountains range. Dublin is the largest city by population on the island of Ireland; at the 2022 census, the city council area had a population of 592,713, while the city, including suburbs, had a population of 1,263,219, and County Dublin had a population of 1,501,500. Various definitions of a metropolitan Greater Dublin Area exist.

A settlement was established in the area by the Gaels during or before the 7th century, followed by the Vikings. As the Kingdom of Dublin grew, it became Ireland's principal settlement by the 12th century, following the Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland. Dublin expanded rapidly from the 17th century and was briefly the second largest city in the British Empire and sixth largest in Western Europe after the Acts of Union in 1800. Following independence in 1922, Dublin became the capital of the Irish Free State, renamed Ireland in 1937. As of 2018, Dublin was listed by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network (GaWC) as a global city, with a ranking of "Alpha minus", which placed it among the top thirty cities in the world. (Full article...)

• ...that Limerick city was besieged three times in the 17th century?
• ...Irish Times journalist Arthur Quinlan has interviewed every US president since Harry Truman?
• ...that gas bubbles travel downwards in a pint glass of Guinness ale?
• ...The Wanderings of Oisin, published in 1889, was Yeats' first publication outside of magazines, immediately winning his reputation as a significant poet?
• ...that Irish songwriter Christy Moore wrote a comic song about the building of the Knock Airport, which transports hundreds of pilgrims to and from the Roman Catholic shrine at Knock, declaring, "I've never seen a miracle like the airport up in Knock"?
• ...that, unlike oft-violent hurling, its female variant, camogie, forbids any unnecessary physical contact?