Skellig Michael (from Sceilig Mhichíl in the Irish language, meaning Michael's rock), also known as Great Skellig, is a steep rocky island about 15 kilometres west of the coast of County Kerry, Ireland. It is the larger of the two Skellig Islands. For 600 years the island was an important centre of monastic life for Irish Christian monks. An Irish Celtic monastery, which is situated almost at the summit of the 230-metre-high rock, was built in 588, and became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996. It is one of Europe's better known but least accessible monasteries.

Since the extreme remoteness of Skellig Michael has until recently discouraged visitors, the site is exceptionally well preserved. The very spartan conditions inside the monastery illustrate the ascetic lifestyle practiced by early Irish Christians. The monks lived in stone 'beehive' huts (clochans), perched above nearly vertical cliff walls. Read more...

George Augustus Moore (24 February 1852 – 21 January 1933) was an Irish novelist, short-story writer, poet, art critic, memoirist and dramatist. Moore came from a Roman Catholic landed family. He originally wanted to be a painter, and studied art in Paris during the 1870s. There, he befriended many of the leading French artists and writers of the day.

As a naturalistic writer, he was amongst the first English-language authors to absorb the lessons of the French realists, and was particularly influenced by the works of Émile Zola. His writings influenced James Joyce, according to the literary critic and biographer Richard Ellmann, and, although Moore's work is sometimes seen as outside the mainstream of both Irish and British literature, he is as often regarded as the first great modern Irish novelist. Read more...

Irish Linen Museum and Christ Church Cathedral

Lisburn (/ˈlɪzbɜːrn, ˈlɪsbɜːrn/; from Irish Lios na gCearrbhach [ˌl̠ʲɪsˠ n̪ˠə ˈɟaːɾˠwəx]) is a city in Northern Ireland. It is 8 mi (13 km) southwest of Belfast city centre, on the River Lagan, which forms the boundary between County Antrim and County Down. First laid out in the 17th century by English and Welsh settlers, with the arrival of French Huguenots in the 18th century, the town developed as a global centre of the linen industry.

• ...that City Hall in Cork was paid for by the British government as a gesture of reconciliation during the 1930s to replace the one burned down by British forces during the War of Independence?
• ...that the English phrase "By Hook or by Crook" is said to be derived from attempts to take Waterford in 1649 by Hook, meaning Hook Head on the east side of Waterford Harbour, or by Crook, a village on the west side of the harbour?
• ...that Private James Daly, who led the Connaught Rangers mutiny in India during the War of Independence, was the last member of the British armed forces to be executed for mutiny?
• ...that Dublin University Football Club, Trinity's rugby union club, established in 1854, has a strong claim to be the world's oldest football club?