About Ireland It's said that Ireland, once visited, is never forgotten, and for once the blarney rings true. The Irish landscape has a mythic resonance, the country's history is almost tangible, and its people seem put on earth expressly to restore faith in humanity.
The weather may sometimes give you the impression that you're swimming through an airborne ocean, but the truly luminous greens, luxuriant wildflowers, and afternoons spent holed up in riotous pubs will more than console you for the webbed feet you'll need to grow.

Places to See
Religion has always been Ireland's meat and drink, and there are an abundance of sacred sites, from stone circles and dolmens to 1000-year-old early Christian churches. Castles, forts, musuems and mansions, many with exquisite gardens, dot the countryside.

When To Go
If you go to Ireland in July or August, you can expect reasonably warm weather, longer days and a lively menu of festivals. However, this is peak season, which presents some challenges if you're wanting a bit of solitude. Spring and autumn can also be delightful seasons, with smaller crowds of tourists. Winter weather can be downright inhospitable, but Ireland (the west coast in particular) does look beautiful in the rain, and there's nearly always a pub nearby to duck into. However, in many Irish towns restaurants and B&Bs close down around October and don't reopen until Easter. With a few advance phone calls you can avoid getting stranded somewhere with no place to sleep or eat.

Events Overview
Many diverse events and festivals take place around the country over the year. February sees the Dublin International Film Festival. At Easter many small towns hold parades and townsfolk gorge themselves on chocolate eggs. June 16 is Bloomsday in Dublin, with re-enactments of Ulysses and readings throughout the city. Listowel in County Kerry holds a Writers' Week literary festival during June, and there's a Jazz & Blues Festival in Belfast. July is when marching really gets into its stride in Northern Ireland, and every Orangeman hits the streets on the Glorious 12th to celebrate the Protestant victory at the Battle of the Boyne.
August is equestrian month, with the Dublin Horse Show and races in Tralee. Also in county Kerry, at Killorglin, the ancient Puck Fair heralds unrestricted drinking for days and nights. In September, Cork has its Film Festival and Belfast has a Folk Festival. In October, Dublin has its Theatre Festival, Ballinasloe in County Galway hosts the country's largest cattle and horse fair, and Kinsale in County Cork is home to Ireland's gourmet festival. In Wexford the November Opera Festival is an international event. Christmas is a quiet affair in the countryside, though on 26 December the ancient practice of Wren Boys is reenacted, when groups of children, traditional musicians and Irish dancers perform at area homes, asking donations in exchange for a year's worth of good luck.

Weather Overview
Despite its northern latitude, Ireland's climate is moderated by the Gulf Stream, bringing the dregs of Caribbean balminess, as well as turtles and triggerfish. The temperature only drops below freezing intermittently during the winter and snow is scarce. Summers aren't really that hot, rarely hitting 30° C (86° F), but it stays light until around 23:00. Whatever the time of year, be prepared for rain because Ireland is wet. The heaviest rain usually falls where the scenery is best: luscious County Kerry can be drizzle-bound on as many as 270 days of the year. If you do find the rain getting you down you might find some comfort in the Irish saying: 'It doesn't rain in the pub'!

Overview
Music is the backbone of Irish culture: in every country pub you'll find someone striking up a tune of an evening, and the country is famous for its musical exports - everyone from Enya to the Pogues. The Irish sense for rhythm and poetry extends to its literary tradition. If you took all the Irish writers off the university reading lists for English Literature the degree course could probably be shortened by a year.
Irish film has put up a strong showing in recent years, and while the country is not (with a few urban-sophisticate exceptions) known for its swanky cuisine, it does excel in cold-weather comfort food like treacle breads, chunky stews and filled pancakes.

Modern History
The bloody repercussions of the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin added impetus to the push for Irish independence and in Britain's 1918 general election the Irish republicans won a large majority of the Irish seats. They declared Ireland independent and formed the first Dail Eireann (Irish assembly or lower house), under the leadership of Eamon de Valera, a surviving hero of the Easter Rising. This provoked the Anglo-Irish war, which lasted from 1919 to the middle of 1921. The Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 gave independence to 26 Irish counties, and allowed six, largely Protestant Ulster counties the choice of opting out. The Northern Ireland parliament came into being, with James Craig as its first prime minister. The politics of the North became increasingly divided on religious grounds, and discrimination against Catholics was rife in politics, housing, employment and social welfare. The south of Ireland was finally declared a republic in 1948, and left the British Commonwealth in 1949.
Instability in the North began to reveal itself in the 1960s and when a peaceful civil rights march in 1968 was violently broken up by the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), the troubles were under way. British troops were sent to Derry and Belfast in August 1969; they were initially welcomed by the Catholics, but it soon became clear that they were the tool of the Protestant majority. Peaceful measures had clearly failed and the Irish Republican Army (IRA), which had fought the British during the Anglo-Irish war, re-surfaced. The upheaval was punctuated by seemingly endless tit-for-tat killings on both sides, an array of everchanging acronyms, the massacre of civilians by troops, the internment of IRA sympathisers without trial, the death by hunger strike of the imprisoned and the introduction of terrorism to mainland Britain.
Northern Ireland lost its vestige of parliamentary independence and has been ruled from London ever since. The Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985 gave the Dublin government an official consultative role in Northern Ireland's affairs for the first time. The jubilantly received ceasefire of 1994 was undermined by further murders, the reoccurrence of terrorism in Britain and the perceived intransigence of the British government in Whitehall. The mood shifted again with the election of Tony Blair in 1997 with a huge Labour majority to support him. The two sides resumed discussions and, in 1998, formulated a peace plan that offered a degree of self-government for Northern Ireland and the formulation of a North-South Council that would ultimately be able to implement all-Ireland policies if agreed to by the governments in Belfast and Dublin. As part of the plan, which was fully endorsed by a referendum, the South gave up its constitutional claim to the North. However, the peace process continues to wobble, with trust remaining the main sticking point.

Recent History
By the late 1990s the Republic's economy was booming to the point that it was monikered the Celtic Tiger. This was mainly thanks to an injection of investment funds from the EU that helped renovate the country's infrastructure. It's been said that Ireland has skipped straight from an agricultural economy to a post-industrial one, as large computer and telecommunications firms moved in, bringing jobs and investment. However, the boom has slowed, unemployment is rising again, and the prohibitive cost of living creams off what fat there is. Ireland may yet have recourse to its perennial talent for enduring hardship with humour and grace.