Culture of Ireland
[15] In historic times, texts such as the Táin Bó Cúailinge show a society in which cows represented a primary source of wealth and status.
The old order of transhumance and open range cattle breeding died out to be replaced by a structure of great landed estates, small tenant farmers with more or less precarious hold on their leases, and a mass of landless labourers.
In this process of reform, the former tenants and labourers became land owners, with the great estates being broken up into small- and medium-sized farms and smallholdings.
Another is that hillwalkers in Ireland today are more constrained than their counterparts in Britain, as it is more difficult to agree rights of way with so many small farmers involved on a given route, rather than with just one landowner.
Irish Travellers (Shelta: Mincéirí) are known for their historically nomadic lifestyle; residing in ornamented barrel top wagons, they would traverse predominantly rural areas of the island.
Their propensity for rural living was influenced by a variety of factors including cultural traditions, a desire for privacy and autonomy, work opportunities and their fondness of the natural world.
The last is still widely observed as Halloween which is celebrated all over the world, including in the United States followed by All Saints' Day, another Christian holiday associated with a traditional one.
Orthodox Christianity also has a notable presence in Ireland, where it has been the fastest growing religion since 1991, largely due to immigration from Eastern Europe.
He also is said to have once scooped up part of Ireland to fling it at a rival, but it missed and landed in the Irish Sea – the clump becoming the Isle of Man, a pebble Rockall, and the void left behind filling as Lough Neagh.
The Irish king Brian Boru who ended the domination of the so-called High Kingship of Ireland by the Uí Néill, is part of the historical cycle.
[citation needed] According to the tales, the leprechaun is a mischievous fairy type creature in emerald green clothing who when not playing tricks spend all their time busily making shoes; he is said to have a pot of gold hidden at the end of the rainbow and if ever captured by a human has the magical power to grant three wishes in exchange for release.
[43] For a comparatively small place, the island of Ireland has made a disproportionately large contribution to world literature in all its branches, in both the Irish and English languages.
Particularly famous examples of such works are those of James Joyce, Bram Stoker, Jonathan Swift, Oscar Wilde and Ireland's four winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature; William Butler Yeats, George Bernard Shaw, Samuel Beckett and Seamus Heaney.
Young people at this time tended to look to Britain and, particularly, the United States as models of progress and jazz and rock and roll became extremely popular.
Groups and musicians like Horslips, Van Morrison and even Thin Lizzy incorporated elements of traditional music into a rock idiom to form a unique new sound.
During the 1970s and 1980s, the distinction between traditional and rock and pop musicians became blurred, with many individuals regularly crossing over between these styles of playing as a matter of course.
Excavations at the Viking settlement in the Wood Quay area of Dublin have produced a significant amount of information on the diet of the inhabitants of the town.
The proliferation of fast food has led to increasing public health problems including obesity, and one of the highest rates of heart disease in the world.
[54] In Ireland, the Full Irish has been particularly cited as being a major source for a higher incidence of cardiac problems, quoted as being a "heart attack on a plate".
This cuisine is based on fresh vegetables, fish, especially salmon and trout, oysters and other shellfish, traditional soda bread, the wide range of hand-made cheeses that are now being made across the country, and, of course, the potato.
[59] In 2003, Ireland had the second-highest per capita alcohol consumption in the world, just below Luxembourg at 13.5 litres (per person 15 or more years old), according to the OECD Health Data 2009 survey.
However, research showed that in 2013, 75% of alcohol was consumed as part of a drinking session where the person drank six or more standard units (which equates to three or more pints of beer).
A wide variety of sports are played throughout the island, with the most popular being Gaelic football, hurling, soccer, rugby union, and golf.
[64] Swimming, golf, aerobics, soccer, cycling, Gaelic football, and billiards, pool and snooker, are the sporting activities with the highest levels of playing participation.
The first known radio transmission in Ireland was a call to arms made from the General Post Office in O'Connell Street during the Easter Rising.
Some of the most successful Irish films included Intermission (2001), Man About Dog (2004), Michael Collins (1996), Angela's Ashes (1999), My Left Foot (1989), The Crying Game (1992), In the Name of the Father (1994) and The Commitments (1991).
The most successful Irish film directors are Kenneth Branagh, Martin McDonagh, Neil Jordan, John Carney, and Jim Sheridan.
Irish actors include Richard Harris, Peter O'Toole, Maureen O'Hara, Brenda Fricker, Michael Gambon, Colm Meaney, Gabriel Byrne, Pierce Brosnan, Liam Neeson, Daniel Day-Lewis, Ciarán Hinds, James Nesbitt, Cillian Murphy, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Saoirse Ronan, Brendan Gleeson, Domhnall Gleeson, Michael Fassbender, Ruth Negga, Jamie Dornan and Colin Farrell.
Ireland has also proved a popular location for shooting films with The Quiet Man (1952), Saving Private Ryan (1998), Braveheart (1995), King Arthur (2004) and P.S.
The most popular of these are the annual Dublin Saint Patrick's Day Festival which attracts on average 500,000 people and the National Ploughing Championships with an attendance in the region of 400,000.
