5 Traditions You Must Know Before Your Vacation To Ireland

The traditions and culture of Ireland are known across the world and whilst millions celebrate and enjoy Irish traditions, many are not aware of their origins. This article shall serve as a helpful and brief guide to the origins of many traditions that have shaped Ireland’s cultural identity, starting with perhaps the most famous Irish day of celebration.

Pub Cultured

Pub culture in Ireland is integral to community life, with public houses seen as places where friends and families can meet and catch-up on each other’s lives. Pubs in Ireland will most certainly feature one of the most famous icons of Ireland: Guinness. Introduced by Arthur Guinness from his brewery at St James’s Gate, Dublin in 1859, Guinness is one of the most popular and well-known drinks in the world and in Ireland it is still the most popular alcoholic drink bringing in €2 thousand-million every year and with a 9,000-year lease on the brewery, the world’s most famous pint is truly here to stay.

Irish Music

Music plays a great part in Irish culture and many pubs across the island will host live music. Traditional Irish music typically employs world instruments such as the fiddle, piano and acoustic guitar combined with home-grown instruments like Irish bouzoukis, Uilleann pipes and the Celtic harp aka cláirseach, the official symbol of Ireland.

Apart from the harp, most Irish traditional instruments were developed relatively recently with many, such as accordions, concertinas, the bodhrán and the Uilleann pipes emerging in the 19th Century whilst the guitar and bouzouki are products of the revival of Irish traditional music in the mid-20th Century. Modern traditional music sessions in Ireland are popular events, notable for lasting into the small hours of the morning and for being warm, sociable events. And of course, what use is good music unless you can dance to it!

Irish Dancing

Irish dancing became internationally popular in the 1990s after the success of Riverdance but Irish dance takes many forms including jigs, reels, step dancing and ceili dances. Irish dancing also has a unique fashion sense, with dresses based on designs found in the Book of Kells and the famous hard shoes that produce clicks in time to the movements of the dance were developed in the 19th Century. The clicking noises came from the wooden heels and toes of the shoes. Nowadays these are typically made with fiberglass.

Potatoes

Ah, the potato! Such a famous symbol of Ireland, though we must confess the food was an import that made its way here in the 17th Century but Irish hospitality welcomes all and the potato became a famous staple of the Irish diet and a huge economic focus in a predominantly agricultural Ireland. After the Famine of 1845, millions were forced to either starve or emigrate. This mass immigration to America and England allowed many Irish traditions to spread and thrive in new lands.

Irish Literature

The history of Irish writing is one that has influenced literature the world over and is a large part of Irish cultural identity. The rich lore of Irish mythology which was preserved by medieval monks in both Latin and Early Irish. English writing in Ireland was introduced by the Normans in the 13th Century and by 19th Century Irish literature was predominantly written in English.

There are far too many great Irish writers for this brief article to do justice to. There’s Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliver’s Travels and the first internationally famous Irish writer. There’s Oscar Wilde, a beautifully witty playwright and author of The Picture of Dorian Gray. If you fancy some horror then seek out Bram Stoker, author of Dracula; for fantasy, delve into C.S. Lewis, author of The Chronicles of Narnia.

Ireland has given birth to many accomplished playwrights, such as George Bernard Shaw and Samuel Beckett; our rich poetry has been crafted by the lyrical prose of W.B. Yeats, Patrick Kavanagh and Seamus Heaney and there are those whose writing skills have been expressed in both English and Gaelic, such as Brendan Behan and Flann O’Brien. In the 1920s, Irish writing was internationally influential, with modernist writer James Joyce achieving fame with Dubliners and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and infamy with his novels Ulysses and Finnegans Wake. Irish writing is still strong in the 21st Century, with writers such as Roddy Doyle and Colum McCann with an increasing movement of female writers including Jennifer Johnston, Anne Enright and Emma Donoghue. Irish literature is constantly experiencing a rebirth, always taking her place in the global literary world.

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