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The island
The whole of Ireland on an open map. Zoom in and explore.
Themes
Strands
Bounded subjects, each one followed properly rather than skimmed.
The Irish
How the Irish lived. Land, family, work and leaving.
Inherit or Leave
A third of Irish men reached fifty without ever marrying. The reason was not shyness and it was not religion. It was a farm that could not be divided.
Jews in Ireland to the 1960s
A small community with a long presence. Arrivals, synagogues, Little Jerusalem in Portobello, the refugees who were let in and the many who were not.
People
One person, followed properly.
The O'Brien Dynasty
Nine hundred years in County Clare. They conformed every time the power changed, and they never once lost the land.
Frederick Douglass in Ireland
Refused a cabin on the ship that carried him here. Four months later he had taken the pledge in Cork, learned three words from O'Connell, and been treated as a man for the first time in his life.
Journeys
One journey, followed end to end.
Nothing here yet.
Places
One subject of place, followed in full.
Nothing here yet.
Movements
One movement, followed in full.
British Wars
Wars fought by Britain, and what they did inside Ireland.
Nothing here yet.
Counties
Written so far
All thirty two. None are waiting.
County Donegal
The far northwest. Atlantic coast, Gaeltacht in the west, and a long border with Northern Ireland. Its only land border with the rest of the State is with Leitrim.
County Derry
Walled city on the Foyle, the Sperrins to the south, and the north coast running east to Portstewart.
County Antrim
Belfast, the Glens, the basalt coast and the Giant's Causeway.
County Tyrone
The largest county in Northern Ireland. Sperrin uplands, drumlin farmland, and no coastline at all.
County Sligo
Benbulben and the Yeats country. Coastal, compact, and thick with megalithic tombs at Carrowmore and Carrowkeel.
County Fermanagh
Lakeland. Upper and Lower Lough Erne run through the county, with Devenish and Boa Island in the water.
County Monaghan
Drumlin country on the border. Small hills, small fields, and the landscape Patrick Kavanagh wrote out of.
County Armagh
The ecclesiastical capital of Ireland, orchard country in the north, and the Ring of Gullion in the south.
County Down
Mourne Mountains, Strangford Lough, and the burial place claimed for Saint Patrick at Downpatrick.
County Mayo
Big and Atlantic. Croagh Patrick, Achill and the Céide Fields, and a population still well below its 1841 level.
County Leitrim
The least populated county. A narrow strip from the Shannon to a few kilometres of coast at Tullaghan.
County Cavan
Lakes counted in the hundreds. Border county, drumlins, and the source of both the Shannon and the Erne.
County Louth
The smallest county. Cooley peninsula, Carlingford, Mellifont and Monasterboice, and the Táin.
County Galway
City and Gaeltacht, Connemara and the Aran Islands to the west, limestone plain to the east.
County Roscommon
Inland, agricultural, bounded by the Shannon. Rathcroghan holds one of the great royal sites of Gaelic Ireland.
County Longford
Small and midland. The Royal Canal, Ardagh, and Corlea with its Iron Age bog trackway.
County Westmeath
Lakes and midland farmland. The Hill of Uisneach, claimed as the symbolic centre of Ireland.
County Meath
The Royal County. Newgrange and the Boyne Valley tombs, the Hill of Tara, and the Hill of Slane.
County Dublin
The capital and the county around it. More than a quarter of the State's population, in the third smallest county.
County Offaly
Bog and esker country. Clonmacnoise on the Shannon, Birr Castle, and the Slieve Bloom mountains.
County Laois
Landlocked midlands. The Rock of Dunamase, the Slieve Blooms, and the first of the Tudor plantations.
County Kildare
Horses, the Curragh plain, the Bog of Allen and the two canals running west out of Dublin.
County Wicklow
The Garden of Ireland, by its old name. Granite mountains, Glendalough, and Lugnaquilla, the highest point in Leinster.
County Clare
The Burren, the Cliffs of Moher, the Shannon estuary, and the castles of the O'Briens.
County Tipperary
Inland and large. The Golden Vale, the Rock of Cashel, the Galtees and the Glen of Aherlow.
County Kilkenny
Medieval city on the Nore. Kilkenny Castle, St Canice's Cathedral, and the black Kilkenny marble.
County Carlow
Second smallest county. The Barrow valley, Mount Leinster, and the Browneshill dolmen.
County Limerick
Shannon city and the Golden Vale. Viking foundation, Norman castle, two sieges and a broken treaty.
County Waterford
A Viking city on the Suir. The Comeraghs behind it and the Copper Coast beside it.
County Wexford
Sunny southeast. Norman landing place in 1169, Hook lighthouse, and the 1798 rising.
County Kerry
Mountain and peninsula. Carrauntoohil, the Dingle and Iveragh peninsulas, Skellig Michael offshore.
County Cork
The largest county. A harbour city, the west Cork peninsulas, and two councils, one for the city and one for the county.
Every county has its facts and its map. Open any county from the map.
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