Two Irish cities – Dublin and Cork – have made it into the top 50 friendliest cities in the world, in a survey carried out by Big 7 Travel. Dublin is in sixth position and Cork is at number 17. The popular travel website asked its ‘travel obsessed’ social audience of some 1.5 million followers to decide on the friendliest cities around the globe. To view the results, click here. Welcoming the news, Siobhan McManamy, Tourism Ireland’s Director of Markets, said: “I am delighted to see two of our cities appear in the Big 7 poll of friendliest cities around the globe. It is another well-deserved accolade for Dublin and […]
If walls could talk, they’d whisper stories, putting tales and characters into your head: which is, of course, exactly what a good book does. Books inspire, provoke, inform, excite. They set down histories, and make markers for their times. So, as the new Museum of Literature Ireland (MoLI) opens its doors to the public on Culture Night, what exactly will it do that a good book can’t? When you’re lost in a book, the characters come alive. We all know the feeling, when a TV or film adaptation just doesn’t cut it. The hero’s hair isn’t how you imagined it. That’s not the street you pictured. Jane Austen was clever: […]
Some 2020 highlights include: A Connemara mountain landscape will be illuminated as an epic spectacle by Finnish light artist Kari Kola. Druid Theatre takes Ireland’s greatest 20th century one-act plays to towns and villages across Galway county. American artist David Best, of Burning Man fame, will create a major new work with young people from Derry and Galway. Giant Mirror Pavilion by Irish artist John Gerrard, set first in the Claddagh basin and later in 4,000 year-old Connemara bog. Dramatic new interpretation of literary epic Gilgamesh by Galway master storytellers Macnas, written by Marina Carr and designed by Julian Crouch. Margaret Atwood as part of t International Women’s Day celebrations. […]
Galway 2020 European Capital of Culture, the largest and most complex cultural event held on the island of Ireland, will start on February 1st with a week of “fiery celebrations” in Co Galway towns and villages. Events throughout the year will involve more than 1,900 events across 154 projects, 170 partnerships and collaborations with local, national, European and international artists and cultural organisations from more than 30 different countries. The opening week will include a large public spectacle in Galway city on February 8th, produced by Water Works, a company which has created events for the Olympics, including London’s. The opening will involve a community cast and creative director Helen […]
Visit “Craggy Island” & Father Ted’s House, Co Clare It’s hard to believe that more than 20 years have passed since Father Ted burst onto our screens. It’s even harder to find someone who doesn’t have a soft spot for the series, which is why catching a glimpse of the parochial house is such a thrill. The house itself is found alongside several other locations in the Burren (including the Ailwee Caves), and the owners do a lovely cup of tea and cake (€10pp). Superfans can up the ante with a ticket to Tedfest, the annual festival on Inis Mór. It’s mad, Ted – NB While you’re at it: Swap […]
Visit the southern tip of Ireland, Co. Cork When you get to the very bottom of Ireland, at Mizen Head, there’s a bridge across a gorge. On the other side, set on a tiny rocky outcrop above the wild waters of the Atlantic is Mizen Head Signal Station which was home to three light keepers until 1993. The Mizen Centre museum sets the scene but it’s not until you walk down the 99 steps and then get yourself across the bridge that you feel the power of the ocean and the isolation that the keepers must have experienced in times past – YG While you’re at it: Ireland’s most southerly […]
Barfly: Porterhouse Temple Bar, Dublin Nineteen years after it opened, the chain’s first Dublin pub is thriving Porterhouse Temple Bar: walls are heavy with craft beer bottles, the stairwell lined with awards. It’s 19 years since Porterhouse opened their brewhouse on Parliament Street in Dublin 2. It wasn’t such a busy spot then: craft beer was foreign, Temple Bar was in its infancy, the boom was a pipe dream and a group of young men taking on the might of the brewing industry seemed like a crazy waste of time. Nearly two decades, six bars, a devoted customer base and multiple awards later and they seem to have made their […]
TripAdvisor reveals its Top 10 Irish Museums – No.1 fits into a single house in Dublin Punching above its weight Pól Ó Conghaile Twitter EMAIL PUBLISHED18/09/2015 | 11:30 SHARE 3Trevor White, Director of The Little Museum of Dublin, one of our less obvious attractions. Ireland’s No.1 museum is a small, non-profit housed in a Georgian building overlooking Dublin’s Stephen’s Green. SHARE That’s according to TripAdvisor, which has just named the Little Museum of Dublin as Ireland’s top museum in its Travellers’ Choice Awards. The non-profit museum, which tells the story of the capital throughout the 20th century, is just four years old. Its collection was donated by the public, with […]
Skellig Michael: Is 6th-century rock star selling out to a galaxy far, far away? The Force Awakens Graham Clifford PUBLISHED06/09/2015 | 02:30 SHARE ‘Star Wars’ is coming back, but should it be a welcome guest on ancient Skellig, asks our reporter. SHARE Just days old, the little bird would easily fit into the palm of my hand. Nestled between the stone walls of a monastic beehive hut, the grey, fluffy storm petrel chick is sheltered from the elements. In another corner I hear a Manx shearwater cooing as the winds roll in from the Atlantic. This is Skellig Michael, monastic rock, ecological paradise and since last year, a film set. […]
Overseas visitor numbers to Ireland grew by 12.1pc in the first five months of the year. The growth sets Ireland on a course for its best ever year in tourism. “If this trend continues we will be looking at a record year for overseas visitor numbers,” said Minister for Transport, Tourism & Sport, Paschal Donohoe. Ireland is now in its fifth consecutive year of growth in visitor numbers, with the economic recovery, expanding air routes, a 9pc VAT rate for the sector and marketing initiatives like the Wild Atlantic Way and The Gathering all apparently paying dividends. 2007 was Irish tourism’s busiest year to date, with 7.7m visitors. “These are […]