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- Watch "The biggest music festival.."

- Research as much as you  can on this festival

Prepare 5min. presentation in Check Point.

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Analyse the song "Whiskey in the jar".

- Watch the music video

Prepare 5min. presentation in Checkpoint

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Analyse the song "Ode to my family".

- Research to find out the meaning. The music video..

Prepare 5min. presentation in Check Point.

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- Choose one (or two) of the following topics - connected to this video.

Write 300 words, where you try to explain your beliefs - in connection to the topic.

Religion
Youth program
Exchange program
Nationality
Violence

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- Find three different sports, represented in this video.

- Research about the irish athletes results. And how big the sport is, back home in Ireland.

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Worksheet 1 - for the first 2 - 3 lessons

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Worksheet 1 - for the first 2 - 3 lessons

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Brexit explained: What is the problem with the Irish border?

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PART 2

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The children of the peace process in Northern Ireland fear a return to the past due to Brexit

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In this program we tour bustling Belfast's City Hall and Ulster Museum, then head out to Northern Ireland's favorite resort: Portrush, along the Antrim Coast, where we taste-test Irish whiskey, scramble over some six-sided geology in the Giant's Causeway, drop in on a world-class golf course, and stomp our feet to some traditional music.

This grand structure's 173-foot-tall copper dome dominates the town center. Take a close look at the Queen Victoria monument and how it celebrates the industrial might of Belfast: shipping, linen (the woman with the bobbin), and education (the student). A worthwhile, 16-room Belfast History and Culture Exhibit fills the ground floor. It covers the history of the city, culture, industry, the WWII bombings, and the Troubles. Facing the building, if you go around to the left, you'll find the Titanic Memorial Garden. If you can't manage a tour, at least step inside to admire the marble swirl staircase and the view up into the dome.

This is Belfast's most venerable museum. The five-floor museum is free and pretty painless, and offers an earnest and occasionally thought-provoking look at the region's history, with a cross-section of local artifacts. The top two floors are dedicated to rotating art exhibits, the next floor down covers local nature, and the two below that focuses on history. The ground floor covers the Troubles.

Any cab goes up Falls Road, past Sinn Fein headquarters and lots of murals, to the Milltown Cemetery (£6, sit in front and talk to the cabbie). Hop in and out. Easy-to-flag-down cabs run every minute or so in each direction on Falls Road. Or take a one-hour tour with one of the 40 trained cabbies offering them (cheap for small groups, best views with 5 or fewer riders).

Located just below the train station on Portrush's harbor, Barry's is filled with "candy floss" (cotton candy) stands and ) and crazy "scoop treats." Older locals visit for the nostalgia as many of the rides and amusements go back 50 years.

Irish courses, like those in Scotland, are highly sought after for their lush greens in glorious settings. Serious golfers can get a tee time at the Royal Portrush, which hosted the British Open in 1951 and is set to host it again in 2019. Those on a budget can play the adjacent, slightly shorter Valley Course.

This is a salty, modern place with an inviting menu, ranging from steaks to vegetarian food. It's very casual but with serious cuisine.

Distillery tours waft you through the process, making it clear that Irish whiskey is triple distilled - and therefore smoother than Scotch whisky (distilled merely twice and minus the "e"). Tours start with the mash pit, which is filled with a porridge that eventually becomes whiskey. You'll see a huge room full of whiskey aging in oak casks - casks already used to make bourbon, sherry, and port. Visitors get a single glass of their choice. To see the distillery at its lively best, visit when the 100 workers are staffing the machinery - Monday morning through Friday noon (the still is still on weekends and in July, when the machinery is shut down for annual maintenance). Tours are limited to 30 people and book up. In summer, call ahead to put in your name and get a tour time (+44 (0)28/2073-3218).

The causeway itself - the highlight of the entire coast - is free and always open. If you pay to enter the visitors center, you can borrow a great little audioguide to take along on your hike. (The visitors center's interactive exhibits give a worthwhile history of the Giant's Causeway.) You can visit the causeway either by shuttle bus (4/hour from 9:00, £1 each way) or on foot (10 minutes from the visitors center to the first viewpoint, 15 level minutes farther to reach the Shepherd's Steps).

A pleasant, 30-minute, one-mile walk from the parking lot takes you down to the rope bridge. Cross over to the island for fine views and great seabird-watching, especially during nesting season. Timed tickets are required to cross the bridge. Arrive as early as possible; they sell only 240 tickets (same-day only) for each hour-long entry window. If you arrive on a busy day, you may have to wait an hour or even find that all the day's tickets are sold. Cruise groups and big buses arrive after 11:00. (If you're frustrated at the ticket booth, you're welcome to hike down to the bridge for free but won't be able to venture onto it.)

The only inhabited island off the coast of Northern Ireland, Rathlin is a quiet haven for hikers, birdwatchers, and seal spotters. Less than seven miles from end to end, this "L"-shaped island is reachable by a passenger-only ferry from the town of Ballycastle.

Dunluce Castle

While it's one of the largest castles in Northern Ireland and is beautifully situated, there's precious little left to see among Dunluce's broken walls. Before entering, catch the eight-minute video about the history of the castle (across from the ticket desk). The ruins themselves are dotted with plaques that show interesting artists' renditions of how the place would have looked 400 years ago.

See the Travel Details above for recommendations highlighted in bold, excerpted from Rick's guidebooks.

Hi, I'm Rick Steves back with more of the Best of Europe. This time we're really on the edge...stay with us as we explore the best of Northern Ireland.

As far as I'm concerned, no trip to Ireland is really complete without visiting Northern Ireland. Sure it's had its Troubles - and we'll check out some powerful political sights - but there's so much more. Northern Ireland comes with the same friendly people and lush scenery you'd expect to find anywhere on the Emerald Isle...and there're no tourist crowds.

We'll tour bustling Belfast, sneak a peak at its more politicized sectarian neighborhoods, go wild in the Ulster Coney Island, and taste test Irish whiskey. We'll scramble over some six-sided geology, tee off on a world-class golf course, and stomp our feet to some traditional music.

Northern Ireland is part of a group of islands called the British Isles, and part of a political entity called the United Kingdom. The Emerald Isle is comprised of the independent Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. The Northern region is also called "Ulster." From the capital, Belfast, we travel to fun-loving Portrush, to the rough-and-tumble city of Derry, and enjoy attractions along the Antrim Coast.

Here in Northern Ireland, sightseeing makes more sense with a little background. All of Ireland was once ruled by Britain. But the Irish didn't assimilate quite according to plan. While Britain was Protestant, most of the Irish were Catholic - and with these religious differences came a deep-seated cultural divide. To help bolster its control, London planted settlers - Protestant settlers, mostly from Scotland. These people became the "Scots Irish" - the dominant ethnic group in North Ireland today. But centuries of British rule led to strife, and in the 1920s, after a bloody war, most of Ireland became an independent country - Catholic, and ruled from Dublin. But the North - with its Protestant majority - opted to stay with Britain. And the island remains divided to this day.

You'll see symbols of that division throughout Northern Ireland. Protestant "Orange parades" are common. Several thousand a year during marching season - between Easter and early September - fill the streets with sectarian pageantry. While 90 percent of these parade through Protestant towns, and are therefore peaceful, a few are antagonistic - marching through Catholic towns and neighborhoods. Far more political than your average parade, these are like pep rallies for the cause of continued Union with Britain...a chance for parents to share their political passions with their kids.

The long-established Orange Order works to defend the union with Britain - so their political philosophy is "Unionist." Orange is the team color and the Union Jack is its flag. This is countered on the Catholic side by Nationalists and Republicans - people who want the entire island to be one nation. Their color is green, and they fly the Irish flag.

In the Republic of Ireland, there's no question - Catholics rule. But here in the Protestant-dominated North, the Catholics - with over a third of the population - are just too big a minority to ignore. In order to maintain control, Protestants employed policies that were tough on Catholics. This escalated tensions, which led to the Troubles, which have filled headlines around here since the late 1960s. As Protestants and Catholics clashed, the British Army entered the fray, and they've been here ever since. Thankfully real progress toward peace has been made recently and, while you still don't want to sing Protestant songs in a Catholic pub like this - or vice versa - Northern Ireland has become a great place to visit.

Belfast, just a couple hours north of Dublin, straddles the Lagan River. It was only a village in the 17th century. But with the influx of Scottish and English settlers and the Industrial Revolution, which took root with a vengeance here, Belfast boomed. While the rest of Ireland remained rural and agricultural, Belfast was nicknamed "Old Smoke" - shipbuilding was huge.

This slipway was the birthplace of the Titanic - and many ships that didn't sink. The neighboring dry dock is where that ill-fated ship - the biggest man-made moving object of its day - was outfitted. Nearby, two huge cranes (once the biggest in the world, nicknamed "Samson and Goliath") rise like skyscrapers above the harbor - another reminder of this town's former shipbuilding might.

In 1888 Queen Victoria granted city status to this boomtown of 300,000, and soon after, its citizens built Belfast's centerpiece: City Hall. With its statue of Queen Victoria scowling down Belfast's main drag and the Union Jack flapping behind her, it's a stirring sight.

Queen's University is also from the illustrious reign of Victoria. Its back yard is an inviting public park - particularly relaxing on a sunny summer afternoon. The palm house - an early example of an iron and glass greenhouse dating from the mid-1800s - gives you a lush and humid jungle experience right in Belfast.

Also in the garden is the Ulster Museum - the city's one major museum. You'll find a fascinating "Made in Belfast" exhibit under an arch proclaiming, "Trade is the golden girdle of the globe."

Exhibits explain how Belfast thrived in its glory days. The linen industry employed thousands. Belfast workers made products from flax like canvas and rope, which contributed mightily to maritime commerce. Massive ships - made in Belfast - were commonplace from Seattle to Shanghai.

It feels like a new morning in Belfast. It's hard to imagine that this bright and bustling commercial center was once a tense and subdued security zone. Today there's no hint of security checks - not long ago, a tiresome daily routine.

Still, it's a fragile peace - especially evident in the working-class Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods. Mean-spirited murals and pubs with security gates are reminders that the island is split, and a dwindling - yet still substantial - number of extremists prefer it that way. These flag waving hotbeds of the Troubles have become tourist attractions to many curious visitors.

The best way to get around Belfast is by cab. And your ride can come with an education. For a reasonable hourly fee, many cabbies give visitors impromptu tours. My guide, Norman, is sharing some personal insights.

Rick: Norman, can you explain to me just in general about sectarian neighborhoods?
Norman: Sectarian neighborhoods are within the working class areas, and the working class areas only, where they keep divided because of, well, the hatred for each other and of course what they've done to each other through terrorism. Falls Road is a well-known Republican stronghold in the west part of Belfast.
Rick: So, this is the Catholic neighborhood then, huh?
Norman: Well, it's more known for being Republican, rather than just Catholic.
Rick: OK, so why is it so famous?
Norman: Because of the amount of trouble that happened here between the IRA and the British soldiers and the police force and so on.
Rick: It feels safe today.
Norman: Well, things have changed over the last five years.
Rick: But there are these symbols of the sectarianism that still are strong, aren't they?
Norman: Very strong, and will remain to be strong because of the backgrounds within the conflict.

Murals are an art form - and they come with a strong political message. "Ireland will rise like a phoenix," "Ireland should be free and united"...and so on. Police stations stand like fortresses. And everywhere in this Catholic neighborhood, the Republican cause is honored.

An important stop along Falls Road is the Milltown Cemetery, where Gaelic crosses allow Catholic Republicans to make a statement in death and where IRA fighters are buried with the honor of fallen soldiers.

Rick: So, tell me about this place.
Norman: It's a Catholic cemetery, with also some Republican attachment to it - a lot of Republican people buried, as well as Catholics, of course. And this is a typical cross, with Irish design on, of course, which is extremely important, showing a typical Irish background.

The most visited gravesite here - set apart by little green railings - commemorates IRA heroes. Among many others, it remembers Bobby Sands and nine other hunger strikers. They starved themselves to death in a nearby prison in 1981. They wanted to be treated as political prisoners rather than criminal terrorists.

Norman: It hasn't always been Catholics against Protestants. It's been people of more the extremists within the religions, where the moderates, both Catholics and Protestants, have not supported the actions of either Loyalism or Republicanism. Loyalists are the extremists of Protestants. Republicans are the extremists of Catholics. So the moderate parties are known as Unionists, which are moderate Protestants, and Nationalists, which are moderate Catholics.
Rick: So, there are a lot of moderates, actually then, that aren't at each other's throats.
Norman: The majority of people in Northern Ireland are the moderates.

A bleak wall separates the Catholic Republicans of the Falls Road area from the Protestant Loyalists in the Shankill Road area. It's called the "Peace Line" because without it there would be no peace. But progress is being made. In a promising change, after 30 years of being closed, this gate is now open, connecting the two neighborhoods.

For a sampling of Unionist passion, you can explore this working-class Protestant neighborhood. Murals on Shankill Road promote the Unionist or loyalist cause. There's lots of symbolism.

Every time I visit, locals stress it's not Protestants fighting Catholics. It's extremist Loyalists, who happen to be Protestant, fighting extremist Republicans, who happen to be Catholic. These extremists are the people who are proud to live in sectarian neighborhoods, and it's these extremists who fan the persistent flames of Ireland's Troubles.

The big hope now is for a new generation to be raised without the extremism of the past. Children playing together here are both Catholics and Protestants - part of a summer-camp program giving kids from both communities reasons to live together rather than apart.

About an hour's drive from Belfast takes us to Northern Ireland's favorite resort - Portrush. This is the playground of Ulster, and an ideal base for exploring the highlights of the Antrim Coast.

Portrush has long been the "Coney Island" of Ireland's north. Its architecture retains the atmosphere of a genteel seaside resort. Portrush fills its peninsula with family-oriented amusements, fun eateries, and cheap and cheery bed-and-breakfasts. Summertime fun-seekers promenade along the toy harbor and tumble down to the sandy beaches, which extend in sweeping white crescents on either side.

Barry's Old Time Amusement Arcade is a fine chance to see Northern Ireland at play. While some do the loop-de-loop, others mellow out on the Bowling Green.

Or, maybe you'd rather go golfing. Serious golfers can get a tee time at the Royal Portrush. Irish golf courses, like those in Scotland, are highly sought out by people who know the game.

Golfer: Royal Portrush golf club is one of the best links golf courses in Britain, so, like all the links golf courses, it's dry, tough, breezy, and very enjoyable.
Rick: So, what is a "links golf course"?
Golfer: Well, the best links golf course is running against the sea, and we have an expression that the links is the piece of ground that links the land to the sea. Links golf courses are a sand-based golf course - they're dry and running on, like, park land that may have a lot of water and trees and bushes. It's all sort of just rough grass and hard lies and that's it.
Rick: A reason to travel to Ireland, then?
Golfer: It's a great reason to come to Ireland.

I dig my divots next door at the pitch-and-putt range. You get two clubs and balls for just a couple pounds. Rookies young and old share the same glorious setting and turf with - who knows - perhaps a champ in the making...or perhaps not.

Ireland and Britain are no longer bastions of terrible food. The Ramore Wine Bar offers an inviting menu you wouldn't have found anywhere in Ireland a decade or two ago. Everything from crab to steaks to vegetarian at a reasonable price. And a glass of wine is a welcome break after all that beer.

Here in Northern Ireland as in the rest of Britain, bed-and-breakfast places offer a fine budget value. Bedrooms are as comfy as a hotel's, but feel like home. The inviting lounge makes you feel like part of the family. And the included breakfast is hardy, and comes with a chance to meet the other guests.

An hour's drive from Portrush, the town of Londonderry - also known as Derry - is the "second city" of Ulster. Its characteristic streets are inviting and the town's hard fought history is evident in its formidable wall. Like Belfast, Derry comes with all the security trappings.

Stephen McPhilemy - a Derry guide - is joining us. Years ago he showed my tour group his hometown. Steven was so good, he now leads my Ireland tours.

Rick: Stephen, tell me about the political lay of the land.
Stephen: OK, everything that's in the background that's green is the Republic of Ireland, and the River Foyle, which is in front of us, is the natural boundary between Northern Ireland, which is on this side, and the Republic of Ireland, which is on that side. But in 1921, when the British were dividing our country, they wanted to hand this city over to the new Irish Free State, but the Protestant community here did not want that. They wanted to keep the city for sentimental reasons. So the River Foyle is the natural boundary, or the border, until it comes to the urban area. Then it sweeps around and encompasses the urban area, and then it becomes the river again - the border is the river again at the end of the city. Physically, the city is joined with the Republic of Ireland, but politically it's in Northern Ireland, and that's why it been such a hotbed of political turmoil ever since the Troubles started back in 1969.
Rick: Now you called it Londonderry or Derry?
Stephen: To the Protestant community it's very proudly "Londonderry." No Catholics in the city would accept that term - never call it "Londonderry." To the Catholic here, it's always "Derry."

Derry is the finest walled town in all Ireland - and visitors are free to walk the ramparts.

Stephen: The walls were built in 1613 by Protestant colonists from the city of London to keep themselves safe from the native Irish Catholics who would have been all around here, surrounding the city. This would have been hostile territory for the new Protestant colonists.
Rick: OK, so about 400 years ago English settlers behind these walls, everywhere out here.
Stephen: Yes, native Irish Catholics, all around the city, up in the highlands, the hills, the valleys, the glens.
Rick: What an incredible wall, really.
Stephen: Yeah, we're very proud of them, Rick. It's our little claim to fame - we're the only completely walled city in Ireland, or Britain for that matter.
Rick: Really?

Stephen's taking me to a pub. In sectarian neighborhoods pubs are particularly sectarian - a hangout for either Loyalists or Republicans. In this pub, the decor - particularly the Irish flag - makes the politics of these folks perfectly clear: this is a Catholic crowd. Protestants can feel comfortable here unless they say something provocative or wear Unionist colors or symbols. Leave your Union Jack at home

A great thing about Catholic pubs: traditional Irish music.

On a single day out from Portrush, we'll enjoy a whiskey distillery, a geological wonder, a bouncy rope bridge, and a ruined castle. And it's all along a stunning coast line.

The Antrim Coast is one of the most popular and scenic drives in the whole of Ireland. Homesteads are pristine. A short drive through this idyllic farm country makes it clear: tidiness is a Scots-Irish forte. Visitors explore desolate trails, evocative castle ruins, and dramatic beaches. The Antrim Coast is a popular vacation getaway from Belfast. A road trip here comes with fine surprises, like "show off your horse day" at the local riding club. Build a little slack into your itinerary so you can actually stop and check out the action.

Antrim towns like Bushmills are Scots Irish and decorated strictly Protestant. And this town is home to a famous whiskey. Bushmills claims to be the world's oldest distillery. They've been making it here since the 13th century. Guests are welcome, and tours finish here, in the tasting room.

Irish whiskey makers brag that their whiskey is triple distilled - and therefore smoother than Scotch whisky.

Those taking the distillery tour learn this emphatically during the tasting. Four volunteers per tour get to taste test eight different whiskeys.

Distillery tour guide: As you'll come to the Scotch and the Irish, the Scotch, as I've told you before, it is only double distilled, where the Irish is triple distilled... Congratulations, fully-qualified Irish whiskey taster.
Taster: Thank you.
Guide: There we are. Thank you.

The leading attraction along the coast is the Giant's Causeway, a four-mile-long stretch of shoreline famous for its bizarre rock columns. The shore is covered with hexagonal pillars that stick up at various heights. It's as if earth is offering God his choice of 37,000 six-sided cigarettes.

This was a big stop for 19 th-century tourists. Early guides gave nicknames to the peculiar formations like the "Pipe Organ" and the the "Wishing Chair."

Geologists claim the Giant's Causeway was formed by volcanic eruptions 60 million years ago. As the lava surface cooled, it contracted and cracked into hexagonal shapes. And as the layer of hardened but alligatored rock settled, it broke into its many stair steps.

Rick: So, the scientists say this is a geological formation.
Stephen: Aye, but nobody here actually believes that, Rick. We believe this was built by giants, 2,000 years ago - the great Finn McCool, a local champion, against the Scottish pretender, Benandonner, who lived over here in the Mull of Kintire. So the Scots guy decides to build a causeway across the ocean here, 12 miles, instead of coming by boat. He comes across on his causeway, he plunders and pillages a little bit here. Our champion, Finn McCool, was a little bit nervous, because of the fact that the Celts fought champion to champion, not necessarily army to army. So his wife decides to build a cradle that's about seven feet long. She dresses him up like a little baby, and puts him in the wee cradle - this is Ulster's hardest man - the Scots guy comes across, gets into the castle, grabs his wife and says, "I'm gonna kill your husband." And she said to him, "Shh! If you don't be quiet, you're going to wake my wee baby! And if you wake my baby, then his father's going to be very, very angry." And the Scottish guy looks around, sees that the baby's actually seven foot long, and is terrified. And he thinks, "Oh my God, if the baby is seven foot long, then the father's going to be absolutely massive!" So instead of waiting around to meet the Irish father, he runs the whole way back to Scotland, and gets the soldiers to pull up the causeway and dump it in the ocean behind him. And the proof of that story is what we're standing on right now today.

Giants or geology - you decide. Either way, the Giants Causeway is well worth a stop.

A few miles farther up the coast is a bridge you can cross. For a great little hike, a powerful dose of Ulster nature, and a few butterflies in your stomach, follow the trail to the Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge. For 200 years fishermen have strung a skinny bridge across a chasm between the mainland and a tiny island.

Woman: Sacred Heart! There should be a bar over here!
Rick: I'm still kind of queasy.

This is the rope bridge of any kid's dreams.

Rick: So the bridge was actually built by fishermen.
Stephen: Yeah. Well you see, this time of year, crowds of big, fat salmon are going around the coast here to get back to spawn in the rivers. So two centuries ago, the fishermen realized this was the best place to catch them - so their nets are here just off the island. So to get to the island, the rope bridge was built.
Rick: It's an incredible perch.
Stephen: Yeah, the birds love it. It's one great, big bird sanctuary up here, pretty much. I meet bird watchers from all over the world who come over here to see what's going on, to look at the birds - look at the gulls, the gannets, the razorbills. The biggest puffin sanctuary in Europe is behind us here on Rathlin Island.

The romantic ruins of Dunluce Castle, perched dramatically on the edge of a rocky headland, are a testimony to this region's turbulent past. Local guides are expert at bringing the ruins to life.

Rick: So, this was the home of a noble family?
Guide: This was the home of the McDonnell family, who originated in Scotland. They came over here and worked their way to the top of the tree, socially. And this is where they had their base.
Rick: This big room here?
Guide: Yes, this large hall was built about the 1620s, and this is where the McDonnell earls, the earls of Antrim now, wined and dined and entertained their guests.
Rick: So, this is more than a windy fortress?
Guide: Yes, this was actually a very luxuriously appointed palace by the sea. They had tapestries on their walls, possibly wood paneling. They had real Persian carpets on their floors. They had fancy imported European furniture, and an Irish harp for entertaining for musical evenings after dinner.
Rick: Very nice. I can imagine a harp here.

During the Middle Ages Dunluce resisted several sieges.

But then on a stormy night in 1639, dinner was interrupted as this end of the castle crashed into the sea, took the kitchen and several servants with it. The lady of the house, who didn't like living on this windy bluff anyway, said "That's it." She packed up and moved inland - abandoning Dunluce Castle to the forces of nature.

Northern Ireland: from it' blossoming capital stained with sectarian struggles to its Coney Island and natural playgrounds, its geological wonders, and its ongoing challenges is a rewarding part of any Emerald Isle experience.

I hope you've enjoyed our look at the best of Northern Ireland. Thanks for joining us. I'm Rick Steves. Until next time, keep on travelin'.

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Belfast and Northern Ireland - Video - Rick Steves' Europe

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In this program we tour bustling Belfast's City Hall and Ulster Museum, then head out to Northern Ireland's favorite resort: Portrush, along the Antrim Coast, where we taste-test Irish whiskey, scramble over some six-sided geology in the Giant's Causeway, drop in on a world-class golf course, and stomp our feet to some traditional music.

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irish culture customs folklore traditions superstitions blessings recipes sayings stories ireland celtic - world cultures european

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Trivia Contest - World Cultures European

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From the legend of the Claddagh ring to 'drowning the Shamrock' on St. Patrick's Day Irish Culture and Customs is a collection of articles and stories that covers a wide variety of topics drawn from Ireland's rich history and heritage. - World Cultures European

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Irish symbols meanings continue to fascinate - the ancient Celtic symbols and signs held incredible, meaningful power in their lives.

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Dublin's story is of feast and famine - from its 18th-century Golden Age to its 20th-century struggles for independence to its boomtime today. We explore the town's foreboding castle and patriotic jail, plus Trinity College with its Book of Kells. Later we party in Temple Bar, awash in Celtic music and Guinness. We side-trip to the prehistoric necropolis of Newgrange and the medieval monastery at Glendalough, deep in the scenic Wicklow Mountains.

(Note: this sight is closed for renovation until 2020.) The carefully restored house at Number 29 Lower Fitzwilliam Street gives an intimate glimpse of middle-class Georgian life (which seems pretty high-class). You'll find storyboards in each room explaining the everyday lives lived here.

The Book of Kells - a 1,200-year-old version of the four gospels - was elaborately inked and meticulously illustrated by faithful monks. Combining Christian symbols and pagan styles, it's a snapshot of medieval Ireland in transition. Arguably the finest piece of art from what is generally called the Dark Ages, the Book of Kells shows that monastic life in this far fringe of Europe was far from dark.

Lines are longest at midday (roughly 10:00-15:00). Those with online tickets skip the queue. To have the Book of Kells all to yourself, be there at opening.

Showing off the treasures of Ireland from the Stone Age to modern times, this branch of the National Museum is itself a national treasure. The soggy marshes and peat bogs of Ireland have proven perfect for preserving old objects. You'll see 4,000-year-old gold jewelry, 2,000-year-old bog mummies, Viking swords, and the collection's superstar - the exquisitely wrought Tara Brooch. Visit here to get an introduction to the rest of Ireland's historic attractions: You'll find a reconstructed passage tomb like Newgrange, Celtic art like the Book of Kells, Viking objects from Dublin, a model of the Hill of Tara, and a sacred cross from the Cong Abbey.

Monasterboice

This ruined monastery north of Dublin is visit-worthy for its round tower and its ornately carved high crosses - two of the best such crosses in Ireland. In the Dark Ages, these crosses, illustrated from top to bottom with Bible stories, gave monks a teaching tool as they preached to the illiterate masses. Imagine the crosses in their prime, when they were brightly painted (before years of wind and rain weathered the paint away). Today, Monasterboice is basically an old graveyard.

This famous archaeological site is also commonly called "Newgrange," after its star attraction. Here you can visit two 5,000-year-old passage tombs - Newgrange and Knowth. These are massive grass-covered burial mounds built atop separate hills, with a chamber inside reached by a narrow stone passage. Access to Newgrange and Knowth is by guided tour only. You'll start your visit at the state-of-the-art visitors center with its excellent museum, then catch a shuttle bus to the tomb sites, where a guide gives a 30-minute tour. Mysterious, thought-provoking, and mind-bogglingly old, these tombs can give you chills.

The GAA was founded in 1884 as an expression of an Irish cultural awakening. It was created to foster the development of Gaelic sports, specifically Gaelic football and hurling, and to exclude English sports such as cricket and rugby. The GAA played an important part in the fight for independence. This museum, at 82,000-seat Croke Park Stadium in east Dublin, offers a high-tech, interactive introduction to Ireland's favorite games. Relive the greatest moments in hurling and Irish-football history. Then get involved: Pick up a stick and try hurling, kick a football, and test your speed and balance.

Two actors take 40 or so tourists on a walk, stopping at four pubs, and with clever banter introduce the high craic of James Joyce, Seán O'Casey, and W. B. Yeats. The two-hour tour is punctuated with 20-minute pub breaks (free time). This is an easygoing excuse to drink beer in busy pubs, meet other travelers, and get a dose of Irish witty lit.

It was from here that Patrick Pearse read the Proclamation of Irish Independence in 1916, kicking off the Easter Rising. The building itself - a kind of Irish Alamo - was the rebel headquarters and scene of a bloody five-day siege that followed the proclamation. Inside you'll find the engaging GPO Witness History Exhibit, with a fairly balanced view of the rebellion of Easter Week 1916 (new since the TV show was filmed).

Built on the spot of the first Viking fortress, this castle was the seat of English rule in Ireland for 700 years. Today, it's used for fancy state and charity functions (which may sporadically close it to the public). The fancy interior is viewable on a guided tour, which offers a fairly boring room-by-room walk through the lavish state apartments of this most English of Irish palaces. The tour also includes a look at the foundations of the Norman tower as well as original Viking defenses, and the best remaining chunk of the 13th-century town wall.

Originally intended as Dublin's county jail and a debtors' prison, Kilmainham was frequently used by the British as a political prison. Many of those who fought for Irish independence were held or executed here, including leaders of the rebellions of 1798, 1803, 1848, 1867, and 1916. The last prisoner to be held in the jail was Éamon de Valera, who later became president of Ireland. He was released on July 16, 1924, the day Kilmainham was finally shut down. The buildings, virtually in ruins, were restored in the 1960s. It's touching to tour the cells and places of execution - hearing tales of oppressive colonialism and heroic patriotism - alongside Irish schoolkids who know these names well.

A visit to the Guinness Storehouse is, for many, a pilgrimage. Although the home of Ireland's national beer welcomes visitors with a sprawling modern museum, there are no tours of the actual working brewery. This is a Disneyland for beer lovers - huge crowds, high decibel music, and dreamy TV beer ads on big screens. The museum fills the old fermentation plant used from 1902 through 1988, which reopened in 2000 as a huge shrine to the tradition. Lines can be horrible at peak times, both outside and at various stops within the brewery. To avoid the worst of it, start early and consider an online booking (tickets discounted 20 percent between 9:30 and 10:45).

This entertaining tour visits the upstairs rooms of three pubs; there, you'll listen to two musicians talk about, play, and sing traditional Irish music. While having only two musicians makes the music a bit thin (Irish music aficionados will say you're better off just finding a good session), the evening - though touristy - provides a real education in traditional Irish music. The musicians clearly enjoy introducing rookies to their art and are very good at it. And, they are really funny. In the summer, this popular 2.5-hour tour frequently sells out, but it's easy to reserve ahead online. They also offer a dinner-show version.

See the Travel Details above for recommendations highlighted in bold, excerpted from Rick's guidebooks.

Hi, I'm Rick Steves, back with more of the Best of Europe. Get ready to experience Dublin - capital of the youngest and friendliest country in the European Union.

Dublin is Ireland's capital and largest city - with reminders of its stirring history and rich culture on nearly every street corner. In spite of its recent struggles, today it's a boomtown, and locals are enjoying the "Celtic Tiger" economy - one of the hottest in Europe.

In this episode we'll tap our feet to traditional music, admire ancient Irish gold, try a little hurling, remember a bloody civil war, drink Guinness in its birthplace, join poets on a pub crawl, and side-trip to ancient sites near Dublin.

Dublin was founded here on the River Liffey in the ninth century as a Viking trading settlement. It grew to become a center of wealth and commerce second only to London in the British Empire. Dublin was the most "English" of Ireland's cities. It was an "outpost of Englishness" when the rest of the island was rural, Catholic, and very Irish.

The Golden Age of English Dublin was the 18th century, when Britain was colonizing the world and growing very rich. Largely rebuilt during this Georgian era, Dublin became an elegant and cultured capital with its own parliament. The 18th century left Dublin with an air of grandness and sophistication.

Then the ideas of the French Revolution - nationalism, human rights, and so on - got in the way. In 1798 the Irish rebelled against English rule. This ended Dublin's cozy relationship with London and her genteel age was replaced by a century of strife and struggle.

This memorial to the victims of the Great Potato Famine of 1845 is a reminder that good times were replaced by an age when the national costume became bare feet and rags.

In the 19th century, with the Great Hunger, the closing of the Irish Parliament, and several uprisings for independence, the Irish were treated - and felt - more like an English colony than a partner.

The tension culminated in the 1920s with a successful war for independence, followed immediately by a tragic civil war. Finally, Dublin - its once elegant streets in ruins - emerged as the capital of the only former colony within Europe.

While patriotic statues keep memories of Ireland's long fight for independence alive, it's boom time now. Rather than exporting labor, for the first time Ireland is actually importing workers.

Grafton Street is the place to feel the new energy of Dublin. Once filled with noisy traffic, today this is a fun people zone lined with cafés, pubs, and shopping temptations.

Grafton Street leads to St. Stephen's Green. On a sunny afternoon, this lush city park is an inviting world apart from the big city. Once a place for public whippings and hangings, today it's a cheery lunchtime escape for Dubliners. St. Stephen's Green was enclosed in 1664 and gradually surrounded with fine Georgian buildings.

Today, 19th-century Dublin appears as Georgian as any city in Britain. "Georgian" - the English term for "Neo-Classical" - is named for the English kings of that era. Things were stately, uniform, and symmetrical. The streets are a grid plan - with vistas built in.

The only hint of playfulness comes from the fun colors. Locals say that after an English royal died, they were told to paint all the doors black in mourning. This sent the naughty Irish directly to the paint store.

To venture behind the fancy facades, visit Number 29 Lower Fitzwilliam Street. Admission to this Dublin home from 1790 - now a museum - comes with tours giving an intimate glimpse at the elegance of Georgian life.

Guide: The word "drawing room" is short for "withdrawing room," so these are the rooms to which the family withdrew when they had finished dining downstairs. Very often near a fireplace they had a polescreen and this is a polescreen here, and it was used to shield people's faces from the heat of the fire because they used heavy wax-based makeup, and that might run or melt close to the fire.

The tour also shows the bedrooms and dressing rooms of this typical well-to-do Georgian family.

The sons of that family likely would have gone to Trinity College - founded in 1592 by Queen Elizabeth I to establish a Protestant way of thinking about God. Trinity has long been Ireland's most prestigious college. While the student body was originally limited to rich Protestant males, today many of its students are women and Catholic.

For tourists, the big draw on campus is a museum containing the precious Book of Kells - a monk-made set of the four Gospels from about the year 800.

Before you view the original, a first-class exhibit prepares you by putting this 680-page illuminated manuscript in its historical and cultural context. Irish monks transcribed and illustrated precious manuscripts like the Book of Kells.

Studying this copy, it's clear this was painstaking work. Cover pages and chapter heads were a chance for the monks to show off their artistic creativity. They went to great lengths - using powders from crushed bugs and precious stones - to get the most vivid pigments. Medieval books were written on vellum - that's calfskin scraped with a knife. It's estimated that it took the skins of 185 darling little calves to make the Book of Kells.

To see the actual Book of Kells, you'll have to come to Dublin. Cameras are not allowed.

Upstairs, Trinity's Old Library is stacked to its towering ceiling with 200,000 of the library's oldest books. Here you'll find a rare original edition of the proclamation of the independent Irish Republic. Starting the Easter Rising in 1916, a rebel leader read these stirring and inclusive words:

Irishmen and Irish women: In the name of God and of the dead generations from which she receives her old tradition of nationhood, Ireland through us, summons her children to her flag and strikes for her freedom.

Each of the seven signatories were arrested and then executed in a nearby prison - now a national memorial that we'll visit later.

The library holds another national icon - Ireland's oldest surviving harp, from the 15th century.

This harp is featured on the back of the Irish euro coin. While the euro - adopted in 2002 - is the accepted currency throughout the countries of euro-land, each country customizes the flip side with its own national symbol.

For more treasures of Ireland from the Stone Age to the Middle Ages, visit the National Museum. Its chalices, jewelry, and brooches give glimpses into Ireland's distant and mysterious past.

Ireland's Bronze Age gold - from centuries before Christ - dazzles visitors, making it clear civilization in Ireland goes way back.

This delicate little boat - modeled after the skin-hulled boats used by people here 2,000 years ago - was an offering, placed into a lake in hopes of gaining blessings from the gods.

The collection's superstar is the Tara Brooch, embellished with gold, enamel, and amber. This early Christian ornamental brooch is 1,200 years old. It's decorated with extremely delicate filigree and Celtic-style figures. The chain on the right is connected to the ring by a snake biting the brooch. The two almost microscopic faces - etched into glass beads - are a marvel.

While the museum pieces are impressive, the place to commune with the ancient soul of Ireland is in its lush countryside. The peaceful Boyne River Valley, just an hour's drive north of Dublin, offers a world-class concentration of historical and spiritual sites.

In one day you can see the capital of ancient Irish kings; some of Ireland's finest high crosses; crawl through burial mounds older than the pyramids; and be back in Dublin in time for dinner and a pub crawl. And that's precisely our plan.

The Hill of Tara was the most important center of political and religious power in pre-Christian Ireland. It was seat of the High Kings of Celtic Ireland.

Jean: And this is the place where you will find the soul of Ireland. Here on this Hill of Tara.

Local guide Jean Thornton is giving us a sample of Tara's prehistoric, medieval, and modern history.

Rick: So for 5,000 years people have come here?
Jean: People have come to Tara and indeed they still come today. We know the Stone Age people were here, we know the Bronze Age people were here, we know the Iron Age people were here. This area was a very sacred place, where ceremony and ritual took place. Now you'll know St. Patrick is our patron saint, and the shamrock is a symbol of Ireland. We are told it all began here, on this Hill of Tara. Now in 432 A.D., Ireland was a pagan country. Now he came here to this Hill of Tara to ask the pagan king's permission to spread Christianity.

Now, this is what St. Patrick used to explain Christianity to the High King. He used this as a symbol. There are three leaves and one stem on this little piece of shamrock - the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit - and that is how he explained the Trinity, the concept of Christianity, to this pagan king.

The symbolic importance of Tara continued into Ireland's modern history. In 1843 Daniel O'Connell, the great champion of Irish liberty, gathered several hundred thousand people here. They peacefully demanded Irish home rule.

This ruined monastery, Monasterboice, is notable for its round tower - a standard feature in Ireland's early Christian churches - and its ornately carved high crosses. The Cross of Murdock - named after an abbot who ran this place around the year 900 - is considered the finest high cross in all Ireland. These crosses were illustrated with Bible stories carved into the sandstone. Originally, they were brightly painted.

Imagine a thousand years ago, priests used these as visual aids as they taught the people.

The most popular sightseeing attraction near Dublin is Brú na Bóinne, an archaeological site with two amazing ancient burial mounds. Upon arrival, visitors get appointments to tour the tombs, spend waiting time in the state-of-the-art museum, then catch their shuttle bus to one or both of the 5,000-year-old passage tombs: Newgrange and Knowth.

Knowth is a necropolis - or city of the dead - with several grassy mounds around one grand tomb. Being a passage tomb, it has one tunnel facing east and one facing west - aligned so that on both the spring and fall equinoxes, rays from the rising and setting sun shine down the passageways, illuminating its central chamber.

Guide: To give you an idea of the sweep of the history here, these sites were built approximately 5,300 years ago - approximately 3,300 B.C. - which puts them 500 years older than the oldest pyramids in Egypt, 1,000 years older than Stonehenge in Wiltshire in England. So these people put a huge amount of energy and resources, and basically a huge amount of wealth into constructing these monuments. They were probably thinking not just about survival but issues around life, death, the story of their tribe, the story of their ancestors; issues like rebirth, where did they come from, where were they going to.

Another shuttle bus ride drops us at the Newgrange tomb - thought to be even older, dating from 3,200 B.C. While we know almost nothing of the builders, this was most certainly a sacred spot dealing with some kind of sun-god ritual. Imagine the impact - the largest structure ever seen faced with exotic white quartz.

Guide: The farming people who constructed these monuments, these passage tombs, must have been the original hunting-gathering people of this country who came here after the ice melted. This abstract art appeared with them in tandem with farming, as if it was a symbolic language - something to do with their psychological and religious needs.

Your guide actually takes you deep into the tomb - down a narrow passageway, which leads to the cross-shaped central chamber under a 20-foot-high igloo-type stone dome.

Bones and ashes were placed here, under 200,000 tons of stone and dirt, to wait for a special moment. Here, in a replica of the tomb, back in the museum, your guide turns out the light and the sunray ritual is demonstrated: As the sun rises on the shortest day of the year, a ray of light shines into the passageway. For 17 minutes it lights the center of the sacred chamber.

Perhaps this was the moment when the souls of the dead would be transported to the afterlife via that mysterious ray of life-giving and life-taking sunlight.

The Irish countryside holds the secrets of Ireland's first inhabitants and the mysteries of their ancient rituals. Back in today's Dublin, the Temple Bar district has its own seemingly mysterious rituals. We're here around the summer solstice, when it's light until 10 o'clock, and the people are celebrating.

Temple Bar is Dublin's thriving nightlife center. While rundown through most of the 20th century, recent government tax incentives have helped turn Temple Bar into a thriving cultural and beer-drinking hotspot. Today this trendy center feels like the social heart of Dublin. Lots of these people are English who sail over for "stag" and "hen" parties.

With its recent economic boom and the majority of its people under 30 years of age, Dublin is modernizing like a city on fast-forward. While the Irish economy gallops into the 21st century, Irish attitudes on sex and marriage are more traditional. Stephen McPhilemy, who leads tours with me through Ireland, is cluing us in on some changes his country's going through.

Stephen: For the last 10 years our country's changed rapidly.
Rick: How?
Stephen: We've now legalized contraception, we have legalized divorce, and we're in the process, probably, of legalizing abortion.
Rick: So with all this youth culture is there still room for a traditional Irish lifestyle?
Stephen: I think very much so. We're becoming the quintessential European cosmopolitan city here. And we're proud to be Europeans in Dublin and in Ireland in general. I think we make good Europeans. I think the more European we become, the more we strive to maintain our Irishness as well. Young people here are still speaking the language, maybe not fluently, maybe not everyday, but still speaking it so it's alive, it's well, we're playing our sports, doing our dancing, and singing our ballads and songs at nighttime. A lot of it under the influence of this, but at least it's being sung.
Rick: Do you say "cheers"?
Stephen: Sláinte!
Rick: Sláinte!

The strength of Irish culture is particularly evident in the country's love for its national sports. The Gaelic Athletic Association tells why. The GAA was founded in the 19th century as an expression of an Irish cultural awakening. While created to foster the development of Gaelic sports, such as hurling or Irish field hockey, and to ban English sports like cricket, the GAA played an important part in the fight for independence.

Hurling matches are on Sundays - and actually seeing one, surrounded by incredibly spirited Irish fans, is a memorable experience. But you can relive the greatest moments in hurling history here any day of the week. Hurling - like airborne hockey with no injury timeouts - has long been recognized as an Irish national pastime.

After a peek at Ireland's top pitch, you can pick up a stick and give the game a whirl...

For many, the most endearing aspect of Irish culture is their love of language, both oral and written. Whether you're into Yeats or U2, the written gift of gab is an Irish form of high art.

Dublin, around the turn of the 20th century, produced some of the world's great modern writers - like James Joyce, William Butler Yeats, and Oscar Wilde.

Wilde was a Dubliner, attended Trinity College, and walked this park. He wowed Dublin and London alike with his quick wit, outrageous clothes, and flamboyant personality.

In his humorous plays he satirized upper-class Victorian society. His characters spoke very elegantly about the trivial concerns of the idle rich.

James Joyce wandered the back streets of Dublin, observing its seedier side, which he captured in a modern stream-of-consciousness style.

His famous novel, Ulysses, is set in a single day - June 16, 1904. In it, he follows Dubliners on a one-day odyssey through the city's markets, hospitals, brothels, and pubs.

Tourists gather for the Literary Pub Crawl, which leaves almost nightly from the Duke Pub. Tickets are cheap...just show up. Two actors take a gang of tourists on a witty walk, stopping at pubs and historical sites along the way - it's Irish Lit 101 filled with entertaining banter, which introduces the novice to the high craic - that's conversation - of Ireland's great writers. It's the perfect finish to a day in Dublin: Enjoying a pint and the great Irish storytelling tradition.

O'Connell Street - leading from O'Connell Bridge through the heart of north Dublin - is lined by statues celebrating great figures in Ireland's fight for independence. While it's been Dublin's grandest street for 200 years, it was renamed after this man, Daniel O'Connell, only after the Irish won their independence in the 1920s. Daniel O'Connell, known as "the Liberator," was that strong voice for Irish Catholics in the British Parliament back in the 1800s.

Dublin's General Post Office is not just a place to buy stamps. It's a kind of Irish Alamo, still pockmarked with bullet holes. Murals inside tell its story. It was from here that Patrick Pearse read the Proclamation of Irish Independence in 1916 - the one we saw earlier. This kicked off the Easter Rising, which ultimately led to Ireland's independence from British rule. This was the rebel headquarters and scene of a five-day bloody siege that followed that proclamation.

After 300 were killed and the rebel leaders realized that no national uprising would follow theirs, they surrendered. While they had little public support at first, after the British tried and executed the leaders, public sympathy rose, and they became martyrs. This stirred the public. British control began collapsing, and by 1921 Ireland was independent.

At Dublin Castle the British formally handed power over to the Irish in a stirring ceremony in this courtyard.

It was from here that the viceroy enforced the will of British royalty. This place was the much-feared and disdained seat of British rule in Ireland for 700 years.

Today, it's used for state functions and tour guides take visitors through this most 'English' of Irish palaces.

Kilmainham Gaol, opened in 1796 and considered a model in its day, was used as a political prison by the British. Many of Ireland's patriots - its Nathan Hales and Patrick Henrys - were held and then executed here.

Guides take visitors through the prison and give it meaning.

Guide: Fourteen of the leaders of the rebellion were to be executed in this very yard. The very first to be executed, Patrick Pearse, Thomas Clarke, and Thomas MacDonagh, were taken down here separately in the early hours of the third of May. They were taken down there where that cross now stands. Their hands were tied behind their backs, a white marker was placed over their hearts, and they were blindfolded.

The prison museum personalizes the inspirational story of the leaders of the Easter Rising. The "Last Words 1916" hall displays the poignant farewell letters the martyred leaders wrote to loved ones hours before facing the firing squad.

Near the jail, the huge Guinness Brewery fills several city blocks along Dublin's River Liffey. Arthur Guinness began brewing his famous stout here in 1759. A hundred years later, it was the biggest brewery in the world.

The home of Ireland's national beer welcomes visitors - for a price - with a huge exhibit. It fills the old fermentation plant like a shrine. A tall beer-glass-shaped glass atrium - 14 million pints big - leads past several floors of exhibitions to the Gravity Bar, where visitors enjoy a commanding 360-degree view of Dublin with their pint.

Guinness - once the clear leader - is having to adapt to the new prosperous Ireland. Now, as Ireland embraces its new fast-paced economy, drinking pint after heavy pint of this thick-headed stout is no longer your only option. Lighter lagers are the trend. In recent years Guinness has introduced a cold version - Ice Guinness, and a light brew for the ladies - which, to the cheers of the purists, bombed. Still, in Dublin, when you ask for a beer...you get a Guinness.

Which reminds me: We're due back in Temple Bar for another pub crawl. In Ireland, good beer comes with good music. For a toe-tapping introduction to "trad," as traditional music is called, we're taking the Traditional Irish-Music Pub Crawl. You "crawl" to three pubs listening to musicians demonstrate traditional Irish instruments like the bodhrán ...and once you have the beat, you can tap your feet to the music.

Whether in the pubs, in its ancient past, in its struggle for independence, or in its lively streets, Dublin is the capital of nation with a rich history and an irrepressible spirit.

And the people of Dublin, with their inspirational love of life, make this city a delight to visit. Thanks for joining us. I'm Rick Steves. Until next time, keep on travelin'. Cheers!
Credits:
Rick: Hi, I'm Rick Steves.
Passerby: Europe Through the Back Door?
Rick: That's right.

Rick: Hi, I'm Rick Steves. Hey, how ya doing?
Passerby: Pretty good; how're you?
Rick: Hi, I'm Rick Steves.

Or, to help ease pagans into Christianity, it could have... Or it may have had a practical function: to support the cross-beam. Nobody knows!

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Dublin and Mystical Side Trips - Video - Rick Steves' Europe

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Dublin's story is of feast and famine - from its 18th-century Golden Age to its 20th-century struggles for independence to its boomtime today. We explore the town's foreboding castle and patriotic jail, plus Trinity College with its Book of Kells. Later we party in Temple Bar, awash in Celtic music and Guinness.

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A chronology of key events in the modern history of Ireland.

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KNEECAP - C.E.A.R.T.A lyrics + English translation

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Translation of 'C.E.A.R.T.A' by KNEECAP from Gaelic (Irish Gaelic) to English

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Irish American Hockey Association in Belfast on the state of Hockey in Ireland

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Ireland at the Buenos Aires Youth Olympic Games 2018

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The Cranberries - Ode To My Family (Official Music Video)

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In their first flush of success in America, the Cranberries supported their hit debut album by touring with Suede, The The, Duran Duran and then, as O'Riordan remembers it, 'tons of headline tours'. They played the huge Woodstock festival in 1994. On one tour they were doing two shows a night. And the hard work paid off: by the mid-1990s the Cranberries were the second-biggest Irish band in the world. They had Number One singles in 26 countries. By the end of the decade, propelled by the subsequent big hit singles Ode To My Family and Zombie, they had sold 28 million copies of their first three albums. Their singer, meanwhile, was often accorded the dubious accolade of 'Ireland's richest woman'.

And then... what? The Cranberries slipped off the radar. There were another two albums, Bury the Hatchet, and in 2001, Wake Up and Smell the Coffee, but you could be forgiven for not noticing. Maybe the band barely noticed either. For a long time, almost since the release of their first album, O'Riordan, Noel Hogan (guitar), his brother Mike Hogan (bass) and Fergal Lawler (drums) had collectively given the impression of a band who didn't much care for being wildly popular. O'Riordan, especially, was characterised as at best shy and withdrawn, and at worst moody and erratic.

Almost as soon as we have sat down on a sofa upstairs in her Dublin house, without being asked to, O'Riordan starts explaining. And explaining herself. She does this without much in the way of grammatical pauses, nor pauses for breath. 'What happened was we did five albums with the Cranberries and then the Greatest Hits, and four years ago I decided to take time off and step away from the band. Because there was a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes that was much more important than being in a rock band. My husband Don's mother, Denise, was diagnosed with cancer, and she was given eight months to live. We decided to go and stay there and help live her days with her, 'cause you don't get those chances again, right? That's the priority and she's the children's grandmother.'

From upstairs floats the sound of Taylor, nine, Molly, six, and Dakota, two, O'Riordan and husband Don Burton's three children. (She has a stepson, Donny, 15, who lives in Toronto with his mother, Burton's former partner.) A strapping Canadian a decade her senior, Burton was tour-managing Duran Duran when he and O'Riordan met. After a two-month courtship they were engaged, getting married in the summer of 1994. The bride, infamously, wore a see-through dress.

'Behind the scenes as well as in the band there was a lot of illness,' O'Riordan continues, oblivious to what is going on downstairs - her mother, Eileen, is on hand, as she is every day, to help with her children. 'And when the Greatest Hits came out and we did that tour, I just felt I wanted to take a break, totally. Probably because, as well, I was so young when I got famous. I did album, tour, album, tour, album, tour, then I had a public nervous breakdown where I just lost tons of weight.'

In October 1996, after the release of their third album To the Faithful Departed, a burnt-out band cancelled the remainder of a world tour. O'Riordan, especially, simply wasn't up to it. At the time she weighed six and a half stone, and she was racked with self-doubt. She had always been insecure - she readily volunteers that this was because, 'I didn't get a lot of attention from my dad when I was young. That's a big part of it for girls. Because your dad is the first love of your life. If he doesn't put you on his lap and give you a pet, you do end up not really liking yourself that much.' Convent-educated O'Riordan is the youngest of seven children, and was raised in a strict Catholic household. Her father, Terence, was injured in an accident when she was a child, and so her mother had to support the family.

Receiving the adulation of countless thousands of concert-goers, it seems, was no help. That was the 'wrong love'. Working and travelling but 'having no friends around you, and no normal love, and no reality - of course you're gonna turn into a kind of a lunatic eventually. So, it happened to me,' she says, a broad smile fixed across her face.

Was she anorexic? 'I honestly think that it was beyond anorexia - it was bigger than that. I was having a nervous breakdown. Losing lots of weight. I wasn't sleeping, I couldn't eat. I was suffering an awful lot from out-of-control anxiety attacks. I just couldn't control my motor skills - I was panicking too much to move my limbs.'

O'Riordan says that her paralysis would occur before going on stage, meeting strangers, 'or sitting with strange people. It was very weird. It was a bit scary. So I went to see the psychiatrist and he just said it was too much stress.'

She began to recover, the healing process helped along by the birth of her first child the year after the diagnosis of her breakdown. But the fire had gone out of the Cranberries, and their music. They had spent the preceding six years racing to the top of the mountain. They would spend the next six sliding slowly down the other side.

It is a sunny Saturday in Dublin's affluent outer suburbs. Howth is a millionaires' playground, albeit one disguised as an unostentatious, family-oriented neighbourhood. The politician and businessman Feargal Quinn is a neighbour, Ronan Keating of the recently reformed Boyzone lives nearby. O'Riordan is back home for just a day. She is busy promoting Are You Listening?, her first job of work in four years, and right now she is in a different European country every day.

In writing songs for herself rather than a band, 'there was an element of freedom that I'd never had before. When I wrote Black Widow [about her mother-in-law's battle with cancer], it was my first time experimenting with dark music. I've always played around with aggression, happiness, sadness, but never darkness.'

Are You Listening? is a collection of well-crafted pop songs, not as maudlin, wishy-washy and lumpen as the Cranberries' latter albums. Her remarkable voice, too, is less histrionic. The punchy Ordinary Days (dedicated to Dakota) and the ballad Apple of my Eye (about Burton) have melodies to rival those long-ago career-launching singles. On the big rock thumper, Loser, she doesn't pull any punches ('The moral of the adventure is this/Take me for granted, you are taking the piss') but refuses to say who it is about, save that it is someone in the music industry.

As she bustles about the house she is cheerful and welcoming, with a slightly manic, chat-chat-chat edge. This could come of the speedy pace at which she and Burton are operating just now (he is managing her) after four years' 'retirement'. Or it could come from the ingrained trauma of the 1990s, and the subsequent therapy she underwent - she was a patient of 'celebrity therapist' Beechy Colclough, Harley Street confidant of everyone from Elton John to Robbie Williams and Kate Moss. It is hard to imagine how full-on and clenched she might be if she wasn't a serious yoga addict (she does two hours a day).

Today her house is a base for the Telegraph photoshoot and the attendant frocks and finery - much to her daughters' excitement, and much to her son's consternation. For the first couple of years of their lives, Taylor and (for a shorter period) Molly were on the road with O'Riordan. But none of her children can remember mummy working, or being on television. Yet the past year, which O'Riordan has spent writing and recording her solo album in her home studios, here in County Dublin and in Ontario (their Canadian home is normally described as a log cabin, but one imagines it is rather grander than that), has coincided with dawning consciousness on the part of Taylor. 'He's been coming home from school and saying, "Mammy, my friends tell me that you're famous and that you're from a band..."'

O'Riordan and Burton have lived in this spacious, modern villa for three years. The walls in the hallway are covered with large-scale photographs taken at the children's christenings - O'Riordan, glowing new mother in sleeveless dress, Celtic cross tattoo visible on one upper arm, loveheart tattoo on the other. Another shows her extended family, gathered after the ceremony, cheering for the camera. And Burton, beaming dad, in leather trousers and, in another, a pink brocaded suit.

Jostling for wallspace in the hall and up the stairwell are some of O'Riordan's music-industry awards: the 1994 award from America for Most Performed Song on College Campus, for Zombie, O'Riordan's heartfelt if clumsy song about the Troubles ('In your head they are fighting/With their tanks and their bombs/And their bombs, and their guns'); an acknowledgement of the nomination of Zombie for an Ivor Novello songwriting award; silver, gold and platinum discs from South Africa, Australia and umpteen other countries.

Downstairs, the children's bedrooms, a riot of Bratz and Spider-Man duvets. Next door, the bathroom, with a pile of copies of Motor Boats Monthly and The Robb Report Collection (Real Estate and Interior Design) by the toilet. Opposite, the lounge-cum-bar. Finally, upstairs, in the loft-style space, is the office and O'Riordan's little studio, easel (she loves to paint) and racks and racks of stagewear gathered over 10 years touring the world. All in all it's fancy, but not as fancy as their previous abode: Riversfield Stud was a 150-acre farm in Kilmallock, near her hometown of Limerick. 'This is a real family home,' O'Riordan says. 'We're so much happier in this home than we were in the big place. That was very lonely.'

They had moved there in 1998, shortly after the birth of Taylor, at the height of O'Riordan's traumas. She remembers being in Australia when her paternal grandmother died; she couldn't get home for the funeral, because that would have meant halting the Cranberries' tour. 'It's not just about you, it's about all these people around you. There are hundreds of people depending on you.' She had been forced to spend most of her first pregnancy in Canada, away from her mother. For an avowed family woman like O'Riordan, not to mention one feeling lonely and isolated already, this was a serious wrench. 'While I was pregnant, my maternal grandmother passed away - I was in the morgue at her funeral, and there were paparazzi outside. I knew then that I had to get out of the country and go somewhere where I could recover and get away from it completely.'

Was buying the stud farm a continuation of that reclusive behaviour? 'It was like my Neverland. I was having that, "God, who am I?" moment. But I couldn't go out and walk around casually. People would come up and go, "If I had your money, I'd burn it." But you couldn't go to the pub and have one pint. So I built my own pubs and my own world. But you become a bit dysfunctional and a bit weird after a while. Too reclusive. 'Sometimes I'd be asking the staff, "Will you come in, I'm lonely!"' she cackles, her eyes wide. Nor did her young family ease her traumas. 'The kids' bedrooms were miles away. A different wing! They're quite cheap those big old manors, you can buy them down the country for a couple of million.'

Amid the torrent of her speech, O'Riordan offers glimpses of what sounds like a terrible existence, where her fame and her wealth cursed both her and her family. She is from the countryside herself, and knows the ways of rural Ireland, but talks of her 'sticking out' in the little towns and villages. She says, 'Imagine living in this big house and you can't go out because somebody'll throw stones at you or chase you. "Your mammy's nee nee ne-ne neer,"' she says in a sing-song sneer.

Finally, in 2004, they sold the house and most of the land for E4.5 million (£3 million). Now, in County Dublin, she only needs a housekeeper, and the children go to a local school 'and we're part of the community. It's very safe, it's much better for the kids. I can go out, walk around, nobody comes up to me. Some people ask for autographs sometimes, but that's it.'

But being dubbed Ireland's richest woman can't have helped, I suggest. 'Oh, it's crazy. I flippin' wish, man!' Her reputed super-wealth was, she agrees, like a neon sign over her head. 'Here she comes, who wants a free drink? Here, I'd like to build something, please charge me 10 times!' she hoots, manically. The implication is that she was exploited, targeted. Indeed, in 2004 she and Burton were taken to court by their former child-minder, and accused of false imprisonment, breach of contract and negligence. The lawsuit failed. Equally, during my afternoon with O'Riordan, I overhear Burton talking about obsessive fans, in Belgium, Amsterdam and New Zealand, and how he has had to get Interpol involved.

'It used to be upsetting,' O'Riordan replies when I bring up the subject of overzealous fans. 'I decided there's nothing I can do about it by dwelling on it. So if I ever get anything weird I take it to the police, and they just deal with it. But you have to realise that it's usually just a coward, someone trying to play with your head, mind games.'

It is time to take the photographs. We walk down to the nearby cliffs overlooking Dublin Bay, taking a route through the 2.5-acre plot overlooking the sea on which she and Burton are about to begin building a new house. Burton, a bit of a handyman, describes their plans for a three-level, 10,000 sq ft home, complete with swimming-pool, gym and recording studio. It seems that they will continue to live in the villa up the hill, though.

O'Riordan, resplendent in a Gucci dress, is radiant in every sense. She is still very thin, bony almost, and incredibly petite. But she is full of beans, even more so when Burton's near to hand - she calls him 'my rock, my pillar'. It is hard to imagine her even attempting a comeback without his steady management behind the scenes.

The Cranberries are not completely defunct, she says. 'I stepped away from the group four years ago. I walked out of this big, big room I was in for a very long time into a smaller room, a different room, an interesting new room. But I didn't shut the door. It's kind of open.' She says she is not in touch with 'the boys' (who all live in Limerick) - she says they were never that close in the first place - although Burton talks to Noel Hogan 'a lot'.

'I can't really see myself going back immediately. The reunion that the Police are doing is quite respectable and quite decent because it's 30 years since the split [it's actually more like 20]. That sounds kind of cool. They've given it a good old break and did their own stuff.'

Two weeks later, Dolores O'Riordan plays her first live show in four years, an intimate, brief showcase event in the basement of the Hospital, an arts venue in London's Covent Garden. She and her band - seasoned session players with a distinct whiff of gnarly old rock dudes about them - are dressed in black. She is in feisty form, kicking her white-trainer-clad feet high in the air. Her cover of In the Ghetto is cringy - too much melodrama, not enough soul - but the new songs sound as powerful as the old ones she plays, Dreams and Linger. Performing the hits that launched and then defined her, she says, holds no fear. 'The audience always join in. And it's, "Oh, fun time!" as opposed to, "I'm-performing-for-you time." So the old energy's going round the room like this...' - she waggles her arms around her - '...in a circle, wooh!'

It is not so much a zen approach to rock'n'roll as a yogic one. And, in the end, it's a grown-up approach - that of a woman who became famous while still a girl, and got trapped there. It has taken O'Riordan this long - and three children - to free herself. 'I was obsessed with my career,' she freely confesses. 'It was my life, now it's just a hobby. It's fun. Thankfully, by making those decisions to have children when I did, I have the possibility now to have a second life with them. My mam said to me, "Careers come and go, but children are for ever." It's true. I'd hate to be a very successful career woman and have all this accomplishment, but have no children or grandchildren. Who'd be around when you were dying, like? Who'd mind you?'

'Are You Listening?' is released on May 7

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Ten years ago the Cranberries were the biggest indie band in the world, but the pressure of fame caused singer Dolores O’Riordan to have a nervous breakdown. Now she is ready to face the world again - alone. By Craig McLean.

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After the country joined the European Community in 1973, it was transformed from a largely agricultural society into a modern, high-technology economy.

However, the economy collapsed following the 2008 global financial crisis. With the help of an international bailout, Ireland has been recovering once more.

Its strong literary and musical traditions, as well as its long history of emigration, have given Ireland an international cultural presence disproportionate to its size.

In 1921 the British government split the island into the mainly Protestant North and the mainly Catholic South, planning to keep both regions in the United Kingdom. However, the South seceded in 1922, while Northern Ireland opted to remain.

Northern Ireland subsequently saw decades of violent conflict between those campaigning for a united Ireland, and those wishing to stay in the United Kingdom, until a communal power-sharing agreement came into force in 1999.

FACTS

Population 4.6 million

Area 70,182 sq km (27,097 sq miles)

Major languages English, Irish

Major religion Christianity

Life expectancy 78 years (men), 83 years (women)

Currency euro

LEADERS

Michael D Higgins, a veteran left-wing politician, poet and human rights activist was elected president in 2011.

He is a former Galway university lecturer and published poet who has dedicated his four-decade political career to championing Irish culture and left-wing causes worldwide. He is an Irish speaker.

The president wields little power beyond the ability to refer potentially unconstitutional legislation to the Supreme Court, but has an important symbolic role in representing Ireland at the national and international level.

The Fianna Fáil leader took over as head of a coalition government with traditional rival Fine Gael and the Green Party in June 2020, after closely-fought elections in February had put the resurgent left-wing Sinn Féin party in second place.

A long ministerial career since the 1990s has supplied him with ample experience of economic and foreign affairs, and Mr Martin's initial priority has been to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic.

But the economic impact of the departure of the United Kingdom from the European Union is likely preoccupy the first years of his administration.

Fine Gael leader Leo Varadkar become deputy prime minister, and the two party leaders are due to swap places in December 2022. This is the first time the two main parties have served together in government.

MEDIA

Public Raidio Teilifis Eireann (RTE) provides TV, radio and online services in English and Irish and is the main player in the broadcasting sector.

Media outlets operate freely, although Reporters Without Borders has raised concerns about the impact of highly-concentrated media ownership.

TIMELINE

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After the country joined the European Community in 1973, it was transformed from a largely agricultural society into a modern, high-technology economy. However, the economy collapsed following the 2008 global financial crisis. With the help of an international bailout, Ireland has been recovering once more.

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Celebrating Gaelic gangster rap in Ireland this Seachtain na Gaeilge

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Gangster rap is something that has been in the USA for over 30 years and now it's finally being written and performed in the Irish language in Ireland.

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IRELAND 2019