{"id":5492,"date":"2024-03-06T12:57:25","date_gmt":"2024-03-06T12:57:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alison.com\/blog\/?p=5492"},"modified":"2024-03-06T12:57:25","modified_gmt":"2024-03-06T12:57:25","slug":"7-reasons-to-explore-irish-culture-and-heritage-this-st-patricks-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alison.com\/blog\/7-reasons-to-explore-irish-culture-and-heritage-this-st-patricks-day","title":{"rendered":"7 Reasons to Explore Irish Culture and Heritage this St Patrick\u2019s Day"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Discover your Irish roots and tap into the magical sounds of Irish traditional music on March 17th, the feast day of the patron saint of Ireland. Despite its small size, with just 7 million people living on this tiny island on the northwestern tip of Europe, the Irish diaspora is believed to number as many as 80 million! If you suspect you might be among those with a hint of Irish DNA, here are some reasons to celebrate your heritage.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Scenic Beauty<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If your impression of Ireland is based on the epic movie \u2018The Quiet Man\u2019, you&#8217;ll be pleased to know that John Wayne&#8217;s character would no longer be cheered on by onlookers if he dragged Maureen O\u2019Hara over the fields after their wedding. However, in many respects, the rural countryside of counties Mayo and Galway, where John Ford shot the film, remains as rugged, restful, and romantic as it was in the 1950s. The west coast of the island is a magnet for visitors eager to drive the 2600km Wild Atlantic Way and experience some of the world\u2019s most stunning scenery, including the Cliffs of Moher in County Clare and the Ring of Kerry on the southern coast.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Modern Economy<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While parts of Ireland retain their unspoilt charm, don\u2019t be fooled into thinking that everyone lives in a thatched cottage and drives a donkey to work. Ireland boasts a thoroughly modern, dynamic economy and serves as a major hub for multinational companies in the tech, pharma, and finance sectors, with the capital city Dublin dubbed \u2018Silicon Docks\u2019. The workforce is young, well-educated, and eager to make its mark in the world. Its rugby team and boxing champions are testament to the ambition and talent that run in the DNA.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Famous Forebears<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Irish people have historically been high achievers, with many American presidents, including Joe Biden, proud of their Irish heritage and celebrated by their ancestral homeland. However, there are also less happily remembered figures, such as the 7th president of the USA, Andrew Jackson, infamous for his role in the Trail of Tears which saw thousands of Native Americans driven from their lands in the 1830s. If you have Irish roots, take pride in the knowledge that your forebears include:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Mathematician George Boole, whose Boolean algebra laid the foundations for modern computer science and digital electronics.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Scientist Robert Boyle, one of the founders of modern chemistry and a proponent of Boyle&#8217;s law.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Physicist Ernest Walton, who, along with John Cockcroft, became the first person to artificially split the atom.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Francis Beaufort, the naval officer who devised the Beaufort scale, a widely-used measure of wind force.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The workforce of the famous Belfast Shipyard Harland &amp; Wolff, who built RMS Titanic. She was the largest ship ever built when she set sail in April 1912, and as the locals are quick to remind visitors: \u201cShe was all right when she left here!\u201d<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Saints and Scholars<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ireland is known as the Land of Saints and Scholars due to its monastic missionaries, who are said to have saved Europe from the Dark Ages. During this period, which lasted from the 4th to the 6th centuries AD, barbarian invaders such as the Vandals and the Visigoths destroyed books and manuscripts across the continent. Irish monks established monastic scriptoria, where they copied and saved precious texts from the scriptures to classical literature and important scientific treatises. They also taught the populations around them and helped turn the tide of illiteracy across Europe, preserving Western civilisation\u2019s intellectual heritage.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Names of Note<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ireland\u2019s cultural greats include literary legends like Oscar Wilde, James Joyce, WB Yeats, Lady Gregory, Samuel Beckett, and George Bernard Shaw. Did you know that Dracula creator Bram Stoker was from Ireland and got the idea for the story from a legend in County Derry? Away from literature, heroic Irishwomen that you may not have heard about include Mary Elmes, who saved hundreds of Jewish children during the Holocaust by sheltering them in various safe houses in France, and Mary Harris \u2018Mother\u2019 Jones, who was born in Cork, Ireland, but rose to prominence as a campaigner for workers&#8217; rights across the United States.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Musical Maestros<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Saints, scholars, and scientists aside, one of Ireland\u2019s greatest cultural exports takes centre stage across the world on St Patrick\u2019s Day, and that is its musical heritage. From heart-rending ballads to uplifting jigs and reels, Irish traditional music has sent ripples worldwide and can be heard in everything from country and bluegrass to punk. Dive into a sensational suite of courses in seven different instruments, as well as voice, this March, and you\u2019ll be learning from some of the top musicians in Ireland today. Our <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/alison.com\/tag\/traditional-irish-music\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">free Irish music courses<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> include guitar, fiddle, accordion, flute, tin whistle, concertina, bodhr\u00e1n, and sean-n\u00f3s unaccompanied singing with Nell N\u00ed Chr\u00f3in\u00edn, lead vocalist with Dan\u00fa. You might even pick up a few words of Irish from the lessons!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you suspect you might have a drop of Irish blood and are not sure how to trace your ancestry, enrol today in our free course, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/alison.com\/course\/an-introduction-to-irish-family-history\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">An Introduction to Irish Family History<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. You\u2019ll learn how to research official documents, hacks for overcoming common obstacles to making progress, and lots of fascinating information about historic events, from the devastating famine of the late 19th century to the Easter Rising that launched the country on the path to independence from Britain in 1916. It\u2019s as easy as \u2018a haon, d\u00f3, tr\u00ed\u2019 to begin. Simply register for your free account, download the app if you prefer learning on your phone, and reconnect with your roots today!<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Discover your Irish roots and tap into the magical sounds of Irish traditional music on March 17th, the feast day of the patron saint of Ireland. Despite its small size, with just 7 million people living on this tiny island on the northwestern tip of Europe, the Irish diaspora is believed to number as many [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":5493,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[233,752,566,218,58,506],"class_list":["post-5492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alison-in-action","tag-ireland","tag-irish","tag-irish-traditional-music","tag-online-learning","tag-music","tag-traditional-irish-music","match-height"],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/alison.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/5-Reasons-to-Explore-Irish-Culture-and-Heritage-this-St-Patricks-Day_Blog-header_option2.png","featured_category":"Alison in Action","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alison.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alison.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alison.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alison.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alison.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5492"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/alison.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5492\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5494,"href":"https:\/\/alison.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5492\/revisions\/5494"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alison.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alison.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alison.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alison.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}