Well I never knew that...
Christopher Winn is a writer, quizmaster and producer for theatre
and television. Combining this with his work as a tour guide and his passion
for Ireland he has explored the length and breadth of the country to research
and compile I Never Knew That About Ireland.
 Packed full of fascinating
facts, tales and anecdotes, I Never Knew That About Ireland is the ultimate
guidebook to the Emerald Isle.
Organised by the four ancient provinces — Connacht, Leinster, Munster
and Ulster — and then by the counties within them this riveting
miscellany will take you throughout Ireland revealing all of the best
facts and adventures that have taken place from the Dark Ages up to today.
Discover where history was made, where legends were founded, where ideas
and inventions were conceived, were dreams took flight and where Celts,
Kings, Druids and Wise Men have left their memories carved in stone on
crosses and decorated arches.
Including love stories and ghostly tales, myths and escapades, I Never
Knew That About Ireland will reveal the range of writers and artists,
thinkers and inventors, and heroes and villains that have lived and toiled
in this magical island, and bring to life its churches, houses, castles
and monuments.
I Never Knew That About Ireland by Christopher Winn is published by
Ebury Press, £9.99.
... amazing and staggering trivia
 The tiny hamlet of Desart,
Co.Kilkenny, was the birthplace of the man who designed The White House
in America.
Bushmills in Co. Antrim is the home of the world’s oldest licensed
distillery.
The first transatlantic flight landed near the wild and isolated coastal
town of Clifden in Co. Galway.
At Lismore Castle in Co. Waterford is a bathroom celebrating Fred Astaire,
whose sister Adele was the hugely popular Chatelaine of Lismore.
The flavoured crisp was invented in Dublin by Joe Murphy, who first produced
the Tayto cheese and onion crisp at his works in O’Rahilly’s
Parade off Moore Street in 1954.
The word quiz was invented in Dublin. In 1780 a Dublin theatre manager,
James Daly, made a bet that he could introduce a meaningless word in to
the English language within 24 hours. He hired a posse of schoolboys to
chalk up the word quiz on every available wall or surface in the city
and soon Dublin was agog to know what was going on. And that is how we
came by one of the most commonly used words in the world.
The former Ferrari Formula One motor-racing driver Eddie Irvine was born
in Newtownards in 1965.
The Newry Canal, linking Lough Neagh with Newry, opened in 1741 and is
the oldest summit canal in Ireland or Britain.
Armagh is the eclesiastical capital of Ireland. It is the seat of two
Archbishops and has two magnificent St Patrick’s Cathedrals facing
each other across the town from rival hilltops. Both the Protestant and
the Roman Catholic Archbishops are entitled to call themselves Primate
of all Ireland.
The shipyard at Belfast — Harland and Wolff — was once the
biggest shipyard in the world employing over 35,000 people. It was there
that the most famous ship in the world the Titanic along with its sister
ship the Olympic was built. Each of them weighed over 77,000 tonnes.
Mizen Head is the most south-westerly point of Ireland. The lighthouse
there is reached by a graceful suspension footbridge, made of prefabricated
concrete. When it was built in 1909 it was the largest concrete suspension
bridge in the world and the first to be prefabricated.
Kinsale is known as the gourmet Capital of Ireland thanks to its huge
variety of restaurants of every nationality. For a while Kinsale was the
home of flamboyant TV chef Keith Floyd. It is one of Ireland’s most
attractive small towns with winding streets and a jaunty Spanish feel
to it — perhaps not surprising as the town was occupied by the Spanish
for 10 weeks in 1601.
US President Ronald Reagan’s great-grandparents came from Co. Tipperary.
Michael O’Reagan was born in Ballyporeen in the Knockmealdown Mountains
in 1829. Catherine was also born in Co. Tipperary. They emigrated to Illinois
in 1858.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the most famous American President of modern
times and the first Catholic President of the United States, was descended
from a Wexford family. In June 1963 President Kennedy made the first-ever
visit to Ireland by a sitting American President.
Europe’s only official horse race meeting held on a beach takes
place on the golden sands at Laytown, south of Drogheda.
The phrase by Hook or by Crook was supposedly coined by Oliver Cromwell
when he was deciding whether to appraoch Waterford Harbour via Hook Head
of the village of Crooke across the other side of the estuary.
In the grounds of Birr Castle, Co. Offaly, you can find the tallest grey
poplar in the world and an avenue of box hedges 300 years old and 40ft
high — the tallest box hedges in the world.
A few miles north of Cong is Lough Mask House, the residence of Captain
Charles Boycott, land agent for absentee landlord Lord Erne. In 1880 his
tenants demanded a substantial cut in their rents which Boycott refused.
The Irish Land League persuaded all tenants, workers and tradesmen in
the area to stop their dealing with him. The household servants downed
tools, no-one would work on the land, shops refused to serve him and even
his mail wasn’t delivered. The London Times picked up on the name
Boycott as meaning to ostracise or to refuse to deal with and the English
language acquired a new word.
The Guinness Brewery opened in 1759 at St. James’s Gate and is the
biggest brewery in Europe.
William Higgins (1763-1825) who introduced the use of letters and numbers
to denote chemical elements was born at Collooney, Co. Sligo.
The Costello Memorial Chapel in Bridge Street in Carrick on Shannon is
the second smallest chapel in the world, measuring just 16ft by 12ft.
|
