The Irish Republic’s second largest city is a surprisingly appealing place - you’ll find time passes effortlessly during the day, and by night the pub scene is lively. The town centre is uniquely situated on an island between two channels of the Lee River.
Many diverse events and festivals take place around the country over the year. February sees the Dublin International Film Festival . At Easter many small towns hold parades and townsfolk gorge themselves on chocolate eggs. June 16 is Bloomsday in Dublin, with re-enactments of Ulysses and readings throughout the city. Listowel in County Kerry holds a Writers’ Week literary festival during June, and there’s a Jazz & Blues Festival in Belfast. July is when marching really gets into its stride in Northern Ireland, and every Orangeman hits the streets on the Glorious 12th to celebrate the Protestant victory at the Battle of the Boyne.
August is equestrian month, with the Dublin Horse Show and races in Tralee. Also in county Kerry, at Killorglin, the ancient Puck Fair heralds unrestricted drinking for days and nights. In September, Cork has its Film Festival and Belfast has a Folk Festival . In October, Dublin has its Theatre Festival , Ballinasloe in County Galway hosts the country’s largest cattle and horse fair , and Kinsale in County Cork is home to Ireland’s gourmet festival . In Wexford the November Opera Festival is an international event. Christmas is a quiet affair in the countryside, though on 26 December the ancient practice of Wren Boys is reenacted, when groups of children, traditional musicians and Irish dancers perform at area homes, asking donations in exchange for a year’s worth of good luck.
Overall, Ireland has a mild, but changeable, Oceanic climate with few extremes. The warmest recorded air temperature was 33.3 °C (91.94 °F) at Kilkenny Castle, County Kilkenny on 26 June 1887, where as the lowest recorded temperature was −19.1 °C (−2.38 °F) at Markree Castle, County Sligo on 16 January 1881.[20]
Other statistics show that the greatest recorded annual rainfall was 3,964.9 mm (156.1 in) in the Ballaghbeena Gap in 1960. The driest year on record was 1887, with only 356.6 mm (14.0 in) of rain recorded at Glasnevin, while the longest period of absolute drought was in Limerick where there was no recorded rainfall over 38 days during April and May of 1938.[21]
The climate is typically insular, and as a result of the moderating moist winds which ordinarily prevail from the South-Western Atlantic, it is temperate, avoiding the extremes in temperature of many other areas in the world at similar latitudes.
Precipitation falls throughout the year, but is light overall, particularly in the east. The west, however, tends to be wetter on average and prone to the full force of Atlantic storms, more especially in the late autumn and winter months, which occasionally bring destructive winds and high rainfall totals to these areas, as well as snow and hail. The regions of North Galway and East Mayo have the highest incidents of recorded lightning annually (5 to 10 days per year).[22] Munster in the south records the least snow with Ulster in the north more prone to snow. Some areas along the south and southwest coasts have not had any lying snow since February 1991.
Inland areas are warmer in summer, and colder in winter - there are usually around 40 days of below freezing temperatures (0 °C/32 °F) at inland weather stations, but only 10 days at coastal stations. Ireland is sometimes affected by heat waves, most recently 1995, 2003, 2006.
Ireland (pronunciation /īrlənd/; Irish: Éire; Ulster Scots: Airlann) is the third largest island in Europe,[1] and the twentieth-largest island in the world.[2] It lies to the north-west of continental Europe and is surrounded by hundreds of islands and islets. To the east of Ireland, separated by the Irish Sea, is the island of Great Britain. Politically, the state Ireland (described as the Republic of Ireland in cases of ambiguity) covers five-sixths of the island, with Northern Ireland, part of the United Kingdom, covering the remainder in the north-east.
The population of the island is slightly over six million (2007), with 4.34 million in the Republic of Ireland[3] (1.7 million in Greater Dublin[4]) and an estimated 1.75 million in Northern Ireland[5] (0.6 million in Greater Belfast[6]). This is a significant increase from a modern historical low in the 1960s, but still much lower than the peak population of over 8 million in the early 19th century, prior to the Irish potato famine.
The name Ireland derives from the name Ériu (in modern Irish, Éire) with the addition of the Germanic word land. Most other western European names for Ireland derive from the same source, such as French Irlande, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese Irlanda, German Irland and Dutch Ierland.
