Page 21 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Ireland

INTRODUCING IRELAND  19

A PORTRAIT OF

IRELAND

Many visitors see Ireland as a lush green island, full of thatched cottages, pubs,
music, wit and poetry. Like all stereotypes, this image of the country has a basis
in truth and the tourist industry helps sustain it. The political and economic
reality is, of course, rather less ideal, but the relaxed good humour of the people
still makes Ireland a most welcoming place to visit.
Ireland, at least for the time being, is a of independence also play an important
divided island. History and religion created part in the Irish consciousness. The
a North–South divide, with two hostile heroine of W B Yeats’s play Cathleen ní
communities in the North. The IRA cease fire Houlihan inspires young men to lay down
of 1997 and the Good Friday Agreement their lives for Ireland. Her image appeared
brought new hope, however. John Hume on the first banknote issued by the newly
of the SDLP and David Trimble of the created Irish Free State in 1922.
Ulster Unionist Party were jointly awarded Yet, the Irish retain their easy-going
the Nobel Prize for Peace for their work in attitude to life, with a young, highly
the peace process, and the inaugural educated population working hard to make
meeting of the Northern Ireland Assembly its way in today’s European Union. In the
took place on 1 July 1998. Republic, 40 per cent of the population is
Ireland has had more than its fair share of under 30. Despite its high birth rate, rural
wars and disasters, culmi nating in the Great Ireland is sparsely populated and emigration
Famine of 1845–8, since when emigration to the cities and abroad in recent years
has been part of Irish life. More people of has taken its toll. The Industrial Revolution
Irish descent live in the USA than in Ireland of the 19th century barely touched the
itself. Suffering and martyrdom in the cause South and for much of the 20th century

Trinity College, Dublin, the Republic’s most prestigious university
Mural on the side of a pub, Cashel

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