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The culture of Ireland refers to the idiosyncratic cultural norms of Ireland and the Irish people. The culture of the people living in the island of Ireland is far from monolithic, due to various plantations down through the centuries. The notable cultural divides exist between the rural people and city dwellers, between the Catholic and Protestant people of Northern Ireland, between the Irish-speaking people inside and outside the Gaeltacht regions and the English-speaking majority population, and increasingly between new immigrants and the native population.

Farming and rural tradition

As archaeological evidence from sites such as the Céide Fields in County Mayo and Lough Gur in County Limerick demonstrates, farming in Ireland is an activity that goes back to the very beginnings of human settlement. In historic times, texts such as the Táin Bó Cúailinge show a society in which cattle represented a primary source of wealth and status. Little of this had changed by the time of the Norman conquest of Ireland in the 12th century. Giraldus Cambrensis portrayed a Gaelic society in which cattle farming and transhumance was the norm. Three hundred years later, the society depicted in Edmund Spenser's A View of the Present State of Ireland had changed remarkably little. Even today, when a quarter of the population of the country lives in Greater Dublin, the cattle population is of the order of 6.7 million.

Townlands, villages, parishes and counties

The Normans replaced traditional clan land management(Brehon Law) with the manorial system of land tenure and social organisation. This led to the imposition of the village, parish and county over the native system of townlands. In general, a parish was a civil and religious unit with a manor, a village and a church at its centre. Each parish incorporated one or more existing townlands into its boundaries. With the gradual extension of English feudalism over the island, the Irish county structure came into existence and was completed in 1610.

These structures are still of vital importance in the daily life of Irish communities. Apart from the religious significance of the parish, most rural postal addresses consist of house and townland names. The village and parish are key focal points around which sporting rivalries and other forms of local identity are built and most people feel a strong sense of loyalty to their native county, a loyalty which also often has its clearest expression on the sports field.

Land ownership and land hunger

With the Elizabethan English conquest, the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland, and the organised plantations of English and Scottish settlers, the patterns of land ownership in Ireland were altered greatly. The old order of transhumance and open range cattle breeding died out to be replaced by a structure of great landed estates, small tenant farmers with more or less precarious hold on their leases, and a mass of landless labourers. This situation continued up to the end of the 19th century, when the agitation of the Land League began to bring about land reform. In this process of reform, the former tenants and labourers became land owners, with the great estates being broken up into small- and medium-sized farms and smallholdings. The process continued well into the 20th century with the work of the Irish Land Commission. This contrasted with Britain, where many of the big estates were left intact. One consequence of this is the widely recognised cultural phenomenon of "land hunger" amongst the new class of Irish farmer. In general, this means that farming families will do almost anything to retain land ownership within the family unit, with the greatest ambition possible being the acquisition of additional land. Another is that hillwalkers in Ireland today are more constrained than their counterparts in Britain, as it is more difficult to agree rights of way with so many small farmers involved on a given route, rather than with just one landowner.

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Holidays and festivals

Main article: Irish calendar

Much of the Irish calendar still today reflects the old pagan customs, with later Christian traditions also having significant influence. As in other countries, the date for observing Christmas was deliberately chosen to coincide with the winter solstice. Christmas in Ireland has several local traditions, some in no way connected with Christianity. On 26 December (St. Stephen's Day), there is a custom of "Wrenboys" who call door to door with an arrangement of assorted material (which changes in different localities) to represent a dead wren "caught in the furze", as their rhyme goes.

Brigid's Day ( 1 February , known as Imbolc or Candlemas) also does not have its origins in Christianity, being instead another religious observance superimposed at the beginning of spring. The Brigid's cross made from rushes on this day represents a pre-Christian solar wheel.

Other pre-Christian festivals, whose names survive as Irish month names, are Bealtaine (May), Lúnasa (August) and Samhain (November). The last is still widely observed as Halloween, followed by All Saints' Day, another Christian holiday associated with a traditional one.

Important church holidays include Easter, and various Marian observances. The national holiday in the Republic is Saint Patrick's Day, 17 March and is marked by parades and festivals in cities and towns.

The Twelfth of July, which commemorates William III's victory at the Battle of the Boyne and the beginning of the Protestant Ascendancy, is celebrated by many Protestants throughout Northern Ireland.

Cultural institutions, organizations and events

Ireland is well supplied with museums and art galleries and offers, especially during the summer months, a wide range of cultural events. These range from arts festivals to farming events. The most popular of these are the annual Dublin Saint Patrick's Day Festival which attracts on average 500,000 people and the National Ploughing Championships with an attendance in the region of 400,000. There are also a number of Summer Schools on topics from traditional music to literature and the arts.

Institutions and organisations

• Abbey Theatre
• Ambassador Theatre
• Aosdána
• Arts Council of Ireland
• Chester Beatty Library
• Cnuasach Bhéaloideas Éireann COBÁC
• Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann
• Conradh na Gaeilge
• Cork Opera House
• Culture Ireland
• Druid Theatre, Galway
• Dublin Writers Museum
• Gate Theatre
• Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery, Dublin
• Irish Georgian Society
• Irish Museum of Modern Art at the Royal Hospital Kilmainham
• James Joyce Centre
• Macnas, performance arts company, Galway
• National Archives of Ireland
• National Concert Hall
• National Folklore Collection UCD
• National Gallery of Ireland
• National Library of Ireland
• National Museum of Ireland
• National Photographic Archive
• National Transport Museum of Ireland
• National Wax Museum
• Poetry Ireland
• Puck Fair , Killorglin
• Royal Dublin Society (RDS)
• Royal Irish Academy
• Royal Irish Academy of Music
• Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland
• Royal Ulster Academy of Arts
• SFX City Theatre
• State Heraldic Museum
• Taibhdhearc na Gaillimhe, Irish language theatre, Galway
• The Helix, performing arts centre, Dublin
• The Hunt Museum, Limerick
• The Point Theatre
• Ulster American Folk Park, Omagh
• Ulster Folk and Transport Museum, Co. Down
• Ulster Museum, Belfast
• University Concert Hall, Limerick
• W5, Belfast

See also

• Museums in the Republic of Ireland
• List of Irish learned societies

Events

• Cork Jazz Festival
• Bray Jazz Festival
• Dublin Theatre Festival
• Fleadh Cheoil
• Harvest Time Blues

Religion

See also: Christianity in Ireland

In the Republic, the last time a census asked people to specify their religion was 2006. The result was 86.8% Roman Catholic, 3% Church of Ireland (Anglican), 0.8% Islam, 0.6% Presbyterian, 0.3% Methodist, less than 0.05% Jewish, approximately 1.4% other religious groupings) and 4.4% ticked the "no religion" box. About 2% failed to answer.

In Northern Ireland in 2001, the population was 40.3% Roman Catholic, 20.7% Presbyterian, 15.3% Church of Ireland (Anglican), 3.5% Methodist, 6.1% other Christian, 0.3% other religion and philosophy, and 13.9% religion not stated. Amongst the Republic's Roman Catholics, weekly church attendance dropped from 87% in 1981 to 60% in 1998, though this remained one of the highest attendance rates in Europe.

Literature and the arts

Main articles: Irish literature, Irish poetry, Irish fiction, Irish theatre, Irish mythology, Modern literature in Irish, Music of Ireland, and Irish dance

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