1.
Bunratty
–
Bunratty is a civil parish in County Clare, Ireland, and a small village by the same name. The village is located next to a major tourist attraction, Bunratty Castle, the Raite river defines the eastern boundary of the parish, and flows into the Shannon Estuary, which defines the southern boundary. The first settlement in Bunratty may have set up by Vikings in the 10th century. The Annals of the Four Masters report that Brian Boru destroyed a Viking settlement in the area in 977, around 1250 the Anglo-Norman ruler Mucegros was given the right to hold a market and fair at Bunratty. He built the castle in 1277, the castle became the main residence of Richard de Clare, owner of all of Thomond. In the late 13th century, Bunrattty had about 1,000 inhabitants, Richard de Clare was killed in 1311, and in 1314 the town of Bunratty was burned to the ground by the local people. The castle was sacked in 1332, the current Bunratty Castle was built by the MacNamara family in the early part of the 15th century. It later became property of the OBriens, who made it their principal seat as Earls of Thomond. In the early 18th century it came into the possession of the Studdert family, in 1834 Bunratty parish had 55 Protestants and 1,340 Catholics. As of 1841 there were 1,320 people in 207 houses, the parish was crossed by the road from Limerick to Ennis, which ran past the castle. In the Roman Catholic system, Bunratty parish was united with Tomfinlough, as of 1845 the castle was being used as a barracks by the Royal Irish Constabulary. During the Great Famine Bunrattys population fell into decline, Bunratty is the location of the death of the last British soldier to die in Clare during the Irish War of Independence. Private William Reginald Williams of the Royal Welch Fusiliers was fatally injured in an accident on 7 July 1921. Though Williams body was never recovered, a Commonwealth War Grave in his lies in the north-east corner of the old Bunratty graveyard adjacent to the Bunratty Castle Hotel. In the 1950s, Bunratty’s most prominent structure, the then ruined Bunratty Castle, attracted the attention of John Hunt, Lord Gort, the castle was extensively renovated and opened to the public in 1960. Although Bunratty Castle thrived, becoming a major draw for early transatlantic tourists, Bunratty parish lies on the north shore of the River Shannon to the east of Drumline parish, south and west of Feenagh parish and west of Kilfintinan parish. The Raite River, which flows into the Shannon, defines the boundary of the parish. The parish is about 2.75 by 2.25 miles, the civil parish of Bunratty has the same extent as the medieval parish of Bunratty
2.
County Clare
–
County Clare is a county in Ireland, in the Mid-West Region and the province of Munster. Clare County Council is the local authority, the county had a population of 117,196 at the 2011 census. Clare is north-west of the River Shannon covering an area of 3,400 square kilometres. Clare was founded by the noble Luke Fitzgerald, A knight of Internal Audit, Clare is the 7th largest of Irelands 32 traditional counties in area and the 19th largest in terms of population. It is bordered by two counties in Munster and one county in Connacht, County Limerick to the south, County Tipperary to the east, clares nickname is the Banner County. The county is divided into the baronies of Bunratty Lower, Bunratty Upper, Burren, Clonderalaw, Corcomroe, Ibrickan, Inchiquin, Islands, Moyarta, Tulla Lower and these in turn are divided into civil parishes, which are divided into townlands. These divisions are cadastral, defining land boundaries and ownership, rather than administrative, bodies of water define much of the physical boundaries of Clare. To the southeast is the River Shannon, Irelands longest river, the border to the northeast is defined by Lough Derg which is the third largest lake on Ireland. To the west is the Atlantic Ocean, and to the north is Galway Bay, County Clare contains The Burren, a unique karst region, which contains rare flowers and fauna. At the western edge of The Burren, facing the Atlantic Ocean, are the Cliffs of Moher, the highest point in County Clare is Moylussa,532 m, in the Slieve Bernagh range in the east of the county. Clare is one of the richest places for these tombs in Ireland, the most noted one is in The Burren area, it is known as Poulnabrone dolmen which translates to hole of sorrows. The remains of the people inside the tomb have been excavated and dated to 3800 BC, Ptolemy created a map of Ireland in his Geographia with information dating from 100 AD, it is the oldest written account of the island with geographical features. Within his map Ptolemy names the Gaelic tribes inhabiting it and the areas in which they resided and it was renamed Thomond, meaning North Munster and spawned Brian Boru during this period, perhaps the most noted High King of Ireland. From 1118 onwards the Kingdom of Thomond was in place as its own petty kingdom, after the Norman invasion of Ireland, Thomas de Clare established a short-lived Norman lordship of Thomond, extinguished at the Battle of Dysert ODea in 1318 during Edward Bruces invasion. There are two hypotheses for the origins of the county name Clare. One hypothesis is that the name is derived from Thomas_de_Clare, _Lord_of_Thomond who was embroiled in local politics. An alternative hypothesis is that the county name Clare comes from the settlement of Clare whose Irish name Clár refers to a crossing over the River Fergus. In 1543, during the Tudor conquest of Ireland, Murrough OBrien by surrender, Henry Sidney as Lord Deputy of Ireland responded the Desmond Rebellion by creating the presidency of Connaught in 1569 and presidency of Munster in 1570
3.
Republic of Ireland
–
Ireland, also known as the Republic of Ireland, is a sovereign state in north-western Europe occupying about five-sixths of the island of Ireland. The capital and largest city is Dublin, which is located on the part of the island. The state shares its land border with Northern Ireland, a part of the United Kingdom. It is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, with the Celtic Sea to the south, Saint Georges Channel to the south-east, and it is a unitary, parliamentary republic. The head of government is the Taoiseach, who is elected by the Dáil and appointed by the President, the state was created as the Irish Free State in 1922 as a result of the Anglo-Irish Treaty. It was officially declared a republic in 1949, following the Republic of Ireland Act 1948, Ireland became a member of the United Nations in December 1955. It joined the European Economic Community, the predecessor of the European Union, after joining the EEC, Ireland enacted a series of liberal economic policies that resulted in rapid economic growth. The country achieved considerable prosperity between the years of 1995 and 2007, which known as the Celtic Tiger period. This was halted by a financial crisis that began in 2008. However, as the Irish economy was the fastest growing in the EU in 2015, Ireland is again quickly ascending league tables comparing wealth and prosperity internationally. For example, in 2015, Ireland was ranked as the joint sixth most developed country in the world by the United Nations Human Development Index and it also performs well in several national performance metrics, including freedom of the press, economic freedom and civil liberties. Ireland is a member of the European Union and is a member of the Council of Europe. The 1922 state, comprising 26 of the 32 counties of Ireland, was styled, the Constitution of Ireland, adopted in 1937, provides that the name of the State is Éire, or, in the English language, Ireland. Section 2 of the Republic of Ireland Act 1948 states, It is hereby declared that the description of the State shall be the Republic of Ireland. The 1948 Act does not name the state as Republic of Ireland, because to have done so would have put it in conflict with the Constitution. The government of the United Kingdom used the name Eire, and, from 1949, Republic of Ireland, for the state, as well as Ireland, Éire or the Republic of Ireland, the state is also referred to as the Republic, Southern Ireland or the South. In an Irish republican context it is referred to as the Free State or the 26 Counties. From the Act of Union on 1 January 1801, until 6 December 1922, during the Great Famine, from 1845 to 1849, the islands population of over 8 million fell by 30%
4.
Geographic coordinate system
–
A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
5.
National monuments of Ireland
–
A National Monument in the Republic of Ireland is a structure or site which has been deemed to be of national importance and therefore worthy of state protection. If the land adjoining to the monument is essential to protect it, National monuments are managed under the auspices of the National Monuments Service, which is currently part of the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht. The official status of National Monument is conferred under the National Monuments Acts 1930 to 2004, Monuments were given protection before Irish independence by the Ancient Monuments Protection Act of 1882, an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Irish monuments were similarly protected by the independent state under the National Monuments Act of 1930, the list of National Monuments has since been expanded. By 2010 there were nearly 1000 monuments in state ownership or guardianship, each National Monument is numbered, but a numbered monument may represent a group of sites, as is the case at the Rock of Cashel. The following is an index to lists of National Monuments of Ireland, divided by province
6.
Irish language
–
Irish, also referred to as Gaelic or Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is spoken as a first language by a minority of Irish people. Irish enjoys constitutional status as the national and first official language of the Republic of Ireland and it is also among the official languages of the European Union. The public body Foras na Gaeilge is responsible for the promotion of the language throughout the island of Ireland and it has the oldest vernacular literature in Western Europe. The fate of the language was influenced by the power of the English state in Ireland. Elizabethan officials viewed the use of Irish unfavourably, as being a threat to all things English in Ireland and its decline began under English rule in the 17th century. In the latter part of the 19th century, there was a decrease in the number of speakers. Irish-speaking areas were hit especially hard, by the end of British rule, the language was spoken by less than 15% of the national population. Since then, Irish speakers have been in the minority, efforts have been made by the state, individuals and organisations to preserve, promote and revive the language, but with mixed results. Around the turn of the 21st century, estimates of native speakers ranged from 20,000 to 80,000 people. In the 2011 Census, these numbers had increased to 94,000 and 1.3 million, there are several thousand Irish speakers in Northern Ireland. It has been estimated that the active Irish-language scene probably comprises 5 to 10 per cent of Irelands population, there has been a significant increase in the number of urban Irish speakers, particularly in Dublin. In Gaeltacht areas, however, there has been a decline of the use of Irish. Údarás na Gaeltachta predicted that, by 2025, Irish will no longer be the language in any of the designated Gaeltacht areas. Survey data suggest that most Irish people think highly of Irish as a marker of identity. It has also argued that newer urban groups of Irish speakers are a disruptive force in this respect. In An Caighdeán Oifigiúil the name of the language is Gaeilge, before the spelling reform of 1948, this form was spelled Gaedhilge, originally this was the genitive of Gaedhealg, the form used in Classical Irish. Older spellings of this include Gaoidhealg in Classical Irish and Goídelc in Old Irish, the modern spelling results from the deletion of the silent dh in the middle of Gaedhilge, whereas Goidelic languages, used to refer to the language family including Irish, comes from Old Irish
7.
Tower house
–
A tower house is a particular type of stone structure, built for defensive purposes as well as habitation. Tower houses began to appear in the Middle Ages, especially in mountainous or limited access areas, at the same time, they were also used as an aristocrats residence, around which a castle town was often constructed. In Italian medieval communes, tower houses were built by the local barons as power centres during times of internal strife. In seventeenth century Scotland these castles became the pleasurable retreats of the upper-classes, while able to adopt a military nature, they were furnished for comfort and social interaction. Tower houses are commonly found in northern Spain, especially in the Basque Country. They were mainly used as residences and were able to provide shelter against several enemies, starting with the Arabs and later Castile. However, due to complex legal charters, few had boroughs attached to them, during the petty wars among the Basque nobles from 1379 to 1456, the upper floors of most of them were demolished. Few have survived unscathed to the present day, since then they have been used only as residences by their traditional noble owners or converted into farm houses. To the west of the Basque Country, in Cantabria and Asturias similar tower houses are found, furthest west in the Iberian peninsula in Galicia, medieval tower houses are in the origin of many Modern Age pazos, noble residences as well as strongholds. The tower house served the purpose of protecting the extended family and these tower houses were typically not intended to be used in any major military actions, for this purpose the crusaders relied on a number of larger order castles. A number of tower houses still exist, well-preserved examples include Purtse, Vao. The Yemeni city of Shibam has hundreds of houses which were the tallest in the world. Many other buildings in the Asir and Al-Bahah provinces of Saudi Arabia also have many stone towers and tower houses, most notable in the New World might be considered a focal element of the Mesa Verde Anasazi ruin in Colorado, United States. There is a prominent structure at that site which is in called the tower house and has the general appearance characteristics of its counterparts in Britain. Aul Svan tower Diaolou Bastle house Castle Keep L Plan Castle Manor house Peel tower The Fortified House in Scotland Fortified house Pazo Qasaba Z-plan castle Johnson Westropp, notes on the Lesser Castles or Peel Towers of the County Clare. Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, the Culture of the English People, Iron Age to the Industrial Revolution. Architecture of the Islamic world, its history and social meaning, media related to Tower houses at Wikimedia Commons Cutaway drawing Of Urquhart Castle tower house
8.
N18 road (Ireland)
–
The N18 road is a national primary road in Ireland, connecting the cities of Limerick and Galway. Ennis and Gort are two towns on the route, and Shannon Airport is reached via the connecting N19. The west coast route continues on to Sligo as the N17, the section from Limerick to the N19 junction forms part of European route E20, and the entire route is part of the proposed Atlantic Corridor. The section of motorway from Shannon to north of Gort is designated the M18 motorway, the tolled Limerick Tunnel forms part of the route. As of 27 July 2010, the N18 commences at the Rosbrien interchange, an interchange south of Limerick city. North of the River Shannon the N18 continues as dual-carriageway bypassing Cratloe, Sixmilebridge, the road passed alongside Bunratty Castle before the completion of the neighbouring dual-carriageway section in the late 1980s/early 1990s. The other nearby junctions were also converted to fly-overs in the 1990s, the road continues north with junctions at Hurlers Cross and Shannon Town, there is a fly-over connecting Shannon Airport via the N19 dual-carriageway. The N18 continues north of the N19 junction where motorway regulations are enforced, the motorway currently ends at Gort where the route continues as a single carriageway through County Galway. The dual-carriageway between Shannon and Ennis was included in the second tranche of motorway redesignations and gained motorway status on the 28th of August 2009. North of Gort the route north as single carriageway road and passes through several small towns, including Kilcolgan. The N18 bypasses Oranmore, just outside Galway, and continues north to the M6 Dublin–Galway motorway, the interchange forms junction 19 on the M6. The N18 continues northwards to meet the N17 at Claregalway, where the route ends, the N17, coming from Galway city centre, continues into County Mayo towards Sligo. Major improvements to the N18 route have been made over the past decade, originally the route was a narrow single carriageway route that ran through all the main towns and villages between Limerick and Claregalway where the route terminates. The first improvements involved the dualling of the Limerick, Bunratty, the Newmarket on Fergus bypass opened in December 2002 and the Ennis bypass opened in 2007. Both were redesignated as motorway in August 2009, the Limerick Tunnel and phase II of the Limerick Southern Ring Road opened in July 2010 forming a continuous motorway dual-carriageway from the N/M18 to the M7 and M20 outside Limerick. On November 12,2010 the €207 million Gort to Crusheen bypass was opened, the remaining single carriageway sections are due for upgradeing with construction due to begin in 2011. The Gort to Tuam scheme consists of 53.2 km of motorway and 4.2 km of Type 2 dual-carriageway. It will complete the existing M18 motorway, which terminates at a temporary junction near Gort
9.
Limerick
–
Limerick is a city in county Limerick, Ireland. It is located in the Mid-West Region and is part of the province of Munster. Limerick City and County Council is the authority for the city. The city lies on the River Shannon, with the core of the city located on Kings Island, which is bounded by the Shannon. Limerick is also located at the head of the Shannon Estuary where the river widens before it flows into the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 95,854, Limerick is the third most populous area in the state. There are 102,161 people living in the Limerick City Metropolitan District, on 1 June 2014 following the merger of Limerick City and County Council a new Metropolitan District of Limerick was formed within the united council which extended the city area. The Metropolitan District includes the city area and extends outwards towards Patrickswell in the west. The City Metropolitan Area however excludes city suburbs located within County Clare, when included this increases the overall city and metropolitan area by a further 5,000 with a combined total population of 107,161. Limerick is one of the constituent cities of the Cork–Limerick–Galway corridor which has a population of 1 million people and it is located at a strategic position on the River Shannon with four main crossing points near the city centre. To the south of the city is the Golden Vale, an area of rich pastureland, historically, much of the citys industry was based on this rich agricultural hinterland and it is particularly noted for Limerick Ham. Luimneach originally referred to the area along the banks of the Shannon Estuary known as Loch Luimnigh. The earliest settlement in the city, Inis Sibhtonn, was the name for Kings Island during the pre-Viking and Viking eras. This island was also called Inis an Ghaill Duibh, The Dark- Foreigners Island, the name is recorded in Viking sources as Hlymrekr. Antiquitys map-maker, Ptolemy, produced in 150 the earliest map of Ireland, history also records an important battle involving Cormac mac Airt in 221 and a visit by St. Patrick in 434 to baptise an Eóganachta king, Carthann the Fair. Saint Munchin, the first bishop of Limerick died in 652, in 812 the Vikings sailed up the Shannon and pillaged the city, burned the monastery of Mungret but were forced to flee when the Irish attacked and killed many of their number. The Normans redesigned the city in the 12th century and added much of the most notable architecture, such as King Johns Castle, one of the kingdoms most notable kings was Brian Boru, ancestor of the OBrien Clan of Dalcassians. The word Thomond is synonymous with the region and is retained in place such as Thomondgate
