Ireland never had snakes for St Patrick to banish. Here’s why the island is snake-free, which ancient writers noticed it first, how a 12th-century monk gave Patrick the credit on…

Croagh Patrick, the Reek, is Ireland’s holy mountain. Here’s St Patrick’s 40-day fast as Tírechán and the Tripartite Life tell it, where the snake legend really comes from, Reek Sunday…

Clonmacnoise, Cluain Mhic Nóis in Irish, is St Ciarán’s monastic city on the River Shannon in Co. Offaly. Here’s its story, from the founding legend and the Book of the…

Glendalough, the glen of two lakes in Co. Wicklow, is where St Kevin lived as a hermit and founded one of Ireland’s great monasteries. Here are his legends (the blackbird,…

Ireland’s round towers have been called fire temples, phallic symbols and Viking hideouts. Here’s what they really were: cloigtheach, the bell house, with how to say it, when and how…

The Molly Maguires were Irish immigrant miners in Pennsylvania’s coalfields, blamed for 16 killings and hanged after trials run largely by company lawyers. Here’s the full story: the Irish origins…

The Hill of Tara in Co. Meath is remembered as the seat of Ireland’s high kings. Here’s what’s really on the hill, from the 5,000-year-old Mound of the Hostages to…

Newgrange was built around 3200 BC, centuries before the Great Pyramid and Stonehenge’s stone circle. Here’s the passage tomb inside and out: the triple spiral, the solstice roof-box and its…

Grosse Île, a small island in the St Lawrence downriver from Quebec City, was the quarantine station for the port of Quebec from 1832 to 1937. In Black ’47, as…

The Book of Kells is Ireland’s most famous treasure: a Latin Gospel book made around 800, probably by Colm Cille’s monks on Iona, at Kells or both. Here’s where it…

Skellig Michael, Sceilg Mhichíl in Irish, is the Atlantic rock off Co. Kerry where early medieval monks built beehive huts reached by 618 steps. Here’s its real history, from the…

Brian Boru rose from the Dál gCais of east Clare to become king of Munster and, in 1002, high king of Ireland, hailed in the Book of Armagh as “emperor…

Twenty Irish words and phrases that English has no single word for, from aiteall (a bright break between showers) and meitheal to cumha, dúchas and the stray sod, each checked…

Niall of the Nine Hostages is the legendary king of Tara behind the Uí Néill, the O’Neills and the O’Donnells. Here’s how medieval writers explained his nine hostages, the tale…

Ogham is the oldest way of writing Irish: 20 letters of strokes and notches cut along the edge of a standing stone. Here’s how it works, what the 400-plus ogham…

Fairy forts are usually the round banks of early medieval ringforts, about 45,000 of which were built across Ireland. Here’s what they really were, why folklore gave them to the…

The Salmon of Knowledge is the Irish legend of how young Fionn mac Cumhaill burned his thumb cooking a magic salmon from the River Boyne and won all its wisdom….

Tír na nÓg, the Land of Youth, is the Irish Otherworld where nobody grows old. Here’s the legend of Oisín and Niamh of the Golden Head, retold from the 18th-century…

Lille, June 2016: Ireland need a win against Italy. In the 85th minute Robbie Brady heads in Wes Hoolahan’s cross. The highlights and the story of the night.

Brown Eyed Girl, recorded in 1967 by Belfast’s Van Morrison, went top ten in America and never left the dance floor. The story behind the song.