The fiddle in the corner of the pub in the Dingle, the session, the tune that is the 200 years old, the pint of the Guinness on the table, and the sense that the music is the language of the Ireland, is the essential Irish experience. The cultural holiday in the Ireland is the combination of the music, the literature, the history, and the landscape that is the green, the stone, and the sea. The Ireland is the small country (the 7 million people on the island), the enormous cultural influence (the Yeats, the Joyce, the Beckett, the Heaney, the 4 Nobel Prizes in the Literature for the country of the 5 million), and the cultural holiday in the Ireland is the essential European trip for the music, the words, and the story. Here is your guide.

Cultural Holidays in Ireland

• The music, the essential Irish culture: The Irish traditional music (the “trad”) is the essential cultural experience: the session (the informal gathering of the musicians in the pub, the fiddle, the bodhrán, the tin whistle, the uilleann pipes, the accordion, and the tune that the audience listens to with the silence that is the respect), the essential pubs for the trad: the Dingle (the O’Flaherty’s, the An Conair, the Dingle Music Shop, the most beautiful town in the Ireland and the best trad in the country. The essential strategy: the Dingle in the summer (the musicians from the around the world gather in the Dingle, and the sessions are the nightly), the Ennis in the County Clare (the county of the trad, the Willie Clancy Summer School in the July, the 1,000 musicians, the workshops, the sessions, and the best cultural festival in the Ireland), the Matt Molloy’s in the Westport (the pub of the Chieftains flautist, the session every night, and the best pub-trad in the west). The essential tip: the session is the conversation between the musicians, and the applause at the end of the set of the tunes is the appropriate, the applause in the middle of the tune is the not. More Ireland →
• The literature and the history, the Yeats, the Joyce, and the Troubles: The Dublin: the Trinity College Library (the Long Room, the 65 metres, the 200,000 books, the oak, the barrel-vaulted ceiling, and the most beautiful room in the Ireland. ~€16 for the Book of the Kells and the Long Room, and the essential strategy: the first entry, the 9am, and the Long Room before the crowds), the Dublin Writers Museum (the Parnell Square, the Joyce, the Yeats, the Beckett, the best introduction to the Irish literature. ~€8), the James Joyce Centre (the North Great George’s Street, the Georgian house, the Bloomsday, the 16th June, the Ulysses, the breakfast in the Martello Tower, the costumes, and the best literary festival in the world). The Sligo, the Yeats Country: the Drumcliff (the Yeats’s grave, the Ben Bulben, the “Cast a cold eye / On life, on death. / Horseman, pass by!”, the most visited grave in the Ireland), the Lough Gill (the lake, the Innisfree, “I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree”, the most beautiful Yeats poem, and the most beautiful lake in the west). The Derry/Londonderry, the Troubles history: the Bogside murals (the Free Derry Corner, the Bloody Sunday memorial, the most important murals in Europe), the Guildhall, the Museum of the Free Derry (~£5), and the essential walking tour (the Martin McCrossan City Tours, the £5, and the best history tour on the island)