Culture of Ireland
The culture of Ireland includes the art, music, dance, folklore, theatre, traditional clothing, language, literature, cuisine and sport associated with Ireland and the Irish people. For most of its recorded history, the country’s culture has been primarily Gaelic. Strong family values, wit and an appreciation for tradition are commonly associated with Irish culture.
Irish culture has been greatly influenced by Christianity, most notably by the Roman Catholic Church, and religion plays a significant role in the lives of many Irish people. Today, there are often notable cultural differences between those of Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox background. References to God can be found in spoken Irish, notably exemplified by the Irish equivalent of “Hello” — “Dia dhuit”.
Irish culture has Celtic, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, French and Spanish influences. It also has British influences, primarily due to over eight centuries of British rule in Ireland, which suppressed numerous aspects of Irish culture. The Vikings first invaded Ireland in the 8th century, from Denmark, Norway and Sweden in modern-day Scandinavia. They had a significant influence on Ireland’s material culture at the time. The Normans invaded Ireland in the 12th century, bringing British and French influences. Additionally, Irish Travellers have had some influence on the broader cultural tapestry of Ireland, introducing nomadic traditions and other cultural practices. In recent decades, Ireland has also to some degree been influenced by migration from Eastern Europe.
Due to large-scale emigration from Ireland, Irish culture has a wide reach in the world, and festivals such as Saint Patrick's Day and Halloween are celebrated across much of the globe. Irish culture has to some extent been inherited and modified by the Irish diaspora, which in turn has influenced the home country. Moreover, the culture of Ireland is to some degree influenced by its native folklore and legends, such as those detailed in Lebor Gabála Érenn.
Farming and rural tradition
As archaeological evidence from sites such as the Céide Fields in County Mayo and Lough Gur in County Limerick demonstrates, the farm in Ireland is an activity that goes back to the Neolithic, about 6,000 years ago. Before this, the first settlers of the island of Ireland after the last Ice Age were a new wave of cavemen and the Mesolithic period. In historic times, texts such as the Táin Bó Cúailinge show a society in which cows represented a primary source of wealth and status. Little of this had changed by the time of the Norman invasion of Ireland in the 12th century. Giraldus Cambrensis portrayed a Gaelic society in which cattle farming and transhumance was the norm.Townlands, villages, parishes and counties
The Normans replaced traditional clan land management 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 1605. 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 Tudor Elizabethan English conquest in the 16th-17th centuries, the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland, and the organized plantations of English Tudor, and later Scottish, colonists, the Scottish confined to what's now mostly Northern Ireland, 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.Irish Travellers
are known for their historically nomadic lifestyle; residing in ornamented barrel top wagons, they would traverse predominantly rural areas of the island. Their propensity for rural living was influenced by a variety of factors including cultural traditions, a desire for privacy and autonomy, work opportunities and their fondness of the natural world. Travellers would often find work in rural areas, predominantly in farming, horse trading and tinsmithing. While many Mincéirí in contemporary Ireland are now settled, including in urban areas, they often maintain rural traditions such as horseback riding, and attend traditional fairs and festivals in the countryside.Holidays and festivals
in Ireland has several local traditions. On 26 December, there is a custom of "Wrenboys" who call door to door with an arrangement of assorted material to represent a dead wren "caught in the furze", as their rhyme goes.The national holiday in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland is Saint Patrick's Day, that falls on the date 17 March and is marked by parades and festivals in cities and towns across the island of Ireland, and by the Irish diaspora around the world. The festival is in remembrance of Saint Patrick, the most significant of Ireland's three patron saints. Pious legend credits Patrick with the banishing of the snakes from the island, and the legend also credits Patrick with teaching the Irish about the concept of the Trinity by showing people the shamrock, a 3-leaved clover, using it to highlight the Christian belief of 'three divine persons in the one God'.
In Northern Ireland The Twelfth of July, or Orangemen's Day, commemorates William III's victory at the Battle of the Boyne. A public holiday, it is celebrated by Irish Protestants, in particular Ulster Protestants, the vast majority of whom live in Northern Ireland. It is notable for the numerous parades organised by the Orange Order which take place throughout Northern Ireland. These parades are colourful affairs with Orange Banners and sashes on display and include music in the form of traditional songs such as "The Sash" and "Derry's Walls" performed by a mixture of pipe, flute, accordion, and brass marching bands. The Twelfth remains controversial as many in Northern Ireland's large and majority-nationalist Catholic community see the holiday, celebrating a victory over Catholics that ensured the continued establishment of a Protestant Ascendancy, as triumphalist, supremacist, and an assertion of British and Ulster Protestant dominance.
The 1st of February, known as St. Brigid's Day or Imbolc, also does not have its origins in Christianity, being instead another religious observance superimposed at the beginning of spring. St. Brigid’s Day is the only official public holiday named after a woman in Ireland. The Brigid's cross made from rushes represents a pre-Christian solar wheel.
Other pre-Christian festivals, whose names survive as Irish month names, are Bealtaine, Lúnasa and Samhain. The last is still widely observed as Halloween which is celebrated all over the world, including in the United States followed by All Saints' Day, another Christian holiday associated with a traditional one. Important church holidays include Easter, and various Marian observances.
Religion
Christianity was brought to Ireland during or prior to the 5th century and its early history among the Irish is in particular associated with Saint Patrick, who is generally considered Ireland's leading patron saint. The Celtic festival of Samhain, not to be confused with Halloween, originated in Ireland and a reconstructed version is celebrated by some across the globe.Ireland is a place where religion and religious practice have long been held in high esteem. The majority of people on the island are Roman Catholics; however, there are significant Protestant and Orthodox minorities. Protestants are mostly concentrated in Northern Ireland, where they long made up a plurality of the population. The three main Protestant denominations on the island are the Anglican Church of Ireland, the Presbyterian Church in Ireland and the Methodist Church in Ireland. These are also joined by numerous other smaller denominations including Baptists, several American gospel groups and the Salvation Army. Orthodox Christianity also has a notable presence in Ireland, where it has been the fastest growing religion since 1991, largely due to immigration from Eastern Europe. Other minority denominations of Christianity include Jehovah's Witnesses and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. In addition to the Christian denominations there are centres for Buddhists, Hindus, Baháʼís, Pagans and for people of the Islamic and Jewish faiths.
In the 2021 Census, of those in the Republic of Ireland that stated their religious identity, 81.6% identified as Christian; 68.8% as Roman Catholic, 4.2% as Protestant, 2.1% as Orthodox, 0.7% as other Christians, while 1.6% identified as Muslim, 0.7% as Hindu, 14.8% as having no religion and 7.1% not stating their religious identity. Amongst the Republic's Roman Catholics, weekly church attendance has declined sharply over the past few decades, from 87% in 1981, to 60% in 1998, to 30% in 2021. Still, this remains one of the higher attendance rates in Europe. The decline is said to be linked to reports of Catholic Church sexual abuse cases in Ireland.