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barm brack – spicy, cakelike bread, traditionally served at Halloween with a ring hidden inside (be careful not to choke on it!)

blaa – soft and floury bread roll

black-and-white pudding – black pudding is traditionally made from pigs’ blood, pork skin and seasonings, shaped like a big sausage and cut into discs and fried; white pudding is the same without the blood

boxty – potato pancake, becoming rarer on menus

carrigeen – seaweed dish

champ – Northern Irish dish of potatoes mashed with spring onions (scallions)

coddle – Dublin dish of semithick stew made with sausages, bacon, onions and potatoes

colcannon – mashed potato, cabbage and onion fried in butter and milk

crubeens – dish of pigs’ trotters from Cork

drisheen – another Cork dish of intestines stuffed with sheep or pigs’ blood and bitter tansy, boiled in milk

dulse – dried seaweed that’s sold salted and ready to eat, mainly found in Ballycastle, County Antrim

fadge – Northern Irish potato bread

farl – general name for triangular flat-bread and cakes common to Northern Ireland

Guinness cake – popular fruitcake flavoured with Guinness

Irish stew – quintessential stew of mutton (preferably lamb), potatoes and onions, flavoured with parsley and thyme and simmered slowly

potato bread – thin bread made out of spuds

soda bread – wonderful bread, white or brown, sweet or savoury, made from very soft Irish flour and buttermilk

yellowman – hard, chewy toffee made in County Antrim

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Environment

* * *

THE LAND

WILDLIFE

NATIONAL PARKS

ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES

* * *

THE LAND

It is clear, from the literature, songs and paintings of Ireland, that the Irish landscape exerts a powerful sway on the people who have lived in it. The Irish who left, especially, have always spread this notion that the old sod was something worth pining for, and visitors still anticipate experiencing this land’s subtle influence on perception and mood. Once you’ve travelled the country, you can’t help but agree that the vibrant greenness of gentle hills, the fearsome violence of jagged coasts and the sombre light of so many cloudy days is an integral part of experiencing Ireland.

The entire island stretches a mere 486km north to south and 275km east to west, so Ireland’s impressive topographical variety may come as a surprise. The countryside does indeed have an abundance of the expected greenery. Grass grows nearly everywhere in Ireland, but there are notable exceptions, particularly around the dramatic coasts.

* * *

Of the nine counties that originally comprised the province of Ulster, six are now part of Northern Ireland while three are part of the Republic.

* * *

Massive rocky outcrops, like the Burren, in County Clare, are for the most part inhospitable to grass, and although even there the green stuff does sprout up in enough patches for sheep and goats to graze on, these vast, otherworldly landscapes are mostly grey and bleak. Nearby, the dramatic Cliffs of Moher are a sheer drop into the thundering surf below. Similarly, there is no preparing for the extraordinary hexagonal stone columns of the Giant’s Causeway in County Antrim or the rugged drop of County Donegal’s Slieve League, Europe’s highest sea cliffs. Sand dunes buffer many of the more gentle stretches of coast.

The boglands, which once covered one-fifth of the island, are more of a whiskey hue than green – that’s the brown of heather and sphagnum moss, which cover uncut bogs. Travellers will likely encounter a bog in County Kildare’s Bog of Allen or while driving through the western counties – much of the Mayo coast is covered by bog, and huge swaths also cover Donegal. The rural farms of the west coast have a rugged, hard-earned look to them, due mostly to the rock that lies so close to the surface. Much of this rock has been dug up to create tillable soil and converted into stone walls that divide tiny paddocks. The Aran Islands stand out for their spectacular networks of stone