This book introduces the history and culture of Ireland, known for its long history of British colonial rule, its love of alcohol and music, and its outstanding literary sensibility, but which has recently been receiving even more attention due to its rapid economic growth.
It consists of six chapters and covers Ireland's natural environment, religion, history, literature, music and dance.
The 298th book in the Living Knowledge Series.

Known for its long history of British colonial rule, its love of alcohol and music, and its outstanding literary sensibility, the country has recently drawn increasing attention due to its rapid economic growth.

Korea is often called the Ireland of the East.
It seems like a similarity in national character, where people maintain their national pride and unique national culture even in the face of all kinds of adversity and hardship, but in reality, it may be due to a history of accepting constant pressure from external forces as fate.
Just as Korea and Japan are the closest yet most distant neighbors, Ireland and the UK are truly close yet distant neighbors.
We were under Japanese colonial rule for 36 years, but when we think about the history of Ireland, which lived under British colonial rule for nearly 800 years since the 12th century, we can easily imagine the sorrow and hardship they endured.
(Page 7)

By 1851, the land of Ireland was completely devastated.
The disastrous seven-year famine was coming to an end.
According to the 1845 census, Ireland's population was 8 million.
However, by 1851, seven years after the end of the Great Famine, the population had fallen to 6 million.
One million people died from starvation or diseases such as dysentery, typhus, and cholera.
And about a million people boarded old ships called 'coffin ships' at the time and left for places like England, Australia, Canada, and the United States.
The ship was given this name because about one-fifth of those on board died during the voyage.
(Page 46)

Since joining the European Union in 1973, Ireland has not only achieved remarkable economic growth but has also experienced rapid social, economic, and moral changes.
And these changes had a significant impact on the Irish people's way of thinking and standard of living.
Ireland's economy has traditionally relied on agriculture and livestock farming, and land ownership has therefore been equally important to Irish society.
However, the proportion of people dependent on agriculture and livestock farming is now less than 15% of the total working population.
Today, Ireland's economy is dominated by the IT and tourism industries.
Ireland's gross domestic product (GDP) also exceeds the average for EU member states, thanks to the so-called "Celtic Tiger" economic leap forward.
(Page 54)

Joyce died two years after Yeats.
But their literary worlds were completely different.
Joyce turned his back on the past-oriented, pastoral, and mystical national literature pursued by Renaissance writers such as Yeats, and on the “blind and bitter land” (referring to Ireland) where the narrow-minded Catholic Church and vulgarity were rampant, and set out in search of a universal world literature for humanity.
In that sense, Joyce could be said to have been quite a 'cosmopolitan'.
But the literature he dealt with was more 'Irish' than that of any other Irish writer.
Because Dublin was the home of not only his life but also his literature, Dubliners (1914) can be said to be the prototype of Joyce's literature.
(Pages 75-76)

The rock band U2 is Ireland's biggest musical export.
In 1978, in a Dublin suburb, Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton, and Larry Mullen Jr. formed a group called The Hype, which would later become known as U2.
The Edge's distinctive guitar playing, Clayton and Mullen's sweeping rhythm section, and Bono's passionate and emotionally rich vocal range have the audience on edge.
They have been attracting worldwide attention since the 1980s with successive albums such as "Boy," "War," "The Unforgettable Fire," and "The Joshua Tree."
(Page 89)

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