FREE! Click here to Join FunTrivia. Thousands of games, quizzes, and lots more!
Quiz about What Have The Irish Ever Done For Us
Quiz about What Have The Irish Ever Done For Us

What Have The Irish Ever Done For Us? Quiz


Ireland: land of saints and scholars, so they say...and inventors and explorers too. Trace these ten "firsts" from the Emerald Isle.

A multiple-choice quiz by darksplash. Estimated time: 4 mins.
  1. Home
  2. »
  3. Quizzes
  4. »
  5. General Knowledge Trivia
  6. »
  7. Mixed Nations
  8. »
  9. Mixed Ireland

Author
darksplash
Time
4 mins
Type
Multiple Choice
Quiz #
402,638
Updated
Dec 03 21
# Qns
10
Difficulty
Average
Avg Score
7 / 10
Plays
302
Awards
Top 20% Quiz
-
Question 1 of 10
1. Ireland gave us whiskey to celebrate with or drown our sorrows. Which of these, by the start of the 21st Century, was the world's oldest surviving whiskey brand? Hint


Question 2 of 10
2. If you are a sailor or outdoors person, an invention by Ireland's Francis Beaufort will be of great assistance. He invented a scale: What does it measure? Hint


Question 3 of 10
3. Should you ever overindulge in that great Irish beverage, whiskey, you might be grateful for an invention by James Murray. What was it? Hint


Question 4 of 10
4. Where in 1820 did an Irish explorer called Edward Bransfield go that no man had ever gone before? Hint


Question 5 of 10
5. In the middle of the 19th Century, a game that had developed in Ireland was introduced to England for play on lush green lawns and is hailed as the precursor of which game played worldwide? Hint


Question 6 of 10
6. With your Irish whiskey you might like to eat a little Irish cheese. What biscuit was it that Joseph Haughton invented in Dublin that goes so well with cheese? Hint


Question 7 of 10
7. Many people with cancer will have cause to be thankful for the pioneering work of an Irish scientist called John Joly. Which of these was it? Hint


Question 8 of 10
8. In 1959 businessman Joseph Murphy and associate Seamus Burke produced the world's first seasoned potato chips - aka crisps. Which of these was among the first blended flavours? Hint


Question 9 of 10
9. In the latter years of the 19th Century, an Irish man called John Robert Gregg invented something that revolutionised office work and the newspaper industry. What was it? Hint


Question 10 of 10
10. Samuel Haughton was an Irish doctor, so it may seem strange that he was the man who invented a better method of carrying out capital punishment. Which of these was it? Hint



(Optional) Create a Free FunTrivia ID to save the points you are about to earn:

arrow Select a User ID:
arrow Choose a Password:
arrow Your Email:




Most Recent Scores
Oct 12 2024 : Guest 98: 5/10
Sep 22 2024 : FabledHexor: 4/10

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts
1. Ireland gave us whiskey to celebrate with or drown our sorrows. Which of these, by the start of the 21st Century, was the world's oldest surviving whiskey brand?

Answer: Bushmills

Distilled spirits were known in ancient times but the whiskeys and whiskies we know of now came down through the years from Irish and Scottish distillers of the 14th and 15th centuries.

Bushmills is produced in the village of the same name in County Antrim. Dating from 1608, it is the world's oldest licensed whiskey (or whisky) distiller.
2. If you are a sailor or outdoors person, an invention by Ireland's Francis Beaufort will be of great assistance. He invented a scale: What does it measure?

Answer: Wind speed

In 1806, Francis Beaufort was serving as an officer of the Royal Navy on HMS Woolwich when he developed the scale that bears his name. In a nutshell it divides wind speed into 12 categories ranging from calm to hurricane and sets out the likely consequence. Hurricane, for example, would be typified by mean speeds of 73mph plus. The outcome: "Devastation".

Beaufort was born in Navan, Co Meath, in May 1774. He was a skilled hydrographer and as a young man served on merchant ships. He joined the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars and rose to the rank of Rear Admiral by the time of his retirement in 1846. He died in 1857.
3. Should you ever overindulge in that great Irish beverage, whiskey, you might be grateful for an invention by James Murray. What was it?

Answer: Milk of Magnesia

Sir James Murray was born in Culynady, Derry, in 1788 and died in Dublin in 1871. In 1829, he developed a condensed solution of fluid magnesia to treat the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. That earned him a knighthood.

In 1873, Charles Henry Phillips acquired a patent for a treatment he named "Milk of Magnesia".
4. Where in 1820 did an Irish explorer called Edward Bransfield go that no man had ever gone before?

Answer: Antarctica

Edward Barnsfiel was born in Midelton, Co Cork, in 1785. In 1803 he was press-ganged into service in the Royal Navy. He served throughout the war against Napoleon and, at its conclusion in 1815, stayed on in the navy.

While serving in South America, he was ordered to check out reports of a land mass far to the south. In 1819 and 1820, Barnsfield led a naval expedition that on January 30, 1820 made the first known sighting of the mainland of Antarctica.
5. In the middle of the 19th Century, a game that had developed in Ireland was introduced to England for play on lush green lawns and is hailed as the precursor of which game played worldwide?

Answer: Croquet

As noted by the Croquet Foundation of American, the game we know as croquet was introduced to England from Ireland in 1852. It was based on the game of "crooky" that had been played in Ireland since the 1830s.

The Irish game showed some similarities to a game that was played in France in the 13th Century. However, it is the introduction from Ireland to England that is regarded as the basis of the modern game.

Nowadays, as well as being an amiable afternoon pass time, croquet is played competitively in more than 20 countries.
6. With your Irish whiskey you might like to eat a little Irish cheese. What biscuit was it that Joseph Haughton invented in Dublin that goes so well with cheese?

Answer: Cream Cracker

If you look hard enough, you will see claims that two Waterford brothers, William and Robert Jacob, invented the cream cracker. Certainly, they were the first to commercially produce them, but the honour of the invention is credited to Joseph Haughton, from Dublin, who first made cream crackers in his home.

The company that the Jacob brothers established remains synonymous with cream crackers to this day. The traditional Jacobs cream cracker is made from wheat flour, vegetable oil and yeast and baked into a flat, square shape. There is no cream in cream crackers, the name comes from the process of adding oil to the other ingredients.

Properly stored, cream crackers will keep good for up to two months. At the very start, that made them ideal for sustenance on long ocean voyages.
7. Many people with cancer will have cause to be thankful for the pioneering work of an Irish scientist called John Joly. Which of these was it?

Answer: Radiotherapy

John Joly was born in 1857 in King's County, Ireland. The county is now known as Offaly. He was a noted geologist and physicist. In 1898, he estimated the age of the earth at 100,000,000 years. That means it is now 100,000,112 years old (joke).

By 1914, he had developed a means of extracting radium and pioneered its use for cancer treatment. Note, others had also been working on treatments using X-rays for some years.

Nowadays, Radiotherapy - aka Radiation Therapy - is often used after surgery to reduce the risk of cancers recurring.

(Actually, the National Geographic Society estimates the age of the earth at " 4.543 billion years old, plus or minus about 50 million years.")
8. In 1959 businessman Joseph Murphy and associate Seamus Burke produced the world's first seasoned potato chips - aka crisps. Which of these was among the first blended flavours?

Answer: Cheese and onion

The other early blended flavour was salt and vinegar.

Potato chips date to 1853 when they were created by George Crum, a chef at Moon Lake Lodge resort in Saratoga Springs, New York. After a customer complained that his French fries were "too thick", Crum came up with a slimmer version.

It was not, though, until the 1920s that packaged potato chips - crisps - became available. Until the 1950s, crisp buyers could have them plain, or with a little paper twist of salt included in the package.

In 1954, Joe "Spud" Murphy set up the Tayto company in Ireland and blended the first real seasoned crisps. Today, for reasons too complicated to go into, there are two Tayto companies in Ireland: one markets in Northern Ireland and the other in the Republic of Ireland. The most popular flavour is cheese and onion and heated debates often take place over which tastes better, the yellow Northern Ireland Tayto cheese and onion, or the red RoI cheese and onion packets. For the record, this quiz author is firmly in the "yellow is better" brigade.

In 2019, the global market for potato chips was worth $30bn. Again for the record, Americans are the world's biggest consumers: 86 per cent of the population eat them. (The French and Brits are a few percentage points behind, but only 25 per cent of people in China eat them.)
9. In the latter years of the 19th Century, an Irish man called John Robert Gregg invented something that revolutionised office work and the newspaper industry. What was it?

Answer: Shorthand writing

Gregg's shorthand was a system of figures and lines to represent words and letters.

While many other systems were to be developed, Gregg's was to become the most popular in the United States.
10. Samuel Haughton was an Irish doctor, so it may seem strange that he was the man who invented a better method of carrying out capital punishment. Which of these was it?

Answer: Standard drop hanging

Hanging was long the favoured method of capital punishment in many countries. However many systems were ineffective and judged to be cruelly inhumane. In some early methods, the condemned person was seen to suffer for periods while they strangled to death.

From 1866, the standard drop involved the condemned prisoner falling through a trapdoor for between four and six feet. This was considered enough to cause the neck to break and near-instantaneous death. It was not without faults, though, decapitation among them.

This invention was to be followed by the long drop, into which the weight of the person was factored.
Source: Author darksplash

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor agony before going online.
Any errors found in FunTrivia content are routinely corrected through our feedback system.
10/31/2024, Copyright 2024 FunTrivia, Inc. - Report an Error / Contact Us