Ireland: The Emerald Isle Trivia Quiz

Answer: 6,552,385

One million people died from starvation and accompanying disease in the Great Hunger caused by the failure of the potato crop between 1845-50, and nearly two million more emigrated as a consequence in little more than 10 years. Poverty and the threat of further famine led to a long tradition of emigration to North America, Australia and Britain.

In 1926, the Irish population sank to a post-Great Hunger low of 4.2 million, but by 2009 it had climbed to nearly 6.2 million (though still lower than before the Great Hunger).

Answer: Céide Fields

The Céide Fields at Ballycastle, County Mayo, comprises a huge 24 square mile Neolithic site of arranged fields divided by stone walls, houses and tombs. They are preserved beneath bogland, dating back to 3500 BC. This is older than Ireland's most famous Stone Age burial mound at Newgrange and around 1,000 years older than Stonehenge. Céide Fields illustrates the history of a sizable farming community who cleared this site of forest to graze cattle and for fuel.

The site was discovered only at the start of the 1980s.

Answer: Lough Neagh

Lough Neagh, lying west of Belfast, with a total surface area of 151 square miles, is by far the largest freshwater lake in the Irish and British isles, dwarfing Loch Lomond (27 square miles), the biggest lake in Britain. Legend has it that the Irish giant Fionn Mac Cumhail formed Lough Neagh when he scooped a handful of earth to fling at a fleeing Scottish giant.

The clod of earth landed in the Irish Sea and made the Isle of Man!

Answer: 1169

Norman knights led by the Earl of Pembroke, Richard Clare (known as Strongbow), landed in Ireland on 1st May 1169. They had been invited by the exiled King of Leinster, Dermot MacMurrough, to help him regain his kingdom. Over the coming centuries, English barons strengthened their land possessions across parts of Ireland, and these gradually came under tighter control by successive monarchs and the English government.

Answer: River Barrow

The Barrow (119.5 miles) is one of the rivers known as The Three Sisters - the other two being the Nore (87 miles) and the Suir (114 miles) which both rise on the Devil's Bit Mountain in County Tipperary. However, all three rivers meet up in the same bay in County Waterford to join the sea.

The River Bann (80 miles) is the longest river in the North of Ireland. The River Shannon, Ireland's longest river, is 240 miles long.

Answer: Carrauntoohil

Carrauntoohil (1,038m) lies in the Macgillycuddy's Reeks range in County Kerry in the province of Munster. Slieve Donard (849m), in the Mourne Mountains, is the highest peak in Ulster. Mweelrea (814m) is Connacht's highest point. Lastly, the highest mountain in the province of Leinster is Lugnaquilla (925m), in the Wicklow mountain range. Carrantuohil is an alternate spelling of Carrauntoohil which may be used.

Answer: The Aran Islands

The Arans comprise three limestone islands: Inishmore, Inishmaan and Inisheer. Irish (An Gaeilge) remains the primary spoken language on the islands, whose population was first swollen in the mid-17th century by Catholics fleeing the suppression of Oliver Cromwell.

However, the islands also contain many of Ireland's oldest archeological remains, including the Iron Age fort Dún Aengus. In modern times they have become famous as the home of the Aran sweater, while the shipwrecked cargo boat 'The Plassey', which lies on the shores of Inisheer, featured in the opening scenes of the Irish sitcom 'Father Ted'.

Answer: 3rd May 1921

In the middle of the War of Independence between Irish Republican forces and British forces, the British Government passed the Government of Ireland Act on 23rd December 1920, making possible the partition of the country into Northern and Southern Ireland.

Although the war continued, the Act came into effect in the North on 3rd May 1921 with the establishment of the State of Northern Ireland. An Anglo-Irish Treaty between Irish Republicans and the British was signed on 6th December 1921 and came into effect 12 months later with the establishment of the Irish Free State in the South. Republicans were bitterly split over this treaty and a civil war followed during 1922-3.

The issue of partition remained the principal constitutional conflict on the island of Ireland at the start of the 21st century.

Answer: Book of Kells

The Book of Kells was transcribed by monks of St. Colmcille's (Columban) order, some 200 years after his death in 597AD. It's unclear whether the work was done at the Columban monastery on the Scottish island of Iona, or at the Abbey of Kells in Ireland after Columban monks fled Iona in the face of repeated Viking raids.

It seems possible that the book was begun on Iona and finished in Ireland. The 340-page, elaborately decorated copy of the four gospels in Latin was housed at the Abbey of Kells until 1661 when it was moved to Dublin for safekeeping from Cromwell's army.

It can be viewed in the library of Trinity College.

Answer: Old Bushmills Distillery, Antrim

King James I granted the first royal licence to distill whiskey (Irish: uisce beatha - water of life) in the Bushmills area in 1608. Until the end of the 19th century, Ireland had well over a thousand distilleries and was regarded as the world's leading producer, while Scotland's whiskey was cheaply produced, high volume and inferior. American Prohibition in the 1920s, a Trade War with Britain in the 1930s, and Scottish production volumes effectively destroyed the industry in Ireland, which has begun to recover in more recent years.

In 2010, there were just four Irish distilleries: Bushmills in the North of Ireland, and Midleton (which produces Jameson) in County Cork, were the largest distillers; a new 'young Turk' of Irish distilling opened at Cooley near Dundalk in 1987; and the Kilbeggan distillery (originally founded in 1757) recommenced distilling in County Westmeath only in 2007.