Landmarks of Ireland (2) Trivia Quiz

Answer: DeLorean

Detroit-born John DeLorean began production of the gull-winged DMC-12, with stainless steel exterior and a rear-mounted engine, in early 1981 - with £100 million of government grants being paid to the company due to the high unemployment in the area. However, only about 9,000 cars were ever produced before DeLorean was charged with drugs trafficking (a charge he beat because of entrapment) and his company went bankrupt the following year.

The most famous DMC-12 was the one used as a time machine in the 'Back to the Future' film series made from 1985-1990.

The DeLorean factory site was taken over in 1989 by French car component manufacturer Montupet.

Answer: Stormont

The North of Ireland got its own parliament after Ireland was partitioned in 1920, and a lavish parliament building opened in 300 acres of parkland in the Stormont district of east Belfast in 1932. From 1921 until 1972 the government of the North of Ireland was provided by a single party, the Ulster Unionist Party, with elected Nationalists frequently boycotting proceedings altogether.

The North of Ireland was ruled directly from London for most of the period from 1972 to 1998, after the Stormont parliament was abolished.

However, the 'peace process' after nearly 30 years of 'the Troubles' finally led to a new Northern Ireland Assembly at Stormont with a 'mandatory coalition' government of both Unionist and Nationalist parties. The white Portland stone building, with its straight one-mile driveway, is an impressive sight that can be seen across Belfast on a clear day.

Answer: The Giant's Causeway

The Causeway was formed between 50 and 60 million years ago by the cooling of molten lava, although local tradition says that Irish giant Fionn mac Cumhaill built it in order to travel to Scotland to fight the giant, Benandonner. Even though these days there's a bus goes back and forth from the visitor centre to the Causeway for the infirm and lazy, it's a one-kilometre walk down a steep slope (and up the slope on the return!) for those travelling under their own steam.

Although it's by far the most-visited tourist site in the North of Ireland, I tend to concur with English essayist Dr. Samuel Johnson who once said: "Worth seeing, yes; but not worth going to see."

Answer: Ben Bulben

Yeats was as odd in death as he was in life. When he died in January 1939 at Menton on the French Riviera, he was buried without ceremony at nearby Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, having left instructions with his wife that when the fuss of his death was over he should be re-interred in Sligo. With World War II intervening, this was eventually done in 1948.

The French army provided military honours as Yeats' body was brought to the Irish Navy vessel LÉ Macha at Nice harbour, which then sailed back to Ireland. I went to see Yeats' grave one cold and rainy day, and was struck by how modest a resting place it is for Ireland's greatest poet, in this tiny rural graveyard - wooer of Maud Gonne, a Senator of the Irish parliament, and a Nobel Literature laureate. Cast a cold eye on life, on death - indeed!

Answer: Aran Islands

The Aran Islands are part of the predominantly Irish-speaking 'Gaeltacht' areas of the country, although the introduction of English-language TV since the 1960s - including comedies like 'Father Ted' whose fictitious 'Craggy Island' ironically echoes the Arans - has helped put day-to-day use of the language under pressure. During Oliver Cromwell's conquest of Ireland (1649-53), thousands of people fled to the remote Aran Islands to escape the wholesale slaughters carried out by Cromwell's army. Up to 40% of the Irish population is estimated to have been put to the sword or fire, been deported, or died through famine, during this period in which Cromwell gave the choice to Irish Catholics to go either 'to Hell or to Connacht'.

Answer: Lisdoonvarna

For one month in September each year, up to 40,000 people descend on this County Clare town with a population of less than a thousand, if not actually in search of a spouse then at least in pursuit of the 'craic' of dancing and drinking that constitutes the Lisdoonvarna Matchmaking Festival. In 2010, Willie May was the official matchmaker in Lisdoonvarna - a town originally famous for its healing mineral springs - though statistics of his successful matchmaking weren't available during the research of this question. The town was also immortalised in song by the Irish folk musician, Christy Moore: his raucous and riotous 'Lisdoonvarna' commemorates a folk festival that used to be held there until the 1980s.

Everyone back on the bus please ... mmm, there seems to be a few more people aboard than when we arrived. Who got hitched?

Answer: The Rose of Tralee

Oops, I should have mentioned earlier ... The Rose of Tralee festival takes place in August and ends before the start of the Lisdoonvarna festival, so if you missed out in Lisdoon you've no hope by the time we reach Tralee! The festival began in 1959 and is open each year to girls with Irish ancestry. Contestants from all 32 Irish counties and from cities as far apart as Darwin, Dubai, New York, San Francisco, Texas and Toronto are selected locally, whittled down in regional finals, and the Tralee finalists eventually selected. The winning Roses in 2009 and 2010 both came from London. It's not a 'swimsuit beauty contest', say the organisers, but designed to choose a Rose who embodies the virtues of the 19th century eponymous ballad that the festival is based on:

'She was lovely and fair as the rose of the summer,
Yet 'twas not her beauty alone that won me;
Oh no, 'twas the truth in her eyes ever dawning,
That made me love Mary, the Rose of Tralee.'

Answer: Kilmainham Gaol

Among the first to be imprisoned there was Henry Joy McCracken in 1796, a Presbyterian leader of the United Irishmen who would stage a Rising against English rule two years later - leading to his being hanged in Belfast, and the Act of Union between Ireland and Great Britain being passed in 1800.

The best-known Kilmainham prisoners were the leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising, 15 of whom were executed by British firing squad in the courtyard of the prison. Less well known are the poor people imprisoned for stealing food during the Great Hunger of the 1840s, many of whom were transported to Australia.

The prison was closed in 1924 and is now a museum - but anyone who doesn't rate this quiz nicely will be trying out the old cells for size!

Answer: The Abbey

The Irish literary revival led by Yeats, Lady Gregory and AE Russell coincided with the revival of Irish nationalism under Arthur Griffiths and Patrick Pearse - leading to heated clashes over claims that plays staged in the Abbey were not nationalist enough, or denigrated the Irish character.

The mention of a woman's 'shift' (chemise) in Synge's 'Playboy' sparked a riot in the theatre that continued over several performances, over the claim that it degraded Irish womanhood. In a country whose literary genius has been celebrated the world over, that genius hasn't always gone down so well at home!

Answer: Newgrange

Newgrange is the best known of three passage tombs in the Boyne river area, the others being at Knowth and Dowth nearby. It was built between 3100 BC and 2900 BC and contains a large variety of Neolithic rock carvings, as well as a circle of standing stones outside the tomb that are thought to date from the later Bronze Age. During the winter solstice, the rising sun shines through a 'box' in the roof of the tomb, along the straight 60-feet passage to the burial chambers at the top. If you don't mind being buried in a darkened tomb for twenty minutes or so, there's a guided tour. Mind your head though! Oh, and put those stones back - there's a souvenir shop for mementos.