Would you like to know more about Ireland?! Let’s discover five incredible Ireland facts for kids.
The goddess Ériu is the matron of Ireland, meaning she is the mother of the land. In modern Gaelic her name is spelled Eire, which is where the name ‘Eire land’ or Ireland comes from. In mythology her two sisters Banba and Fódla also give their name to Ireland in some cases but Ériu is the name where Ireland comes from. Ériu was the goddess of abundance and fertility and she represents the land of Ireland.
Ireland has a lot of stereotypes about it such as liking the colour green, shamrocks, and ginger hair. However, there are more people living in Scotland who are ginger than in Ireland, we know this by studying DNA. In Scotland 13% of the population have ginger hair but in Ireland it is only 10%. This is still quite a lot of people as in most places in the world only it is less than 1% of the population that have ginger hair.
Halloween now is very different to how it was when it first started being celebrated. It dates back to ancient Celtic people who worshipped pagan gods. Halloween started out as the pagan holiday of Samhain. This festival was one of four fire festivals in the Celtic pagan calendar. They also collected their harvest on this day, gathering in nuts and berries. This was the last of the harvests and marked the start of the ‘dark period’ which was winter.
Celts of the time believed that the boundary between the real world and the spirit world was gone during Samhain so they dressed up as animals or monsters to make sure they wouldn’t be taken by fairies. This is where the tradition of dressing up for Halloween comes from.
In Killorglin, County Kerry, they have a special festival every year. They take a local goat and place him high in a tower for all to see and crown him ‘King Puck’ for three days while the festival goes on. This is called the Puck Fair and it has been happening in this place in Ireland for so long that we don’t know why it started. The goat is an important figure in pagan beliefs as it symbolises fertility so this may be why a goat was honoured when the people of Ireland were pagans.
You might have heard of the famous Saint Patrick, who is the patron saint of Ireland. Saint Patrick’s day is a big holiday in Ireland which is celebrated every year with parades and parties. However, Saint Patrick was not Irish, he was born in Wales and was brought to Ireland as a slave. He returned to Ireland after being freed because he felt a calling from God. Saint Patrick was made the patron saint of Ireland in the 7th century AD.
We hope you enjoyed learning more things about Ireland as much as we loved teaching you about them. Now that you know how majestic this country is, you can move on to learn about other geography stuff like: Australia, United States, Italy and Brazil.
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