the Giant’s Causeway

Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland is one of four constituent parts of the United Kingdom, but only one which lies not in the Great Britain. It is an exclave of the United Kingdom located on the island of Ireland, where it shares a land border with the Republic of Ireland, the only part of the United Kingdom with an international land border. It was created by the Government of Ireland Act, 1920. In ancient time this area was called Ulster.

It covers 14,139 km² (5,459 mi²) in the northeast of the island of Ireland, about a sixth of the total area of the island, and has a population of 1,685,000 (April 2001) — between a quarter and a third of the island's total population. The capital and the biggest city of the Northern Ireland is Belfast.

St. Patrick, the patron saint of the Northern Ireland, is a widely known historic figure and arguably the most famous patron saint of a country.

St. Patrick's Day is celebrated on 17 March as a bank holiday in Northern Ireland. If 17 March falls on a weekend, the following Monday will be a holiday.

Much Irish folklore surrounds St. Patrick's Day, Some of this lore includes Patrick healing the sick, and raising the dead.

He is said to have given a sermon from a hilltop that drove all the snakes from Ireland. No snakes are know to have existed in Ireland at least since the end of the ice age. Some scholars think the driving away of the snakes may have been a metaphor for the conversion of the pagans.

Today, St. Patrick's Day is a day to recognise Irish heritage and celebrated by people of all backgrounds in many parts of the world, such as the United States, Canada, and Australia. Although these are the main overseas populations, St. Patrick's Day is also been celebrated in other locations as far flung from Ireland as Japan, Singapore, and Russia.

It surprisingly, the first recorded St. Patrick's Day parade didn't actually take place in Ireland, when on 17 March 1762, Irish soldiers serving in the English military marched through New York City.

Although many people wear some form of green in honor of St. Patrick's Day, green was once considered an unlucky color in Ireland.

St. Patrick's Day has traditionally been a religious occasion. Until the 1970s, many stores and pubs were closed. Laws were changed in 1995.

The shamrock

The shamrock is the symbol of Northern Ireland. It is also connected to St. Patric, Patron Saint of Ireland.

Saint Patrick is most famous for bringing Christianity to Ireland. The legend tells how he used the shamrock, a kind of a white clover with three leaves to explain the Holy Trinity. Apparently, he used it to show how the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit could all exist as separate elements of the same entity (сущность, организм, нечто реально существующее).

The Northern Ireland hasn`t any animal emblem, as well as own anthem.

The red hand

The red hand is also a symbol of Northern Ireland. The Red Hand is in its flag. According to the myth, there was time when the heir to the throne of Ireland was undecided. And they decided to hold a boat-race and the winner (the first who would reach the shore of Ulster) would be the king. One competitor so much desired the country that when he saw that he was loosing the race, he cut his hand, threw it to the shore and won. The hand is most likely red because it was covered with blood.

The Lough Neagh, at 392 km² is the largest freshwater lake in the British Isles.

Titanic

The world’s most famous shipwreck was built in Belfast (‘she was fine when she left here’ is a popular quip) and the head of the slipway where Titanic was built is now a multimedia visitor experience charting the history of the city and the world’s most famous ocean liner through a range of interactive exhibits. It opened on the centenary of its sinking, in April 2012, and has since become Northern Ireland’s most popular tourist attraction.

the Giant’s Causeway

The grand geological centerpiece of the Antrim Coast is the Giant’s Causeway, a spectacular rock formation composed of countless hexagonal basalt columns emerging from the sea that look to all the world like they could be the handiwork of mythical giant Finn Mac Cool attempting to build a footbridge between Ireland and Scotland to meet his Scottish foe. Not true, unfortunately, but it’s a nice story. Visiting the Giant's Causeway itself is free of charge but you pay to use the car park and the Giant's Causeway Visitor Experience.

Date: 2015-12-18; view: 858