Shop for the best of Irish products from the comfort of your home

We combed the internet to find reliable resources for the most popular Irish products: Aran Isle sweaters, Guinness glasses, Waterford Crystal, genuine blackthorn walking sticks, the flag of the Republic and more. Some of these shops have become friends; others we trust from their reputations and some offer products that are completely unique. We hope you enjoy browsing through what's on offer and we are confident you will find gifts for any occasion or person, all with an Irish flair.

St. Brendan,The Navigator
by Bridget Haggerty

Also known as Brandan and Borodon, Brendan was born about 484 A.D. near Tralee in County Kerry. He was ordained by Bishop Erc and sailed around northwest Europe spreading the Christian faith and founding monasteries — the largest at Clonfert, County Galway. Legend says that the community had at least three thousand monks — their rule dictated to Brendan by an angel. He died at the age of 93 and he was buried at the monastery in 577 A.D.

Brendan and his brothers figure prominently in Brendan's Voyage, a tale of monks travelling the high seas of the Atlantic, evangelizing to the islands, and possibly reaching the Americas in the 6th century. At one point they stop on a small island, celebrate Easter Mass, light a fire - and then discover the island is an enormous whale!

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Whitsuntide in old Ireland
by Bridget Haggerty

In contrast to Easter Sunday, which was considered a very lucky day, Whit Sunday was quite the opposite. All precautions were taken against accident or ill-fortune and very few people would set out on a journey or risk doing anything dangerous - particularly if it involved water.

Water was completely avoided, for it was thought that the danger of drowning was very great. People didn't bathe or go swimming; the fishing and sailing boats were left idle; and it was considered very foolish to even walk along the edge of the sea, river or lake. The reason for this was based on an old superstition that all of those who had perished in that water rose up on Whit Sunday to try and persuade or force the living to join them. If that gives you goose bumps, it gets even grimmer.

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The Bright Flames of May
by Cormac MacConnell

It was a May Day that I remember well, a long time ago now, and I was wearing a pair of short trousers and the warm wood of the First Class desk was warm against the backs of my thighs and the Mahon twins were standing in front of the teacher, Miss Rooney. Oona was in floods of tears. Hughie was defiant, arms folded across his small gansied chest, but the tears were not too far away either. In between huge sucking kind of sobs Oona was looking deeply into her mother’s cloth shopping bag.

To me it seemed to be filled with wadded pages of the local newspaper, The Fermanagh Herald, but everybody in the class already knew what was down in there and the terrible thing that had happened ten minutes earlier at Keenan’s Cross beside the school.

"What ails you Oona at all?" asked Miss Rooney, tall, gentle, spinsterish, cardiganed, permed, and in her final year in the school as the Assistant Teacher. Oona was quite unable to answer. She looked deeply into the bag again and what she saw made her shudder all the way down to her wee sandals and the tears pattered down on the wadded newspaper.


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The Irish Soldiers in the American Civil War
by Bridget Haggerty

“His cavalry is numerous but can’t ride and his infantry, except the Irish, can’t fight.” Confederate Col. E. P. Alexander commenting on the Union forces.

It is estimated that approximately 360,000 Union soldiers died as a direct result of the war. The Confederacy lost 133,000 dead. Many more soldiers were wounded; some maimed for life. One source has said that one in nine who served were either Irish born, or of Irish descent. Based on these numbers, nearly 50,000 Irish soldiers gave their lives in battle, and countless others were injured.

About 190,000 Irishmen contributed to both sides of the cause. It is estimated that 150,000 served on the side of the Union and that about 40,000 served the Confederacy. After the conflict was over, more than 130 Irish soldiers had been awarded the Medal of Honor.



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It's a long way to Tipperary
by Bridget Haggerty

The Daily Mail correspondent, George Curnock, first heard the tune in Boulogne in August, 1914 - "a company of the 2nd* Battalion Connaught Rangers passed us singing, with a note of strange pathos in their rich Irish voices, a song I had never heard before…"

It's a long way to Tipperary,
It's a long way to go,
It's a long way to Tipperary,
To the sweetest girl I know!
Goodbye Piccadilly! Farewell Leicester Square!
It's a long, long way to Tipperary,
But my heart's right there!

One of the most popular songs among the British, German and Russian armies during World War I, it sold a million copies in 1914 and was later recorded by John McCormack. But what of its origins?

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The Irish Soldiers in WWI
by Bridget Haggerty

My dad fought in Africa during WWI. I know very little of his experience as he preferred not to talk about it. What I do know is that he lied about his age in order to enlist, that his boots rotted off his feet in the trenches and that he contracted malaria - a condition which was to afflict him for the rest of his life.

It's possible that he was reluctant to discuss his role as an Irish soldier in the British army because he was from Galway and on his return home, he may have been treated as a traitor. In my own time, I remember how returning vets who fought in Vietnam were vilified by protesters. In any event, I'll never know how my father fared, but it's interesting to note that just a few years after the war, he left Ireland and never went back.

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The Irish Kitchen: Tea - for the talkin’

I can still hear my mother saying, now Bridget, be a good girl won’t ye, and make a nice cup of tay for your poor old mother. I think she might have been around 45 years old at the time! At quite an early age, I was taught, as were the majority of Irish daughters not so long ago, how to make a perfect "cupan tae."


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Basic Irish: May & The Month of Mary.
Our lesson this time features words and phrases related to the festival of Bealtaine (which is the word for May in Irish) and the Month of Mary. Even though modern-day Ireland isn't as religious as it was in the old days, you will still see lovely grottos in honour of Our Lady throughout the country; also, many families still say the Rosary together every evening and May is traditionally the month when Roman Catholic children make their First Holy Communion.


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Kids' Ireland: The Selfish Giant
by Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde's classic children's tale about how a selfish giant's life is transformed by the arrival of a special child who teaches him about love and friendship

Every afternoon, as they were coming from school, the children used to go and play in the Giant’s garden.

It was a large lovely garden, with soft green grass. Here and there over the grass stood beautiful flowers like stars, and there were twelve peach trees that in the springtime broke out into delicate blossoms of pink and pearl, and in autumn bore rich fruit. The birds sat on the trees and sang so sweetly that the children used to stop their games in order to listen to them. “How happy we are here!” they cried to each other.




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The Dubliners: Always in a Class of their Own
by William Ramoutar

Say what you will about who were the best groups or bands, who were the greatest from Ireland, The Dubliners were all that and more. They were hairy looking, heavy drinking Dublin fellas who could carry more than a tune. They carried the whole country of Ireland, several times, out of the doldrums of depression. When they hit number one in the British record charts with their banned single, Seven Drunken Nights, workers in England and Ireland were ecstatic with the news. Here we were, Top of the Pops! In the English charts! Sure, that was unheard of, with us still in the grips of the mindset of the ‘fifties - dreary streets, hard working conditions, and the drabness of everyday living. They were the fellas who looked like they could have told the boss to take his job and you know what!

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Letters
We receive many lovely letters from visitors to our web site and subscribers to our newsletter. As we’re fond of saying, your feedback helps to make all of the time and effort worth while. While we have a Readers Write Page where we post comments from time to time, we’ve decided to also select a Letter - one that, for whatever reason, tickled our fancy.


Dear Mr. & Mrs. Haggerty,

I must begin by telling you how much I truly love your website.  I was fortunate to have stumbled across it by accident a few days ago and I have spent most of my time searching and reading through it since my discovery.  There is so much information to absorb.  I wish I was a sponge.
My 14 year-old daughter and I have been teaching ourselves Irish for the past several months.  We aren't doing all that well, but we are certainly enjoying it.  We do have Irish heritage somewhere way down our family tree but not really enough to brag about.  However, I claim it every chance I get. 
We are hoping to visit Ireland one day.  If not, then maybe we'll at least make it to Dublin, Texas since it's only about 6 hours away.  Ha! Ha!
Once again, I love your site.  Thank you for sharing so much with those of us who are truly interested in the Irish culture.
 
God Bless you both. 
Slán anois!

Stephanie Roberson
Deer Park, Texas
Ná glac pioc comhairle gan comhairle ban
Never take advice without a woman's guidance
Old Irish Proverb

ED. NOTE: We asked Stephanie what she would like to see when she visits Ireland. Here's what she said:
"Here is a pic that I found of the Trinity University Library in Dublin.  I love books and am trying to learn to speak Irish and I think it would be awesome to visit this place. Also, the Eagle Island Lighthouse in County Mayo.  The scenery just looks so breathtaking. " 

The General Post Office (GPO) (Irish: Ard-Oifig an Phoist) in Dublin is the headquarters of the Irish postal service, An Post, and Dublin's principal post office. Centrally located on O'Connell Street, the city's main thoroughfare, it is one of Ireland's most iconic buildings, and was the last of the great Georgian public buildings erected in the capital.
During the Easter Rising of April 1916, the GPO served as the headquarters of the uprising's leaders. The assault by the British forces extensively damaged the building and the original columns outside are still pocked with bullet-marks.The building remains a symbol of Irish nationalism and an original print of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic read by Padraic Pearse is on permanent display in the GPO philatelic office. A plaque commemorates the exact spot where he read the proclamation.
Source: GPO Museum
Photo Credit: GPO/Mikvs


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