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Before you visit Ireland, you carry a picture of it in your head. Green hills, warm pubs, quiet coastlines. Some of that is real. A lot of it needs adjusting. Here is an honest look at what first-time visitors expect versus what they actually find.

A.-K. D. via Wikimedia Commons (CC0) Ireland Built Laws to Save Thatched Cottages. Then Made Them Nearly Impossible to Keep. When Stuart Carolan bought The …

Photo: RyanIRL / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0) The €0.17 Pint: Inside the Economics Closing Rural Ireland’s Locals Start with a pint. Specifically, the average …

Photo: Ian Capper / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0) Lisdoonvarna Matchmaking Festival: How Ireland’s 160-Year-Old Singles Event Actually Works Today Every September, something improbable happens …

Photo: DaHuzyBru / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0) Shannon Airport: The World’s First Duty-Free Shop and How It Changed Global Travel Retail Somewhere between passport …

Temple House, a 17th-century estate outside Ballymote in County Sligo, has been in the Perceval family since 1665 — a Georgian country house, a Knights Templar castle ruin and a 70-acre lake. A quiet corner of Yeats Country in Ireland’s northwest.

County Wicklow offers mountains, coastline, and fast DART access to Dublin. Here’s what living in the Garden of Ireland really looks like — plus get weekly Ireland stories free in our newsletter.

Whisky lover, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons Forget the big-name Dublin distillery tours for a moment. Ireland’s west coast has become a serious destination for …

Colin Park via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0) If you’re planning a summer trip to Ireland and wondering when to visit Kerry, circle August 14–18. …

Ireland’s bogs and wetlands cover one-sixth of the country and hold landscapes 10,000 years in the making. Here’s where to find the best of them and how to visit.