Why the Night Before Emigrating Was Called a Wake in Old Ireland
Discover the American Wake — the all-night farewell tradition held in Irish homes the night before emigration, a custom that felt exactly like a funeral.
Discover the American Wake — the all-night farewell tradition held in Irish homes the night before emigration, a custom that felt exactly like a funeral.
Discover why musicians from Japan, Argentina, and every corner of Europe book flights to tiny Doolin in County Clare — a village with one road and three pubs that became Ireland’s traditional music capital.
Turlough O’Carolan went blind at 18 and spent the next 50 years riding across Ireland on horseback, composing music for anyone who’d open their door. His tunes still play at sessions today.
The Irish wooden flute has an unlikely origin story — find out how an orchestra’s cast-off became the heartbeat of traditional Irish music.
Irish set dancing has a surprising origin — a French ballroom dance that rural Ireland transformed into its most joyful and communal tradition, nearly lost and then revived by ordinary people who refused to let it die.
The round-buying tradition in Irish pubs is a sacred social contract — one that reveals more about Irish culture than any guidebook ever could.
Discover Sliabh Luachra — the remote Kerry-Cork highland where a music tradition of polkas and slides survived when the rest of Ireland moved on.
In 1937, Irish schoolchildren were sent home to interview their grandparents — and what they wrote down became one of the world’s most extraordinary folklore archives.
Inside Ireland’s ancient castles lie mural passages, postern gates, and murder holes that most visitors never see. Here’s what they were built for.
The leannán sÃdhe is the Irish fairy said to grant genius to poets and musicians — while quietly consuming their lives. A haunting legend still whispered in Ireland.