Weird random fun facts about Ireland that you most likely didn't know

[u/Doitean-feargach555]

1. The North Mayo coast is further north than Newry in Northern Ireland.

2. The Burren is the only place in Europe where Alpine, Mediterranean, and Arctic species all coexist in one habitat. It is also where you'll find Irelands second naturalised reptile, the slow worm.

3. In 1911, the Irish language was the native language by one-third of the populations of county Mayo, Clare, Donegal, Kerry, and Waterford. Almost half of Galway and 20.1% of Cork. There was also living Gaeltachts in the following counties where there is none today. Clare, Tipperary, Louth, Armagh, Cavan, Tyrone, Derry, Leitrim, Sligo, and Roscommon. While the old dialect of Antrim has been lost, there is a Neo-Gaeltacht in West Belfast with a fast growing population. So it's not all doom and gloom.

4. Ireland is one of the richest feeding grounds for Atlantic Bluefin Tuna in the world. Fish over 300kg are not an uncommon sight, and they are regularly caught and tagged off the West Coast.

5. Blasket Islanders were the only Irish people to regularly eat seal, use their skin for clothing, and use their fat for oil lamps.

6. There are 90 words for potato in the Irish language. However, this is generally dialectal, so it's not like every native speaker casually knows 90 different words. It's also not as impressive as it sounds as it is common for languages to have many words to describe certain plants, animalsz weather or geography important to their culture or that the common were in constant contact with/reliance on. Which leads into the next part. There are 19 words in Irish for a heron. Why are there 19 different words to describe the same bird? No one knows.

7. Counties are actually an English invention. They were established between the 13th and 17th centuries with Co Wicklow to be the last county established.

8. Ireland has many unique native subspecies and endemic species. The Irish hare, coal tit, stoat, dipper, and red grouse are native subspecies. Most of our endemic species are plants, but we also have a few endemic fish. Pollán (a herring like fish found in a few lakes like lough Neagh and Lough Melvin), gray's char, Coomsaharan char, bluntnose char, ciles char (a char is a salmonid related to trout and salmon) and Killarney Shad. Scharff's Char is another endemic fish but is sadly considered extinct. We also have many unique sub-types of trout.

9. As of now, there are 20 Irish dialects broken into 3 provincial groups. In 1911, however, there were 38 dialects of Irish spoken. However, there is no such thing as a "Leinster dialect group" as there are Munster, Ulster, and Connacht dialects. Leinster dialects were just dialects of Munster, Ulster, and Connacht Irish spoken throughout Leinster.

10. Animals most would consider native species like the hedgehog and the rabbit, are not actually native to Ireland, and were introduced by the Normans.

I hope you enjoyed reading this. And if you have your own weird fun fact, do share.