For the latest information on these or other Irish or Celtic events around the Pacific Northwest, visit Hoilands.com.

NEWS FROM IRELAND 

BUSINESS NEWS

ON TRACK - The Economic Survey of Ireland 2011 conducted by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) says that "Since 2008, the (Irish) government has carried out a very sizeable fiscal consolidation.... The three-year adjustment programme with financial support from the IMF and EU is on track and has started to tackle the roots of the imbalances... A modest recovery is underway, driven by gains in competitiveness and increases in exports..". The Survey also lists the strengths of the Irish economy as being "its business friendly environment, its flexible labour markets and a skilled labour force".

US INVESTMENTS - US investment in Ireland in 2011 surged to new highs, mostly in IT and chemical industries. The value of all direct investment in Ireland by US firms stood at $188 billion at the end of 2011, an increase of just over $30 billion on 2010. Last year Ireland accounted for more than 8% of the total stock of US investment in Europe.

GOOD RETURNS - Business Insider says that Irish government bonds "was the best performer in the world over the past year, returning 19%", and the best performer in the entire world over the last six months is Irish equities, returning 15.3%. Ireland's gross domestic output per capita in 2011 was 27% above the European Union average, and last month, the IMF certified that all the targets set under the Irish bailout program

have been met "as envisaged".

COMPETITIVE IRELAND - The IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook measures 59 countries on the basis of 329 criteria. With an overall ranking of 20th on the list, Ireland ranks first for the availability of skilled labor, for the flexibility and adaptability of the workforce, for investment incentives and for attitudes towards globalization.

BOMBARDIER ORDER - Bombardier Aerospace in Belfast has received the biggest aircraft order in the company's history from NetJets, a company controlled by investor Warren Buffet. The order is for at least 100 Challenger Jets worth $2bn minimum and potentially worth $7bn. Bombardier is the biggest manufacturing firm in Northern Ireland employing around 5,000 people across four facilities.

WORKING HOURS - A survey covering 1000 managers and employees in Ireland, Germany, France, the UK and the US found that Irish people work later than their counterparts in the other four countries. Bosses in Ireland feel comfortable calling employees about a work issue as late as 7.30 pm. However, the poll also found that Irish workers start work later than the others, arriving at the office at 8.39 am on average.

OTHER NEWS

HISTORIC HANDSHAKE - Martin McGuinness, Sinn Féin leader and former head of the IRA, shook hands with Queen Elizabeth at a Co-Operation Ireland event in Northern Ireland last week. The queen was there as part of her Diamond Jubilee celebrations. In the past, Sinn Féin has boycotted royal visits and the IRA has previously targeted members of the British royal family. Both the queen and Irish President Michael D Higgins are patrons of Co-Operation Ireland.

LYRIC THEATRE - Belfast's Lyric Players' Theatre was where the Queen and Martin McGuinness met for their famous handshake. The main full-time producing theatre in Belfast, the Lyric Players' Theatre was first established in 1951 by Mary and Pearse O'Malley, parents of former Seattle resident and founder of Seattle's Wild Geese Players, Dr. Kieran O'Malley.

BLOODY SUNDAY - Northern Ireland's Police have announced that they are launching a murder investigation into the Bloody Sunday killings in Derry in 1972 when 13 unarmed civilians at a civil rights demonstration were shot dead by British soldiers. A 14th man, injured that day, died a number of months later. The investigation is based on the findings of the Saville Inquiry which in 2010 declared all the victims to have been innocent, that the British Army had fired the first shots and were to blame for what happened. The inquiry's findings also prompted an apology from British PM David Cameron.

IRA INTERVIEWS - A US Appeals court has ruled that Boston College must hand over to British authorities tapes of interviews with former Northern Irish paramilitaries. As part of a research project, 26 former IRA & Loyalist paramilitaries gave a series of interviews to BC researchers between 2001 and 2006 on condition that the material would not be released until after their deaths. The judge ruled that journalists do not have the right to refuse subpoenas based on their own promises of confidentiality.

CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGES - A constitutional convention is being established in Ireland to examine options for reform on a range of issues: review of the electoral system; reducing the presidential term to five years and aligning it with local and European elections; giving citizens abroad the vote in presidential elections; legalizing same-sex marriage; amending the clause on women in the home and encouraging their greater participation in public life and politics; removing blasphemy from the Constitution; and reducing the voting age to 17. The current Irish Constitution can be read at IrishClub.org.

CHEAPER DUBLIN - Dublin has dropped from being one of the 'top ten' most expensive cities in the world to number 72, according to Mercer's Cost of Living Survey 2012. The survey examines the comparative cost of over 200 items in 214 locations. Factors such as housing, transport, food, clothing, household goods and entertainment are all considered.

IRISH OPEN - For the first time in the 40-year history of the European golf tour, a golf tournament sold out in advance! The Irish Open sold 27,000 tickets a day for the four days of the tournament at Royal Portrush in Co Antrim. The biggest crowds were for Irish golfers Rory McIlroy, Darren Clarke, Graeme McDowell and Pádraig Harrington, but also popular with the spectators at the Pro-Am were the celebrity players such as actor Bill Murray, soccer greats Martin O'Neill and Pat Jennings, and singer Ronan Keating. A Welshman won the Open with Pádraig Harrington the highest placed Irishman in joint 7th place.

EARTHQUAKE - A magnitude 4 earthquake occurred last month about 35 miles off the Mayo coast. The impact was felt in Galway and Mayo, and a chimney fell on a house in Sligo. Around 200 small earthquakes happen around Ireland every year but a magnitude 4 is very rare. The largest earthquake recorded in Ireland occurred in 1984 when a magnitude 5.4 quake struck off the coast of Wales causing tremors and structural damage along Ireland's east coast.

ORANGE SPEECH - The Grand Secretary of the Orange Lodge of Ireland, a Protestant Fraternity founded in Loughgall, Co. Armagh, in 1798 was recently invited to speak to the Oireachtas (Irish Parliament, combined Dáil and Seanad) in Dublin. In his remarks, he said that the Orange Order wants to contribute to the "normalization of relationships within these islands" and also that the Order would welcome an opportunity to hold a parade in Dublin. There are about 1300 Orange Lodges in Ireland, mostly in the nine counties of Ulster but also in Leitrim and Dublin. The Order holds over 3,500 marches annually in Northern Ireland and about 20 in the Irish Republic.

ND & NAVY - Over 40,000 American football fans have already booked their trips to the Notre Dame vs. Navy game in Dublin on September 1. ND sold over 30,000 tickets, Navy over 5,000 tickets, and fans in Ireland purchased the rest. Even though the 50,000-seater Aviva stadium is sold-out, another 5,000 ticketless fans are expected to travel to participate in the parties and side events.

OCEAN RACE - Bonfires were lit on the Aran Islands, and more than 20,000 people turned out in Galway at 1:30 am last Saturday morning to see the finish of the Volvo Ocean Race. A New Zealand yacht was the first boat across the finish line in Galway Bay but the French yacht which finished second in the final leg was crowned the overall winner. The race involved a nine-month voyage across four oceans and ten countries, including South Africa, China, New Zealand, Brazil, the US, France and Portugal.

BEST PLACE - An Irish Times panel has declared Westport, Co. Mayo, to be the best place to live in Ireland. Now the paper is inviting the Irish abroad to share the reasons they love where they live, no matter where in the world they are, and the winner will receive an airline voucher worth $630. To enter and for the rules, visit IrishTimes.com. The deadline is Monday July 16th.

DUBLIN MAYOR - Councillor Naoise Ó Múirí was elected Dublin's 343rd Lord Mayor. As customary, the outgoing Lord Mayor re-enacted the medieval ceremony of Casting the Spear at Dublin Port. The custom dates to 1488 when the then Lord Mayor rode his horse out onto the strand and cast a spear to mark the city's boundary.

DECLARATION EXHIBIT - An original Dunlap broadside copy of the US Declaration of Independence has gone on display at the Ulster American Folk Park in Co. Tyrone. The Dunlap broadsides were the first published copies of the Declaration of Independence, printed on the night of July 4, 1776 by John Dunlap, a printer who had been born in Strabane, Co. Tyrone. He printed an estimated 200 copies of which only 26 are known to have survived. On the Declaration, John Hancock's name is printed in type under "Signed by Order and in Behalf of the Congress", with the phrase "Attest. Charles Thomson, Secretary". Thomson, Secretary of the 1st Continental Congress, was also Irish having been born near Maghera, Co. Derry.

CAUSEWAY CENTER - A new $29 million visitor center has opened at the Giant's Causeway, Northern Ireland's most popular tourist attraction. 12 years after the old center was destroyed in a fire, the new facility incorporates an interpretative center with explanations of how the causeway's 40,000 basalt stones were formed, stories about the area's rich myths, history, geology, flora and fauna, and details of walks along the clifftops, etc. The new facility is very much in tune with its rugged surroundings with a grass roof and dark basalt columns quarried from the same lava flows that originally formed the causeway. Over 600,000 people visit the Causeway annually.

PARKINSON'S & SET DANCING - Research by an Italian doctor reveals that regular Irish Set Dancing classes improve mobility and balance for Parkinson's patients, reduce the number of falls, and, generally, enhance quality of life. The research started after a doctor from Venice watched a Parkinson's patient dance a set "with remarkable balance and fluidity" in a Co Clare pub. On his return to Italy, the doctor ran a six-month program of classes for 24 Parkinson's patients, randomly assigning them between an Irish set dance group and a conventional physiotherapy group. Read the details at Michael J Fox Foundation.

NO E-VOTING - 7,500 E-voting machines that were purchased by the Irish government in 2002 are now on their way to the scrap heap. After being trialed in the 2002 general election, plans to use the machines on a national basis were abandoned after a report by an independent commission raised issues about the machines' reliability.

COSMOPOLITAN DUBLIN - There are now 218,653 non-Irish-born nationals living in Dublin, meaning one in five people living in Dublin was born outside Ireland. In the center of Dublin, people born outside Ireland make up more than two-thirds of the population. At the same time, other city areas have residents where 90% are Dublin-born. This Dublin Map shows the various numbers per electoral consitituency.

HUME HONOR - Derryman John Hume, the Nobel Laureate and former SDLP leader, has been made a Knight of St Gregory by Pope Benedict in recognition of his work with Northern Ireland's peace process. Now 75, Hume is credited with jump-starting the peace process by opening back-door channels with the IRA which directly led to the 1998 Good Friday Peace Agreement.

DOWD HONOR - NY Times columnist Maureen Dowd, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1999, was last week awarded an honorary degree by University College Galway (NUIG). Dowd's father was from Co. Clare and in the 1970s was national chairman in the US of the Ancient Order of Hibernians. Dowd's mother also had Irish roots and in 1972 led a demonstration at the British Embassy in New York after Bloody Sunday in Derry. From Ireland, Dowd wrote three NYT columns, one on the "Liz and Marty" handshake, one about Che Guevara's Galway connections, and today about John Ford and the making of "The Quiet Man", Ford's 1952 film made in the west of Ireland starring John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara.

JFK ANNIVERSARY - Plans have been unveiled for a year-long series of events in 2013 in New Ross, Co. Wexford to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the 1963 visit of President John F. Kennedy to the town. New Ross was where Patrick Kennedy, the President's great-grandfather, set sail for America in 1848, the worst year of the Irish potato famine. Plans include a major celebration of Independence Day being held from July 4-8, 2013. Watch JFK's speech to the Oireachtas (the Irish Parliament) or read the text.

LONG WAY - The town of Tipperary is holding a week-long festival to celebrate the centennial of the writing of "It's A Long Way to Tipperary". The song was written by an Englishman with Tipperary and Mayo roots, and was very popular with troops stationed overseas during the First World War. Listen to Irish tenor Frank Patterson singing his version which has New York location names replacing the London ones.

PRESIDENTIAL SURPRISE - A couple getting married in Cork got a surprise recently when former US President Bill Clinton 'crashed' their party to say hello and pose for photos. Clinton was staying at the same resort in Cork where the couple was having their wedding reception.

JOYCE MAP - The Leopold's Day map of Dublin is made up of places and businesses in the city that were mentioned or alluded to in James Joyce's Ulysses and that were in existence on June 16th, 1904. The river and water are waves of text, extracts from Ulysses woven into the fabric of the map. See an example here.

McCOOL'S FOOTPRINT - A mysterious 'giant footprint' seen in a Google Earth image of the Burren in Co. Clare, is that of a doline, which is formed by the collapse of underground caverns or rivers, or when the limestone is decomposed by rainwater. There are at least 1,500 Dolines in the Burren. Europe's largest doline, the Burren's Carran Depression, is believed to have developed before the last ice age 2 million years ago.

NATIONAL PARKS - There are six national parks in the Republic of Ireland, but none in Northern Ireland. Now three areas are being considered for selection as Northern Ireland's first national parks: The Mournes; the Causeway Coast and Antrim Glens, and the Fermanagh Lakelands.

"FONDEST LOVE" - A letter from a doctor on board the Titanic to his mother in Belfast is now on display in the Titanic Belfast building on the city's docks where the boat was built. The letter was brought ashore and mailed at Queenstown (now Cobh), Co. Cork, the Titanic's last stop. The doctor signed the letter: "With fondest love, John." 

DNA TESTS - The Irish Origenes website is designed to show people with Irish ancestry how to use DNA to pinpoint where their Irish ancestors lived. Approximately 66% of the present population of the Island of Ireland are descendants of 'Native Irish Gaels' who were themselves a fusion of prehistoric and Celtic peoples who occupied the Island virtually uninterrupted until the Vikings arrived in 795 AD. The website has a map marking over 1,300 clan castles in Ireland, with each marker representing a castle associated with a specific surname.

KNOWTH - The two burial chambers at Knowth, Co. Meath, are the longest in Ireland but are not accessible to the public. Soon the chambers can be viewed on a virtual basis using high quality scans being made of the chambers. The Great Mound at Knowth is similar in size to Newgrange and is surrounded by 18 smaller satellite mounds. It is also famous for its megalithic art, and the burial tombs at the site housed some 300 pieces, many dating to 3000 B.C. The excavations at Knowth were only started 50 years ago.

GAELIC RECORDINGS - The Royal Irish Academy's Digital Archives has online recordings of long lost Irish language dialects, including, for example, Irish dialects from Antrim, Tipperary and Tyrone. The digital archive was collected between 1928 and 1931, made originally on shellac records. The online recordings are accompanied by translations, information on the people recorded, and other related content.

NATIONAL ANTHEM - Ireland's National Anthem is Amhrán na bhFiann (The Soldier's Song). The English lyrics were written in 1907 by Peadar Kearney (an uncle of Brendan Behan), and the music was composed by Kearney and Patrick Heeney. It was sung at the GPO during the Easter Rising of 1916 which helped popularize it. The Irish language translation was later written by Liam Ó Rinn and in 1926 the song's chorus was formally adopted as Ireland's National Anthem. Here is the Irish Army Band playing the National Anthem.

HARP SYMBOL - While the Shamrock is the unofficial symbol of Ireland, the country's official symbol is the Harp and has been since medieval times. The official design used today is based on the14th Century 'Brian Boru Harp' that's on display in Dublin's Trinity College. The Harp is also the official seal of the President of Ireland whose flag consists of a harp on a blue background. The Harp is also used by the Irish Government and its representatives, and is featured on Irish Passports and on the reverse side of all Irish Euro coins.

IRISH NOBELS - Ten Irish people are Nobel Laureates: William Butler Yeats, Literature, 1923; George Bernard Shaw, Literature, 1925; Ernest Walton, Physics, 1951; Samuel Beckett, Literature, 1969; Seán MacBride, Peace, 1974; Betty Williams and Mairéad Corrigan, Peace, 1976; Séamus Heaney, Literature, 1995; and John Hume and David Trimble, Peace, 1998.

MOTHER JONES - The achievements of US labor activist Mother Jones are being commemorated this month with a three-day festival in Cork marking the 175th anniversary of her birth there in 1837. Mother Jones was once described as "the most dangerous woman in America" because of her union activities. A survivor of the Great Irish Famine who came to the US as a teenager, Jones co-founded the Industrial Workers of the World, the "Wobblies", and was active in organizing union campaigns in Alabama, West Virginia, Illinois, Pennsylvania and New York. Also called "the Miner's Angel", she died in 1930 and is buried in Illinois. You can help encourage the US Post Office to  issue a stamp in her honor.

HEALTH CARE - In May 2010 when he was the foreign policy spokesman of Ireland's Labour Party, Michael D. Higgins participated in a debate on Irish Radio with  Michal Graham, a conservative talk-show host in Boston. Higgins pulled no punches when letting Graham know exactly what he thought about the Tea Party and the US Affordable Health Care bill that had been signed into law by President Obama the previous March. Today as President of Ireland, Higgins would undoubtedly be a little more diplomatic!

1908 OLYMPICS - Irish athletes lobbied the British Olympic authorities for Ireland to be permitted participate as a nation in its own right in the 1908 London Olympic Games. That request was denied, but after threats of a boycott, the British team name was changed to Great Britain and Ireland, and Irish athletes agreed to compete under that name. Altogether, Irish-born athletes won 33 medals at the 1908 Olympics, although some of them were competing for the US team.

IRISH-AMERICAN ATHLETES - The 1908 Olympiad in London was a triumph for Irish American athletes who saw the games as an opportunity to strike a blow for Irish Independence against Britain. Track and Field were the premiere Olympic events, and out of 13 gold medals won by the US in track and field in 1908, 8 of them were won by members of the Irish American Athletic Club of NY.

DARK DAY - Ninety years ago on June 28, 1922, the Irish Civil War started with the bombardment of Dublin's Four Courts building by pro-Treaty government forces. The occupation of the building by anti-Treaty militants had begun the previous April. Explosions in the Four Courts on June 30 destroyed much of Ireland's Public Record Office with its centuries of records, including administration records from the 13th to the 19th century, census records of 1821, 1831, 1841 and 1851, and an entire demographic record of pre-Famine Ireland. The Civil War would not end until May 1923.

RECORDS LOST - The Public Record Office had been established in 1867 and contained ecclesiastical records dating to 1174, court records dating to the 13th century, military records giving details of local yeomanry from the 18th century, transportation records often containing petitions from prisoners pleading for clemency, masses of records dealing with the huge land transfers of the 17th century, Church of Ireland parish records dating to the 17th century, and many wills dating to the 16th century. Also lost were 123 medieval chancery rolls, long rolls of parchment containing transcripts of letters and royal correspondence.

RECORDS SAVED / RECREATED - Many other records escaped destruction, like those of the Chief Secretary's Office dating from 1796 to 1922 which form the most important archive anywhere relating to 19th century Ireland. Also, after years of searching, copies of many of the lost records have been uncovered, including copies of the Irish chancery rolls dating from 1244 to 1509. Trinity College Dublin has now put online copies of over 20,000 documents that were thought to have been lost forever in 1922.

DUFFY'S CUT - The Smithsonian Channel is showing a documentary on Duffy's Cut where fifty-seven Irish Catholic workers disappeared in 1832 just six weeks after arriving from Ireland. Working on the Duffy's Cut of the Pennsylvania Railroad, the entire work crew disappeared without a trace, and their families in Ireland were never told what had happened to them.

SCOTS-IRISH - The Smithsonian Channel is also showing a documentary on the Scots-Irish. Narrated by Virginia Senator Webb, the documentary tracks their heroes and legends as their "Bible-thumping, battle-scarred march for independence took them from Scotland to Northern Ireland and finally the open expanses of early America, where they would leave an indelible mark on the national character".

SALTEE PRINCIPALITY - The Saltee Islands, located about 3 miles off the coast of Co. Wexford, are one of the world's major bird sanctuaries with some 220 bird species recorded there since the 1960s. Thousands upon thousands of gannets, guillemots and puffins come to the island, as well as many other species like seals and dolphins. The Principality of the Saltee Islands was founded in 1943 by Prince (his legal name) Michael Neale, an Irish farmer who purchased the islands and established them as a bird sanctuary. Neale also began styling himself (somewhat tongue-in-cheek) as Michael I, Prince of the Saltee Islands. Although privately-owned, visitors to the Great Saltee are always welcome.

BARRY FESTIVAL - Wexford recently had a two day festival to honor the founder of the American navy, Commodore John Barry, who was born in Wexford. At the beginning of the American Revolution, Barry was given command by George Washington of a small brig, the Lexington. On April 7th, 1776, the Lexington captured the British ship HMS Edward, and brought their prize up the Delaware river to show off the first capture of a British warship by a regularly commissioned American cruiser.

FIRST LADY - Michelle Obama's ancestry has been traced to Andrew Shields, an Irishman who fought against the British in the US War of Independence and who was a slave-owner. The Shields were farmers and owned Obama's maternal great-great-great-grandmother Melvinia. Shields' grandson Charles is likely to have fathered Melvinia's son Dolphus who is a direct ancestor of the First Lady. Read more at NYTimes.com.

EARHART LANDING - 80 years ago on May 21, 1932, mechanical problems forced Amelia Earhart to land her plane in Ireland in a cow pasture near Derry, becoming the first person to cross the Atlantic solo after Lindberg, and the first woman ever to do so. Her plane was later dismantled before being shipped back to the US where it is now on display (above) in the Smithsonian.

JUSTICE MURPHY - Frank Murphy, the son of Irish immigrants, served as a Mayor of Detroit, Governor of Michigan, US Attorney General, and from 1940-49 as United States Supreme Court Justice. Murphy, who studied for a while at Dublin's Trinity College, is best known for his vehement dissent from the 1942 Supreme Court ruling upholding the government's internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. Murphy sharply criticized the majority saying the ruling was the "legalization of racism," the first time the word "racism" was used in court. When he died aged 59 in 1949, over 10,000 people attended his funeral in Detroit where he is remembered with the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice.

CHURCHILL'S IRELAND - As viceroy of Ireland, Winston Churchill's grandfather, the Duke of Marlborough, inhabited what is now Áras an Uachtaráin, the residence of Ireland's President. Churchill's father, Lord Randolph, served as the Duke's secretary and Churchill himself lived there for four years as a child. Later, as secretary of state for war and the colonies, Churchill was involved in the dispatch of the Black and Tans to suppress revolt in Ireland.

MAYO EMIGRATION - Mayo is Ireland's third largest county but is only 16th in terms of population which fell from 388,887 in 1841 to 130,000 today. The words of the haunting emigration ballad, Kilkelly, were written by American song writer based on a series of letters to his Irish immigrant ancestor written by that ancestor's father, mother and siblings who lived in Kilkelly, Co. Mayo.

LIGHTHOUSES - Hook Head lighthouse in Co. Waterford claims to be the world's oldest intact operational lighthouse, with a light on the rocky point since the 5th century. Lonely Planet calls it "The great granddaddy of lighthouses", listing it at Number 1 on its list of the Top 10 flashiest lighthouses in the world.

OLD BOG ROAD - Tree-ring dating reveals that in the year 148 BC, the Iron Age people of Corlea, Co. Longford,cut down some 300 oak trees and built a road across a deep bog. Although 1.3 miles long, the longest timber road found in Europe, it seems to have been little used, and probably disappeared into the bog within a few years. Corlea Visitor Center now has a preserved section of the road on display.

SHIPWRECK EXCAVATION - South sea coconuts and Iberian pottery have so far been recovered by an underwater archaeology team from a ship dating from the late 16th or early 17th century which was recently discovered off the west Cork coast. Little is known of the ship's origins, but theories abound: it's from the 1588 Spanish Armada period; it's a trader that was blown off course; or it's one of the Algerian pirate ships which raided the west Cork harbor of Baltimore in 1631.

• Ireland is among the top ten countries in the OECD Better Life Index, with low pollution, positive experiences and a healthy work-life balance.
• Ireland is the fourth largest wind-power producer in the world measured in megawatts per million people, with an installed capacity of 2,000 megawatts. Depending on weather conditions this can supply 1.3 million homes.
• There are about 1.5 million private homes in the Republic of Ireland.
• The average industrial wage in Ireland in the first quarter of 2012 was almost $45,000. The annual hourly wage was $27.45, up from $27.25 in the final quarter of 2011.
• Nominated by a Russian library, Even the Dogs by Jon McGregor won the 2012 International Impac Dublin Literary Award and its €100,000 prize, beating 146 other titles nominated by 162 public libraries from 45 countries.
• An Irish Constituency Commission has redrawn electoral boundaries and reduced the number of TDs (Parliament Deputies) from 166 to 158.
• In June, Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi traveled to Ireland directly from Oslo where she had accepted her 1991 Nobel Prize. In Dublin, she was presented with the 'Ambassador of Conscience' award from Amnesty International.
• A total of 53,789 final year High School students took the nationwide Leaving Certificate exam in Ireland in June. A total of 3.1 million exam papers were distributed across 105 subjects. 
• Test were also conducted in non-curricular languages like Polish, Lithuanian, Romanian, Latvian, Portuguese, Greek, and Swedish.
• Dublin city has become home to the most successful on-street bicycle rental scheme in the world, involving close on three million annual journeys. €10 buys an annual ticket to freely pick-up and drop-off bikes at any of 44 rental stations.
• The National Library of Ireland has made its considerable holdings of James Joyce manuscripts available cost-free online at NLI.ie.
• Irish Budget Airline Ryanair started with one 15-seater plane in 1985. In 2011, Ryanair carried 77 million passengers.
• A death mask of James Joyce made of Dublin silver after his death in 1941 was displayed at the Hunt Museum in Limerick as part of the museum's Bloomsday celebrations.
• Hélène Conway Mouret, who has lived in Ireland for the past 30 years, has been appointed French Minister of State with responsibility for the French abroad.
• Lia Fáil, the standing stone dating from around 3,500BC on top of the Hill of Tara, was recently vandalized with a hammer. Also known as the Stone of Destiny, it served for centuries as the coronation stone for the High Kings of Ireland.
• The CIA World Factbook reports that infant mortality in Ireland is 3.81 per 1,000 births with life expectancy at 80.32 years. In the US, infant mortality is 5.98 per 1,000 births with life expectancy at 78.49 years.
• A newly published e-Book called 'Hurling USA: America discovers an ancient Irish sport' is available at Amazon.com.
• The BBC posts notable images from the Northern Ireland peace process leading to the handshake between Martin McGuinness and Queen Elizabeth
• Local wags were quick to point out that within 24 hours of the Queen and Martin McGuinness shaking hands, Belfast was struck by biblical level floods!
• The US state department has announced it will no longer provide any funding to the George Mitchell scholarship program. Set up in 1998, the program attracted applications from thousands of students across the US for scholarships to pursue one year of postgraduate study in Ireland. 
• A recent poll showed that 70% of Irish people believe same-sex marriage should be allowed.
• When the Irish soccer team played Italy in the European Championship on June 18, 2012, the players wore black armbands to remember the six people shot dead on June 18, 1994 in Co. Down as they watched Ireland playing Italy in a World Cup game.
• Since 2001 about two million US troops have passed through Shannon Airport on their way to and from Afghanistan and Iraq
• A Mayo company, Clew Bay Bike Hire, is now offering environmentally-friendly electric bikes for rent in the west of Ireland.
• 40% of Irish people are able to hold a conversation in one additional language (including Irish). 22% can hold a conversation in Irish, 17% can speak French, while 6% can speak German. Another 6% speak English as a second language.
• In 2010, 28% of Irish mothers were aged 35 years or older, and 27% of total live births were delivered by caesarean section.
• BB Ireland, the body that represents bed and breakfasts, has launched a new website catering to walkers and hikers.
• Each person in Ireland generated an average of 811 lbs of household waste in 2010. However, this is well below the EU average of 979 lbs and the US average of 1095 lbs.
• Watch 500 students of Coláiste Lurgan, an Irish language school in Connemara, taking part in a giant 'festival of color' with powder paint before diving into the waters of the Atlantic to clean off.
• The Irish government owns a majority in every Irish bank except for the Bank of Ireland where its stake is around 15%. It owns 100% of Anglo Irish Bank.
• Crime in Ireland has dropped by 7.2% over the past year
• US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and his wife Jane, the daughter of Irish immigrants, own a holiday home in Ireland.
• There were 65 murders in the Republic of Ireland in the twelve months to March 2012.
• When Anna Lo was elected in 2007 to the Stormont Assembly representing South Belfast, she was the first ethnic Chinese person to be elected to a legislative parliament in Europe.
• A painting by Irish-born artist Francis Bacon sold for about $34 million at Christie's in London.
• Born in Latvia, 30-year-old Sanita Puspure will be Ireland's first female rower at the Olympics since 1980. 
• Ireland will be competing in 14 Olympic sports this year.
• Irish immigrant building contractor Charles Logue built the main campus of Boston College but his most enduring legacy is Boston's Fenway Park. He broke ground for the stadium in September 1911, and it opened the following April 20, 1912.
• An Irish newspaper claims that the Pope will visit both Northern Ireland and the Republic in 1913.
• There are around 2,800 unfinished and unoccupied homes in Ireland.  
• Dublin's Top 25 favorite restaurants are listed by Trip Advisor.com.
• The national average asking price for a house in Ireland is now $217,000, down 53% from the 2007 peak.
• This map of Ireland shows the average prices and rents for more than 1,000 areas across Ireland based on over 1.1 million records since 2007.
• Ireland has the highest per capita consumption of chocolate rate in the world, with 24.7 pounds of chocolate consumed per person each year.
• The Men Will Talk to Me is a book of first-hand accounts, using the words of participants, of the Irish War of Independence and the Civil War in Co. Kerry.
• Over 1,400 people recently dressed as nuns in Listowel, Co. Kerry, to smash a Guinness world record, and in the process raise funds for charity.
• The European Union spends an estimated $372 million a year translating documents into each of the union's 23 languages, which since 2007 has included Irish.
• See Photos of Ireland's Top 10 Free and Paid attractions
• Many Irish families welcomed President Obama's announcement that the US Immigration Service will stop deportations and grant work permits for qualified undocumented young adults currently living in the US.
• Read about the three Irish-born signers of the US Declaration of Independence
• Take a 3-minute virtual guided tour of West Cork 
• Share your own Irish Ancestor's Story
• Irish Lives Remembered is a Free to join Genealogy Community to help you locate your Irish ancestors.
• German newspaper Bild had high praise the Irish fans at the recent European Soccer Tournament, concluding that "Ireland has the worst team - but by far the best fans!"
• The Irish government plans to issue pardons to almost 5,000 soldiers who deserted the Irish army in the Second World War and ended up fighting for the Allies. Altogether, about 60,000 Irish people served with British forces during the WWII.
• A 22-year-old was elected Mayor of Carrickmacross town council in Co Monaghan, believed to be the youngest-ever mayor in Ireland.
• A nine-time diving world champion surprised fly fishers on Lough Corrib when he dove from a helicopter 75 feet above the lake as part of his preparations for the upcoming Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series.
• 5,000 international neurologists, physicians, nurses and scientists were in Dublin last month for the 16th annual international congress on Parkinson's disease and other movement disorders.
• Irish writers last month set a world record for the most authors reading consecutively from their own work. Some 111 authors took to the podium each for 15 minutes at the Irish Writers' Centre in Dublin, finishing on Bloomsday, June 16.
• 87% of Irish Catholics believe priests should be allowed to marry and 77% believe there should be women priests.
• There are increasing calls for a unified All-Ireland soccer team. Currently, the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland each enter separate soccer teams in international competitions although a unified Irish team competes in international Rugby, Cricket and International Rules games.
• Watch a pod of killer whales filmed recently near Fanad lighthouse in northwest Co. Donegal
• In 2011, there were 1.6 million visitors to Knock Shrine in Co. Mayo.
• There are 2657 Catholic churches in Ireland's 32 counties compared with 2,473 Catholic churches in 1932.
• Starbucks Ireland got itself into a social media storm recently after it posted a message on its Twitter account asking its Irish followers to "show us what makes you proud to be British".
• The average age of Irish grooms has risen from 26 in 1997 to 34 in 2009, while the age of Irish brides rose from 24 to 32.
• Patterned after Spain's El Camino Santiago (The Way of St. James), a new 'Camino' pilgrim walk involving seven Dublin churches has been inaugurated by the City's Catholic and Protestant Archbishops
• A record 379 Irish-born citizens reached 100 years of age in 2011, 150 of whom resided outside Ireland.
• Luxury magazine Robb Report lists Ballyfin Demesne, Co. Laois, among its Best of the Best Resorts in the world. Conde Nast Traveller magazine declared Balyfin as being "easily the grandest hotel in Ireland".
• Irish Lives Remembered has launched Tracing Your Ancestor Forums for each county in Ireland.
• Storymap presents a vision of Dublin through its stories and storytellers.
• Watch a young Bono on Ireland's 'Late Late Show' in 1983, sans the glasses!
• On June 1, Ireland's The Late Late Show, the longest-running TV chat show in the world, celebrated its 50th anniversary.
• The largest trout caught in Ireland in 118 years was a 24 lb trout caught in May by a Welsh fisherman on Lough Corrib in Co. Galway. The official Irish trout record is one of 26 lbs 2oz from Lough Ennell in Co. Westmeath in 1894.
• Bábógbaby is an Irish speaking teddy bear that helps promote and encourage the Irish language to be spoken at an early age.
• A story by a Galwaywoman about eating French Fries with her dad after a football game won the $12,300 first prize in this year's Powers Irish Whiskey Short Story Competition.
• The Top of Coom Pub, on the Kerry-Cork border at an elevation of 1,045 feet, reputed to be the highest pub in Ireland, burnt to the ground recently.
• NY City Council President Christine Quinn speaks about her Irish grandmother who survived the Titanic disaster.
• Katie Taylor from Bray, Co. Wicklow, notched up her fourth straight Women's Boxing World Championship title in China. She is now the favorite to win gold at the Olympics when boxing is opened to women for the first time.
• An in-flight menu signed by all four members of the Beatles in November 1963, has been sold for $9,473 by a former Aer Lingus hostess from Co Kerry.