Strange and wonderful - top ten random weird facts about Ireland

Wacky, ridiculous and surprising things you never knew about Ireland

Sex equality in the workforce

In 1976 the Irish Government was rapped on the knuckles for failing to comply with the European Economic Community guidelines by implementing the agreed sex equality legislation.

The Irish Government immediately advertised to fill the position of an equal pay enforcement officer. The advertisement offered different salaries for men and women.

“When Irish Eyes are Smiling”

The song “When Irish Eyes are Smiling” synonymous with Ireland and all things Irish was written by two Americans, George Graff and Chauncey Olcott, in 1912. There are no records to show that they ever even visited Ireland.

Off with their heads!

The guillotine was used by the Irish 500 years before the French adopted it.

The proof can be found in an old print of a gentleman named Murcod Ballagh using a guillotine near Merton, County Galway on April 1, 1307.

The oldest new part of the good book

The oldest known manuscript of the New Testament of the Holy Bible is housed in the Chester Beatty Library, next to Dublin Castle, in Dublin City Center.

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Painless birth

In 1879  a Philadelphia man, Doctor Colton, wrote in the “Medical Bulletin” about a 23-year-old Irish girl who had a painless labor.

He wrote “She felt a desire to urinate, and while seated on the chamber dropped a child. She never felt labor pain, and 12 days afterward rode 20 miles over a rough road to go to her baby’s funeral.”

Graveyard bargain bin

An advertisement in the Irish magazine “Buy and Sell” in February 1999 read “Gravestone, £250,  would suit someone with the name Burns”.

Building his own prison

John Coffee built the jail in Dundalk in 1853. Unfortunately he went bankrupt while doing so and became the first inmate in his own prison.

Ireland’s harp

Ireland is the only country in the world which has a musical instrument – the harp – as their national symbol. The oldest known harp in existence is housed in Trinity College, Dublin. It dates back from at least 1300.

Hale and hearty 127-year-old

Tuckey’s Cork Remembrance records a poor laboring man who lived in Ovens, County Cork in the early 19th century. He died at the age of 127.

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