Ireland's Hidden Gems
by Susan ByronRSS 
Recent Posts
- Irish jewelry designer creates a contemporary Ring of Kerry
- Barron's Bakery, a family-run, Waterford staple baking the best bread in Ireland for over 125 years
- Step into a storybook garden with a fairytale castle at Lismore Castle and Gardens Arts Centre in County Waterford
- Colorado native has a eureka moment - sets up "Full Irish Whisky Tour of Ireland"
- Ireland's top ten tourist attractions in 2013 - Where to go and what to see in Ireland
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There is great excitement about the Volvo Ocean Race coming to Galway on the 30th June 2012 so much so that Galway has built a huge quay side festival around it which will cater for pretty much everyone even if you haven’t the remotest interest in the boats or the racing itself.
It was a rip roaring success the first time Galway hosted the event in 2008. This was mainly due to the fantastic weather and fingers crossed we’ll get the same again.
The the city is gearing up to welcome some 100,000 visitors over the next week when the Volvo Ocean Race, which began in Alicante, Spain in October 2011 comes to a close after 39,000 grueling miles. Six teams - Abu Dhabi Racing, Camper with Emirates, Puma Ocean Racing, Team Sanya, Team Telefonica and Groupama (the French team leading the race at the moment) - will set off from L’orient in Volvo 70 footers (the fastest in the world) for the final leg and finish of the race in Galway.
Irish history, and the castles we see today, are a legacy of some 6,000 years of occupation from megalithic times when the Celts arrived here from mainland Europe.
Impressive burial mounds such as Newgrange or the ring-forts and dolmens like those at Craggaunowen are attributed to these hunter gatherer tribes.
Followed by successive waves of invaders such as the Vikings, Normans, English, and even the Spanish we finally achieved our Independence from England in 1916 for 26 of the counties while six in (Northern Ireland) still remain part of Britain.
