All

About
Ireland
Edurne ,África ,Isabel y Nahiara
 CHAPTER 6 MYTHS AND LEGENDS

- Ireland is famous for its myths, legends and folklore.

LEPRECHAUNS

- The myth of the leprechauns is the most famous of all Irish myths. Leprechaun usually
a little old man with a beard and wearing a green jacket and hat.
His image is used to promote Ireland.

- Leprechauns supposedly spend their time making shoes and collecting gold coins in a
pot at the end of the rainbow. Play tricks on humans.
If a human catches a leprechaun, the leprechaun must give the human his pot of gold or three wishes in
exchange for his freedom.

BANSHEES

- A banshee is a female spirit in Irish mythology. She cries and screams at the death of a person. In some stories,
she appears as an old woman as a beautiful young girl and her screaming, usually at night,
predicts the death of the person hearing her.

- Some Irish families believe they have got their own banshee and she appears when a member
of their family is going to die. Then, she escorts the person’s spirit to the next world.
 The Children of Lir

Lir was a god who had a wife and four children , his wife died and he married his sister Aoife . Aoife was jealous because Lir loved her children very much and
one day while the children were swimming in the lake she turned them into swans and only the sound of a new god's bell could turn them back into humans.
The swans swam until Saint Patrick brought Christianity to Ireland, then the children tossed the bell and became humans again.

Changelings

Faire sometimes give birth to deformes babies .When this happens , the faires take a healthy human baby and leave their deformed baby in its
place .These changelings look like human babies .but are evil .Fear of gelings madre young mothers very vigilant over their new babies

he Dagda's Harp

the most famous irish harp belonged to tagda a very important god of mythology, a long time ago there were two groups of people in ireland, some had long brown hair
with dark eyes and the other had blonde hair with blue eyes One day ,the dark,-aired people stole the dangs magic harp. They hung it on the wall of an empty castle and
sat down to eat.While they were eating the dagda broke the door and enteres the castle. His enemies ran to kill him with their sword,but he called his harp and it flew
into his hands.
firts , he started to play the music of tears and everyone in the castle started to cry .Then he played the music of Laughter and they started to laugh Finally , he played the
music of sleep very softly ans their swords dropped to the floor as they fall asleep . The dagda took his magic harp and quietly left the castle

 CHAPTER 9 SPORTS
Some sports are exclusive to Ireland, people have participated in it
for thousands of years. Irish sport was under the control of the
English sports association, but two Irish nationalists wanted to
change this. They established the gaclic athletic association in 1984
to organise Irish sports. Nowadays the most popular games are
soccer Gaelic and hurling

SOCCER GAELIC

HURLING
It is a field game played with a round ball, smaller than a soccer
ball, the objective of the game is to score points by purging the
ball above or below the bar between the opponent's goal posts.
Gaelic football is not a professional sport, so plasers do not
receive money to play them
It is the oldest game in work, it is a hobby 2000 years
ago there are some similarities between gache football.
Players who throw use a stick with a curved end, called
hurley.
 WOMEN'S GAELIC SPORTS

Only men played Gaelic football but there are women's versions of these game, too.

It is almost identical to the men's game.

HORSE RACING
FLAT RACING

Horse racing is very popular in Ireland.

There are two king of horse racing (Flat racing and National Hunt).
National Hunt racing is more popular than flat racing in 18th century.
The steeplechase originated in Ireland in 1752.

They called their race the steeplechase because the riders could see
NATIONAL HUNT
the church steeple all the way, so they know in which direction to go.