HOW well do you really know Ireland — and, indeed, everything else?
Do you know which everyday English words came from the Irish language? Why an Irishman invented the submarine? Or what name is shared by places in Co. Down, Wales and the American state of Maine?
Those are among the puzzles waiting inside The Great Irish Quiz Book, a new collection published by The Irish Post.
Compiled and edited by Irish Post editor Mal Rogers, the book contains more than 2,000 questions covering Irish history, literature, music, mythology, geography, science, sport and entertainment. However, despite the title, it is not a book solely about Ireland.
The questions travel from Martello towers and the GAA to Hollywood, classical music, world capitals, wildlife, inventions and the more peculiar corners of general knowledge. Ireland provides the book’s heart, but certainly not its boundaries.
There is something here for the seasoned quiz champion, the occasional crossword enthusiast and anyone who simply enjoys picking up an unexpected fact.
These towers occur around the coast of Ireland....but what are they called?Some answers will be known immediately. Others may be lurking somewhere at the back of the mind, refusing to emerge until it is too late. And a few will almost certainly provoke the familiar cry: “I knew that!”
The questions range from the reassuringly straightforward to the decidedly tricky, with plenty designed to spark a conversation or send readers down an unexpected rabbit hole.
For instance, which Irish county is mentioned by Frank Sinatra in Around the World? What is Donald Duck’s middle name? And which town in Ireland reads the same backwards as forwards?
The book can be tackled from beginning to end, although there is no need to be so disciplined. Readers can dip into it for a few questions at a time, use it to challenge family and friends, or turn any gathering into an impromptu quiz night.
It should also prove useful to pub quizmasters looking for fresh material — or to anyone determined to settle a long-running argument without resorting to the internet.
The aim is not merely to provide questions and answers. Many of the solutions are accompanied by the curious stories, connections and facts behind them. Even when readers get an answer wrong, they should come away knowing something they did not know before.
As its subtitle promises, this is a journey through “Ireland, the world and everything in between”.
HAVE A GO: 20 QUESTIONS FROM THE BOOK
Who is the tenant farmer in J.B. Keane’s The Field?
Which Omagh-born songwriter wrote the lyrics of The Teddy Bears’ Picnic, Red Sails in the Sunset and South of the Border?
Which novel is set on one day, June 16, 1904?
Only one capital city across the world is named after a Dublin-born man. Which one?
Which is the only Irish town that is a palindrome, reading the same backwards as forwards?
Which Edinburgh-born writer, educated by Jesuits and trained as a doctor before turning to writing fiction, described his Irish ancestry thus: “I, an Irishman by extraction, was born in the Scottish capital after two separate lines of Irish wanderers came together under one roof”?
Station Island in Co. Donegal was traditionally claimed to contain an entrance to where?
Named after a tower at Punta Mortella in Corsica, what are the defensive structures built around the Irish coast called?
In 1933, Harry Beck revolutionised public transport maps by abandoning geographical accuracy in favour of a circuit-diagram style that prioritised passenger utility over topographical reality. The concept became the blueprint for urban transport diagrams worldwide. What was the map?
Ireland’s sundews, bladderworts and butterworts have developed what unusual way of getting food?
Which three counties border Donegal Bay?
The blue whale can be seen off the west and southwest coasts of Ireland. If it is about, it should be easy enough to spot: the blue whale is the largest animal that has ever lived — its tongue can weigh as much as an entire adult elephant, and its heart is the size of a small car. So, during peak feeding season, an adult specimen can consume roughly anything from 4 to 16 tonnes (metric tons) of food every day. This is mostly krill. But what are krill?
What unique distinction does Pope Adrian IV hold among all the popes?
What is the dot on an ‘I’ called?
The name Vanessa was created by which Irish writer?
Which Irish-born playwright won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1925?
Father Peter Clifford (Stephen Tompkinson), Assumpta Fitzgerald (Dervla Kirwan), Brian Quigley (Tony Doyle) and Father Frank MacAnally (Niall Tóibín) appeared in which television series?
What is Donald Duck’s middle name?
Which government honoured Samuel Beckett after World War II?
Which mountain range includes the Matterhorn?
The Great Irish Quiz Book, published by The Color Company, costs £9.90 in both print and e-book editions. It is available to buy here.
ANSWERS
- The Bull McCabe, played memorably by Richard Harris; 2. Jimmy Kennedy; 3. Ulysses; 4. Wellington in New Zealand; 5. Navan; 6. Arthur Conan Doyle; 7. Purgatory; 8. Martello towers; 9. The London Underground map; 10. They trap and digest insects and other small organisms. In fact, they are Ireland’s only carnivorous plants; 11. Donegal, Sligo and Leitrim; 12. Krill are tiny, shrimp-like crustaceans that occur in vast swarms, making them the blue whale’s favourite food; 13. He was the only English pope. Ireland has never had a pope, which somehow doesn’t seem quite right; 14. A tittle; 15. Jonathan Swift; 16. George Bernard Shaw; 17. Ballykissangel; 18. Fauntleroy; 19. France — he received the Croix de Guerre and the Médaille de la Reconnaissance Française from the French government for his bravery and work as an intelligence translator and courier in the French Resistance; 20. The Alps.
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