The skeleton of Charles Byrne, the “Irish Giant," has been displayed in London's Hunterian Museum for 200 years. Byrne wanted a different resting place.

The august Irish poet was once a member of a secret occult order called The Hermetic Society of the Golden Dawn. He was also an avid student of the Tarot.

There were boycotts before the word was coined in the 1880s, but ever since then they've always been called after the experience of Captain Charles Boycott.

Unlike shamrock pins and green beer, Guinness drinking really is a longstanding tradition in Ireland.

Since the nineteenth century, peat (or turf) has brought social consciousness to art. In the 1800s, Pre-Raphaelite paintings focused on the fact that the poor harvested it.

Wooden Bog Butter Barrels are possibly the most beautiful things you can find in a bog.  But why did people throw their butter into bogs?

James Joyce remains a novelist whose characters are imbued with a Catholic world view, despite declaring himself to be a freethinking heretic.

Edmund Burke (1729-1797) is one of the philosophical fountainheads of modern conservatism. But he didn't start out that way.

Many Irish holidays blend the Catholic faith with ancient Celtic tradition and mythology. Some original pagan holidays are still practiced in Ireland today.

A century after being executed as a traitor, Roger Casement continues to fascinate.