10 Things You Didn't Know About Ireland
Think Irish people drink the most Guinness? Think again.
March 17, 2009 -- Think you know all there is to know about the Emerald Isle? Ponder these 10 trivia tidbits from Irish Central while you're celebrating Saint Patrick's Day.
Your extensive knowledge will surely impress that lovely lass at the other end of the bar. Or at the very least, your friends.
This has to be one of the least enforced laws in the history of any legal system. If the letter of the law were to be enforced in this area, half the county would have to be incarcerated every weekend -- but it is indeed true. Regulations introduced last year allow the police to issue on-the-spot fines for anyone caught being drunk in a public place in Ireland.
In reality, however, the police are generally pretty happy for you to get as hammered as you want, as long as you aren't bothering anyone else, and aren't in any immediate danger of hurting yourself. So drink up! (But do it safely.)
William Brown, who was born in County Mayo, is acknowledged as the founder of the Argentine navy, and was also an important leader in the Argentine struggle for independence from Spain.
His family left for Philadelphia around 1786, when he was 9. He started off seafaring as a cabin boy, and ended up fighting in the Napoleonic wars, where he was captured as a prisoner of war. Then he escaped the Germans, before eventually ending up Montevideo, Uruguay, where he became a sea trader, and later ended up founding the Argentine navy, which was involved in a war against Spain.
Today there is a statue of Brown in his hometown of Foxford, Co. Mayo, which was unveiled in 2007, the 150th anniversary of his death; in Argentina, where he is regarded as a hero, there are two towns, around 1,000 streets and 500 statues, a city and a few football clubs, named after him.
David Howell Evans, more commonly known as The Edge, was born in London, to Welsh parents, Garvin and Gwenda Evans, who moved to Malahide in Dublin when The Edge was one year old. Adam Clayton, U2's bassist, was born in Oxfordshire, England. His family moved to Malahide in Dublin when he was five, and he became childhood friends with The Edge. Only Bono and Larry Mullen Jr. were actually born in Dublin.
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