Writers
*  literature: novelists James Joyce, Edna O'Brien, Maeve Binchy
*  poets: Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney, WB Yeats
*  dramatists: George Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde, Samuel Beckett, Sean O'Casey, Brendan Behan
*  cinema actors Gabriel Byrne, Brendan Gleeson, Richard Harris, Liam Neeson, Pierce Brosnan and Peter O'Toole have all been lured to Hollywood at some time

Music *  music and song rooted in Celtic traditions going back hundreds of years *  present day popular music is also often rooted in the Celtic tradition - groups such as The Dubliners, The Chieftains, Clannad, singers such as Christy Moore, Enya and Sinéad O'Connor *  the internationally famous band U2 comes from Ireland. *  the dance company Riverdance draws on the same Irish traditions *  the annual Wexford Opera Festival attracts international singers and visiting audiences.

Attractions
*  The Ulysses trail in Dublin - a trail of plaques follows the route of the eighth episode of James Joyce's novel Ulysses; his own residences, and many of the buildings featured in his works, have been similarly marked; innumerable pubs claim the honour of being visited by Joyce.
*  The Viking Adventure in Dublin is a journey back in time to when the Vikings occupied the city, exploring how they lived and worked. The famous Skuldelev longship in the museum in Roskilde, Denmark, was recently found to have been constructed in Dublin in about 1042.
*  Powerscourt, one of the finest gardens in Europe, has impressive terraces with hundreds of varieties of trees, shrubs, flowers and plants. The highest waterfall in Ireland is found in the park.

Education
*  Trinity College is the longest established centre of learning in Ireland, dating back to the 16th century. Its library is home to the 9th century Book of Kells, a text of the four gospels in Latin, with beautiful illustrations around its borders.
*  4.7% of GDP is spent on education (data from 2005).