Ireland is a known as place of Nobel Prize Winners. The four Nobel prizes came to Ireland for George Bernard Shaw, Samuel Beckett, Seamus Heaney and William Butler Yeats. The legendary writer such as Oscar Wilde and James Joyce also hails from Ireland. Ireland is a place where one existentialist may want to escape to, from the maddening crowd. It is considered as the third largest island of Europe, is the most sought after tourist destination.
The Republic of Ireland is divided into 30 administrative regions, mostly tied to the 26 constituent counties (county Tipperary is divided in two and county Dublin in four).
Favorite Irish drinks - "When in Rome ..." applies to any place in the world, really. Especially when it comes to food and drink. True, you can survive an Irish holiday on Big Macs and Coke (or Whoppers and Pepsi, for the sake of variety). But will you really have experienced the local cuisine? No - and going into a pub and drinking just Bud Light should be positively discouraged. If you want to down a few, why not try the local brew?