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Quiz about Landmarks of Ireland 2
Quiz about Landmarks of Ireland 2

Landmarks of Ireland (2) Trivia Quiz


In the second of our Paddywagon tours, we travel anti-clockwise (for no special reason!) from Belfast, taking in some more of the natural and built landmarks - and landmark events! - across the Emerald Isle. Seatbelts on, the driving's not great!

A multiple-choice quiz by dsimpy. Estimated time: 5 mins.
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Author
dsimpy
Time
5 mins
Type
Multiple Choice
Quiz #
330,406
Updated
Dec 03 21
# Qns
10
Difficulty
Average
Avg Score
7 / 10
Plays
1777
Awards
Top 10% Quiz
Last 3 plays: wellenbrecher (10/10), Guest 65 (10/10), Guest 64 (9/10).
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Question 1 of 10
1. Before we head off on the tour, have a cup of tea round at my house on the outskirts of West Belfast. From my living room window, you can see a former car factory which once produced a luxury car with revolutionary design features. What cars were made here in 1981? Hint


Question 2 of 10
2. Our first stop is the North of Ireland's parliament building in East Belfast, where I've often attended meetings. What's the name given to this frequently controversial parliament, once described by a prime minister, James Craig, as 'a Protestant government for a Protestant people'? Hint


Question 3 of 10
3. A drive up the Antrim coast road towards Bushmills, and then it's a long walk down from the coach park to the most popular tourist attraction in the North of Ireland. What is the name of this volcanic lava structure consisting of around 40,000 hexagonal basalt columns between the cliffs and sea? Hint


Question 4 of 10
4. Across to the west coast, and we're calling to pay homage to the greatest Irish poet, W.B. Yeats, buried in Drumcliff graveyard in County Sligo. The epitaph on his gravestone - including the words: 'Cast a cold eye on life, on death. Horseman, pass by!' - comes from his poem named after a mountain which overlooks the graveyard: 'Under _____'? Hint


Question 5 of 10
5. Down now to the island haunt of an old literary colleague of Yeats. We'll need to leave the bus and catch the ferry at Rossaveal. What's the name given to the group of islands in Galway Bay - comprising Inishmore, Inishmaan and Inisheer - which provided the inspiration for the dramatist J.M. Synge and his most famous play: 'The Playboy of the Western World'? Hint


Question 6 of 10
6. Enough of that arty-fartiness now till we get to Dublin! We've reached north County Clare, further down the west coast of Ireland, and if you're single and fancy getting 'hitched' - or not single but fancy a bit of shenanigans - this is the place to be. What's the name of the town where a world-famous matchmaking festival takes place every September? Hint


Question 7 of 10
7. If your luck wasn't good at the matchmaking festival, never mind. We've arrived in a town in County Kerry, right down in the south-west corner of Ireland, famous for its international festival that awards a crown each year to a girl who is 'lovely and fair'. You're bound to find someone nice here. What's the name of this festival? Hint


Question 8 of 10
8. We've arrived in west Dublin, and there's a pretty grim-looking prison in front of us. What building is this that was opened in 1796 and incarcerated Irish revolutionaries from the United Irishmen Rising of 1798 to the executed leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising? Hint


Question 9 of 10
9. After that bit of Irish history, let's have some Irish drama. Here's the Irish National Theatre in Dublin, founded by W.B. Yeats and Lady Augusta Gregory in 1904. The audience rioted for several performances of J.M. Synge's 'The Playboy of the Western World' in 1907 because the script mentioned a woman's undergarment. Which theatre is this? Hint


Question 10 of 10
10. On the road back to Belfast, let's take a short detour to County Meath to grab a look at Ireland's greatest national monument. What's the name of this dome-shaped structure in the Boyne Valley that is a megalithic passage tomb, built around 500 years before the Great Pyramid at Giza? Hint



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Most Recent Scores
Mar 24 2024 : wellenbrecher: 10/10
Mar 16 2024 : Guest 65: 10/10
Mar 11 2024 : Guest 64: 9/10
Mar 04 2024 : constancejane: 8/10
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Feb 18 2024 : Guest 97: 10/10
Feb 05 2024 : Guest 64: 10/10
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Score Distribution

quiz
Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts
1. Before we head off on the tour, have a cup of tea round at my house on the outskirts of West Belfast. From my living room window, you can see a former car factory which once produced a luxury car with revolutionary design features. What cars were made here in 1981?

Answer: DeLorean

Detroit-born John DeLorean began production of the gull-winged DMC-12, with stainless steel exterior and a rear-mounted engine, in early 1981 - with £100 million of government grants being paid to the company due to the high unemployment in the area. However, only about 9,000 cars were ever produced before DeLorean was charged with drugs trafficking (a charge he beat because of entrapment) and his company went bankrupt the following year.

The most famous DMC-12 was the one used as a time machine in the 'Back to the Future' film series made from 1985-1990.

The DeLorean factory site was taken over in 1989 by French car component manufacturer Montupet.
2. Our first stop is the North of Ireland's parliament building in East Belfast, where I've often attended meetings. What's the name given to this frequently controversial parliament, once described by a prime minister, James Craig, as 'a Protestant government for a Protestant people'?

Answer: Stormont

The North of Ireland got its own parliament after Ireland was partitioned in 1920, and a lavish parliament building opened in 300 acres of parkland in the Stormont district of east Belfast in 1932. From 1921 until 1972 the government of the North of Ireland was provided by a single party, the Ulster Unionist Party, with elected Nationalists frequently boycotting proceedings altogether.

The North of Ireland was ruled directly from London for most of the period from 1972 to 1998, after the Stormont parliament was abolished.

However, the 'peace process' after nearly 30 years of 'the Troubles' finally led to a new Northern Ireland Assembly at Stormont with a 'mandatory coalition' government of both Unionist and Nationalist parties. The white Portland stone building, with its straight one-mile driveway, is an impressive sight that can be seen across Belfast on a clear day.
3. A drive up the Antrim coast road towards Bushmills, and then it's a long walk down from the coach park to the most popular tourist attraction in the North of Ireland. What is the name of this volcanic lava structure consisting of around 40,000 hexagonal basalt columns between the cliffs and sea?

Answer: The Giant's Causeway

The Causeway was formed between 50 and 60 million years ago by the cooling of molten lava, although local tradition says that Irish giant Fionn mac Cumhaill built it in order to travel to Scotland to fight the giant, Benandonner. Even though these days there's a bus goes back and forth from the visitor centre to the Causeway for the infirm and lazy, it's a one-kilometre walk down a steep slope (and up the slope on the return!) for those travelling under their own steam.

Although it's by far the most-visited tourist site in the North of Ireland, I tend to concur with English essayist Dr. Samuel Johnson who once said: "Worth seeing, yes; but not worth going to see."
4. Across to the west coast, and we're calling to pay homage to the greatest Irish poet, W.B. Yeats, buried in Drumcliff graveyard in County Sligo. The epitaph on his gravestone - including the words: 'Cast a cold eye on life, on death. Horseman, pass by!' - comes from his poem named after a mountain which overlooks the graveyard: 'Under _____'?

Answer: Ben Bulben

Yeats was as odd in death as he was in life. When he died in January 1939 at Menton on the French Riviera, he was buried without ceremony at nearby Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, having left instructions with his wife that when the fuss of his death was over he should be re-interred in Sligo. With World War II intervening, this was eventually done in 1948.

The French army provided military honours as Yeats' body was brought to the Irish Navy vessel LÉ Macha at Nice harbour, which then sailed back to Ireland. I went to see Yeats' grave one cold and rainy day, and was struck by how modest a resting place it is for Ireland's greatest poet, in this tiny rural graveyard - wooer of Maud Gonne, a Senator of the Irish parliament, and a Nobel Literature laureate. Cast a cold eye on life, on death - indeed!
5. Down now to the island haunt of an old literary colleague of Yeats. We'll need to leave the bus and catch the ferry at Rossaveal. What's the name given to the group of islands in Galway Bay - comprising Inishmore, Inishmaan and Inisheer - which provided the inspiration for the dramatist J.M. Synge and his most famous play: 'The Playboy of the Western World'?

Answer: Aran Islands

The Aran Islands are part of the predominantly Irish-speaking 'Gaeltacht' areas of the country, although the introduction of English-language TV since the 1960s - including comedies like 'Father Ted' whose fictitious 'Craggy Island' ironically echoes the Arans - has helped put day-to-day use of the language under pressure. During Oliver Cromwell's conquest of Ireland (1649-53), thousands of people fled to the remote Aran Islands to escape the wholesale slaughters carried out by Cromwell's army. Up to 40% of the Irish population is estimated to have been put to the sword or fire, been deported, or died through famine, during this period in which Cromwell gave the choice to Irish Catholics to go either 'to Hell or to Connacht'.
6. Enough of that arty-fartiness now till we get to Dublin! We've reached north County Clare, further down the west coast of Ireland, and if you're single and fancy getting 'hitched' - or not single but fancy a bit of shenanigans - this is the place to be. What's the name of the town where a world-famous matchmaking festival takes place every September?

Answer: Lisdoonvarna

For one month in September each year, up to 40,000 people descend on this County Clare town with a population of less than a thousand, if not actually in search of a spouse then at least in pursuit of the 'craic' of dancing and drinking that constitutes the Lisdoonvarna Matchmaking Festival. In 2010, Willie May was the official matchmaker in Lisdoonvarna - a town originally famous for its healing mineral springs - though statistics of his successful matchmaking weren't available during the research of this question. The town was also immortalised in song by the Irish folk musician, Christy Moore: his raucous and riotous 'Lisdoonvarna' commemorates a folk festival that used to be held there until the 1980s.

Everyone back on the bus please ... mmm, there seems to be a few more people aboard than when we arrived. Who got hitched?
7. If your luck wasn't good at the matchmaking festival, never mind. We've arrived in a town in County Kerry, right down in the south-west corner of Ireland, famous for its international festival that awards a crown each year to a girl who is 'lovely and fair'. You're bound to find someone nice here. What's the name of this festival?

Answer: The Rose of Tralee

Oops, I should have mentioned earlier ... The Rose of Tralee festival takes place in August and ends before the start of the Lisdoonvarna festival, so if you missed out in Lisdoon you've no hope by the time we reach Tralee! The festival began in 1959 and is open each year to girls with Irish ancestry. Contestants from all 32 Irish counties and from cities as far apart as Darwin, Dubai, New York, San Francisco, Texas and Toronto are selected locally, whittled down in regional finals, and the Tralee finalists eventually selected. The winning Roses in 2009 and 2010 both came from London. It's not a 'swimsuit beauty contest', say the organisers, but designed to choose a Rose who embodies the virtues of the 19th century eponymous ballad that the festival is based on:

'She was lovely and fair as the rose of the summer,
Yet 'twas not her beauty alone that won me;
Oh no, 'twas the truth in her eyes ever dawning,
That made me love Mary, the Rose of Tralee.'
8. We've arrived in west Dublin, and there's a pretty grim-looking prison in front of us. What building is this that was opened in 1796 and incarcerated Irish revolutionaries from the United Irishmen Rising of 1798 to the executed leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising?

Answer: Kilmainham Gaol

Among the first to be imprisoned there was Henry Joy McCracken in 1796, a Presbyterian leader of the United Irishmen who would stage a Rising against English rule two years later - leading to his being hanged in Belfast, and the Act of Union between Ireland and Great Britain being passed in 1800.

The best-known Kilmainham prisoners were the leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising, 15 of whom were executed by British firing squad in the courtyard of the prison. Less well known are the poor people imprisoned for stealing food during the Great Hunger of the 1840s, many of whom were transported to Australia.

The prison was closed in 1924 and is now a museum - but anyone who doesn't rate this quiz nicely will be trying out the old cells for size!
9. After that bit of Irish history, let's have some Irish drama. Here's the Irish National Theatre in Dublin, founded by W.B. Yeats and Lady Augusta Gregory in 1904. The audience rioted for several performances of J.M. Synge's 'The Playboy of the Western World' in 1907 because the script mentioned a woman's undergarment. Which theatre is this?

Answer: The Abbey

The Irish literary revival led by Yeats, Lady Gregory and AE Russell coincided with the revival of Irish nationalism under Arthur Griffiths and Patrick Pearse - leading to heated clashes over claims that plays staged in the Abbey were not nationalist enough, or denigrated the Irish character.

The mention of a woman's 'shift' (chemise) in Synge's 'Playboy' sparked a riot in the theatre that continued over several performances, over the claim that it degraded Irish womanhood. In a country whose literary genius has been celebrated the world over, that genius hasn't always gone down so well at home!
10. On the road back to Belfast, let's take a short detour to County Meath to grab a look at Ireland's greatest national monument. What's the name of this dome-shaped structure in the Boyne Valley that is a megalithic passage tomb, built around 500 years before the Great Pyramid at Giza?

Answer: Newgrange

Newgrange is the best known of three passage tombs in the Boyne river area, the others being at Knowth and Dowth nearby. It was built between 3100 BC and 2900 BC and contains a large variety of Neolithic rock carvings, as well as a circle of standing stones outside the tomb that are thought to date from the later Bronze Age. During the winter solstice, the rising sun shines through a 'box' in the roof of the tomb, along the straight 60-feet passage to the burial chambers at the top. If you don't mind being buried in a darkened tomb for twenty minutes or so, there's a guided tour. Mind your head though! Oh, and put those stones back - there's a souvenir shop for mementos.
Source: Author dsimpy

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor Pagiedamon before going online.
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