We've reached the land of 1/8 of my own heritage, Ireland,

which means I'm probably a far-off distant cousin of our favorite Irishman:

PEADAR!!!

For those who don't know,

PEADAR has helped us out with many of the animations in the past

and PEADAR been such a great guy

so we decided to fly PEADAR out here

to literally be in PEADAR'S own country's video.

PEADAR, you rock man!

Peadar: It's pronounced ''Padder''!

(Uhhh... what?)

[intro]

Barby: Ehh too late, I've been calling you Potter for like two years now.

I'm not changing my mind.

Anyway, we've reached Ireland!

Peadar: And I'm here to correct him if he gets on anything wrong. So don't worry lads.

Barby: Yeah, that is so true Potter.

[Peadar punches Barby]

Peadar: Ah so that's how that feels like.

POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY

Ahh the Emerald Isle, Europe's rain shield, the McNugget.

Ireland is loaded with so many notable spots and regions

Barby: Hehe, and there's a town called ''Dingle''.

First of all, Ireland is the third largest island in Europe located in the North Atlantic Ocean

separated from Great Britain by the North Channel, the Irish Sea and St. George's Channel

Barby: Ehehehaha, did you notice how I deliberately avoided British Isles?

Peadar: Yeah. Good call.

Barby: Now here is where things get a little confusing... Ireland's subdivisions...

Let's just get it over with quick and fast.

Peader: So when discussing the independent sovereign state,

most people are referring to the Republic of Ireland which makes up these 5/6 of the island and, unless mentioned otherwise,

this is the Ireland will be mostly discussing in this episode.

Barby: To this day, the last fifth Northern part of Ireland here is actually part of the UK

and it doesn't even quite know exactly what to label itself.

Some call it a province,

some say it's a region,

some say it's a constituent country,

but the point is, UK holds on to it.

Peadar: Which as you can imagine has created some interesting feelings in the past with the Irish.

Barby: It's weird though because the people here can choose their own citizenship:

be a British, Irish or both.

On the west side, the North Ireland border just juts into the farmlands ending at a small village called Manger

and provides a 7 kilometer wide quarter to the town of Bundoran

for the rest of the Republic to enter into Donegal County.

Peader: And then you have the strange pene-enclave, right across the Fin River

with only a tenth of a kilometer wide entrance,

the Ireland Grahdens is still part of Monaghan County.

This in return gave a small exclave to the UK, an unnamed patch of land with only three small farming homes.

Barby: The only way to get in besides swimming across the river would be by taking the most name switched International Road on the island,

the Irish N54

which turns into the A3 highway once you cross into Northern Ireland,

then it switches back into the N54 once you cross into the exclave

and it reverted back to the A3 again for about two kilometers

and then back to the N54 once you cross back into the Republic of Ireland.

So literally it's like Irish, British, Irish, British, Irish!

Peadar: Or as I like to call it...my dating life!

Also, the UK was like: ''Argh, instead of following the Foyle river all the way up to the Foyle lock,

why don't we just swerve left through the Farmland to take the entire city of Derry

because hey...

LOGIC!

Basically to an Irish person, the entire island of Ireland, including Northern Ireland is just...

IRELAND!

Barby: So if you consider the administrative divisions,

the Republic of Ireland is divided into 26 counties,

however, many also include the extra 6 from Northern Ireland and call it 32,

but then there's the two city and county councils, Limerick and Waterford,

and the three city councils: Dublin, Galway and Cork,

making 31 local authorities in the Republic of Ireland

and technically 37 again if you include Northern Ireland's counties

and the capital of Dublin.

Peader: Says, is that right?

Barby: OK, yeah, you know. I got that right, whoo!

Peadar: Historically though, Ireland was also kind of split into four provinces that many people still refer to today.

They are Connacht, Leinster, Munster and Ulster.

Northern Ireland is often referred to as Ulster as it encompasses most of the counties that make up the historical province.

Otherwise, the largest cities after Dublin are Cork and Limerick

with the largest airports being Dublin, Cork and Shannon airports.

Keep in mind, if Northern Ireland was included in this, Belfast would take the number two spots on each of those lists.

Peadar: In addition to being an island itself, Ireland also hosts hundreds of smaller little islands and islets.

The most populated one being Great island by Cork, Achill Island in Mayo and Gorumna and the Aran islands in Galway.

Barby: Finally some places of interest across Ireland might include places like:

Trinity College,

the Guinness storehouse,

the Neolithic tomb of Newgrange which is older than the pyramids of Giza

Rock of Cashel,

Glendalough in Wicklow,

Blarney Stone of Cork,

Peadar: That island that was filmed up the end of Star Wars. It's called Skellig Michael,

Tory Island which kinda has like its own king,

Scotia's grave, where an Egyptian princess is buried supposedly

I didn't know about that one.

Barby: You didn't even know that. Wow!

I just found it off of Atlas Obscura.

The Mound of Hostages,

the Ceide Fields,

the Sky Garden,

the Hook Head lighthouse, the oldest continuously used lighthouse still operating in Europe.

Barby: You live right next to it?

Peadar: Yeah!

Barby: Sean's bar, the oldest surviving pub and possibly in the entire world.

Peadar: And of course way too many churches, abbeys, castles, dolmens, tombs, everything else to list.

Barby: Way too many of them.

Peadar: Way too many.

Barby: Oh, and avoid Temple Bar, right, in Dublin?

That's like a tourist trap and you can't actually meet any real Irish people there, it's...

just don't go there,

don't go to Temple Bar.

Peadar: Yeah, give it a miss. Go to Coppers

Barby: Coppers.

Ahhh beer! You guys know your way around the pint. Don't you?

Peadar: Oh, well Irish people do, but I don't actually drink...

Barby: No? Ok.

Peadar: ...after that man I killed.

Barby: Oh, yeah... wait, wha...?

PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY

Ireland is very green.

THE END!

Peader: Alright, so there's a little bit more to it than that.

Ireland is a post-glacial carved mineral and sandstone island with about 12 small mountain ranges,

the majority of which are located in the north, west and south.

Peadar: You'll notice looking at the map that the east coast Ireland seems to be relatively smooth and straight

whereas the west coast of Ireland seems to be all choppy and surrounded with inlets and peninsulas.

Almost like if you took a ball of clay

and just spread it across a flat surface in one direction.

Barby: Hehe, One Direction...

Anyway the tallest peak is Mount Carrauntoohil, at about a thousand meters

Barby: and the longest and most important river being the river Shannon

Peader: and the largest large lake on the entire island being Loch Neagh in Northern Ireland,

However, if we're talking about the Republic of Ireland, the largest would be Loch Corrib in West Galway.

Barby: The west side is also home to the most notable natural landmark, the cliffs of Moher that rise about 120 meters straight up from the ocean

Peadar: Otherwise, you have the Slieve league cliffs, a bit further up north and in the UK's Northern Ireland, used to-

You have the Giant's Causeway, a series of hexagonal volcanic plug steps that just jot into the ocean side.

Barby: I love how you say that, Hexagonal.

Peader: Hexagonal.

Barby: Hexagonal, hexagonal.

Now despite being located fairly north in latitude,

Ireland actually experiences a strange weather phenomenon

in which it actually kind of acts like a rain shield for the UK.

It takes all the warm air released by the North Atlantic Gulf stream that starts all the way from the Caribbean.

This means that although Ireland is on the same relative latitude as Newfoundland, Canada,

they remain about 9 degree Celsius or about 17 degrees Fahrenheit warmer

rarely reaching the freezing point, which in return means they hardly ever get snow.

However that again in return, means Ireland gets a ton of rain.

Like seriously, over half the year is drenched,

you only get like two months of sunshine, and then it's back to the downpour.

I mean wouldn't that make you guys like kind of depressed?

Peadar: What do you think? Drinking is a thing in Ireland.

Speaking of which, the abundance of rain allows Ireland to actually flourish in flora and agriculture

giving it its trademark green colour.

Common crops being spuds (potatoes), sugar beets and grains like Barley oats and wheat

which as you can imagine has a large portion that goes for the most famous product beer,

BEER!!!

Barby: Ireland without beer is like Mexico without Tacos, Koreas without Kimchi

Argentinians without -salsa- (correction: tango),

Bob Saget without his telekinetic laser vision.

Peader: Yeah, beer culture is such an integral part of being Irish that even

priests and nuns get in on the action and share with a guest.

Barby: Which by the way, the Bible never condemns alcohol, just drunkenness.

So, know your limits.

Peader: Yeah, we go to confessional a lot.

Peader: Otherwise some top notable Irish dishes might include things like:

Boxty,

potato bread,

brown soda bread,

bacon and cabbage

too many soups to list like coddle and Irish stew,

black pudding

Oysters and Guinness

and overall you can find potatoes cooked in various ways would like everything.

Barby: In addition, Ireland is also the perfect habitat for about twenty six species of mammals like

the red fox,

European hedgehog,

the stoat,

Pygmy shrew

and badger

and the one land reptile that is native to the country: the viviparous lizard.

Peader: Speaking of which, no. The set story of St. Patrick driving all the snakes out of Ireland was probably not true.

Ireland most likely never had snakes due to its geographic isolation from the rest of Europe

and also St. Patrick probably wasn't Irish, he was Welsh.

Barby: Yeah, lots of misconceptions when it comes to Irish people,

Which brings us to:

DEMOGRAPHICS

Barby: Hey, so Potter, I-

[Peadar punches Barby]

Sorry, Peadar! So what does it mean to be Irish?

Peader: Oh, we're all about the craic in Ireland, so we are.

Barby: Yeah... cra- "craic?"

Peader: Craic every day and night of the week. We love the craic so and...

Police officer: DEA! FREEZE! Hands where I can see 'em!

Peader: Common misconception - see, we're not actually talking about drugs. We're talking...

Police officer: RESISTING ARREST!

Peader: DOOGH!!

Barby: First of all, Ireland has about 4.8 million people, over 6 million if you include Northern Ireland

and has the highest birth rate in the EU.

About 83% of the country identifies as ethnically Irish,

whereas about 9.5% are white of other nationalities,

whereas the remainder of the country is other groups like Asians, Blacks

and who knows, probably some magical wizards or something.

Peadar: So the country uses the Euro as their current currency,

they also use the type G plug outlet

and they drive on the left side of the road.

Barby: Now thanks to modern media, everyone probably has at least a little bit of exposure to the stereotypical Irish culture, one way or another.

You know like Riverdance or leprechauns or

river dancing leprechauns...

But there's an entire world to the deep-rooted Irish identity

First of all, the language.

Peadar: Technically Ireland or at least the "Republic of Ireland" is a bilingual country

that uses both Irish and English

although English is used far more often than Irish ever is.

The Irish language is related to other Celtic-based languages

spoken in Scotland, Wales

and to so extent, Brittany in France.

Barby: Just when you thought you were safe after the Iceland episode,

Irish comes along and suddenly, 'M' and 'H' make a 'V' sound.

' D' and 'H' make a 'G' or 'Y' sound,

'B', 'H' and 'F' sometimes make like a ''woo'' sound.

Peadar: Alright Paul, let's say you take a shot at saying these words.

Barby: All right!

[Barby is trying to pronounce the Irish words]