Explore the Ireland landscape with a Motorhome, Campervan, RV or Camper from one of the above Ireland Camper hire companies. With a Recreational Vehicle hire, you have the complete freedom to discover the Ireland Countryside at your own pace with no strict timetables or hotel check ins.

Stop when and where you want to ! Have the convenience of storage space where you can take all the essential items that you require for your family vacation up in the mountains or alongside a river or down on the beach.

Create life time memories with a Ireland self drive camper rental. Experience the adventure of the open road with your Ireland Camper Rental and enjoy great value for money (especially for families) with being able to prepare your own meals plus also the bonus of spending quality time with the family.

Ireland (Irish: Éire; Ulster Scots: Airlann) is the third largest island in Europe . It lies to the northwest of Continental Europe with the island of Great Britain lying to the east. Politically it is divided into the Republic of Ireland, a sovereign state occupying five-sixths of the island, and Northern Ireland, a part of the United Kingdom, occupying the northeastern sixth of the island. The name 'Ireland' derives from the name Ériu (in modern Irish, Éire) with the addition of the Germanic word 'land'.

The population of the island is slightly under six million (2006), with 4,239,848 in the Republic of Ireland (1.7 million in Greater Dublin[4]) and about 1.7 million in Northern Ireland (0.6 million in Greater Belfast)

Geologically, the island consists of a number of provinces - in the far west around Galway and Donegal is a medium to high grade metamorphic and igneous complex of Caledonide (Scottish Highland) affinity. Across southeast Ulster and extending southwest to Longford and south to Navan is a province of Ordovician and Silurian rocks with more affinities with the Southern Uplands province of Scotland. Further south, there is an area along the Wexford coast of granite intrusives into more Ordovician and Silurian rocks with a more Welsh affinity.

In the southwest, around Bantry Bay and the mountains of Macgillicuddy's Reeks, is an area of substantially deformed

Northern Ireland qualified for the FIFA World Cup finals in 1958 (where they made it to the quarter-finals), 1982 and 1986. The Republic of Ireland made it to the World Cup in 1990 (where they made it to the quarter-finals), 1994 and 2002. The IFA still retains All-Ireland cups and trophies at its Belfast HQ.

Greyhound racing and horse racing are both popular in Ireland: greyhound stadiums are well attended and there are frequent horse race meetings. The Republic is noted for the breeding and training of race horses and is also a large exporter of racing dogs. The horse racing sector is largely concentrated in the central east of the Republic.

Boxing is also an all-island sport governed by the Irish Amateur Boxing Association.

Climate
Overall, Ireland has a mild, but changeable, climate all year. The island experiences few weather extremes. The warmest recorded air temperature was 33.3°C (91.94°F) at Kilkenny Castle, County Kilkenny on 26 June 1887. The coldest air temperature was -19.1°C (-2.38°F) at Markree Castle, County Sligo on 16 January 1881.[10] The climate is typically insular, and as a result of the moderating moist winds which ordinarily prevail from the Atlantic, it is of a temperate nature, avoiding the extremes in temperature of many other global areas sharing similar latitudes.

There are noticeable differences in temperature between coastal and inland areas. Inland areas are warmer in summer, and colder in winter - there are usually around 40 days of below freezing temperatures (0°C) at inland weather stations, but only 10 days at coastal stations. The temperature difference can be seen in very short distances, for example the average daily maximum temperature in July in Omagh is 23°C (73.4°F), while it is only 18°C (64.4°F) in Derry, just 54.1 kilometres (33.6 miles) away. The average daily minimum temperatures in January in these locations also differ, with only -3°C in Omagh and 0°C in Derry. Ireland is sometimes affected by heat waves, most recently 1995, 2003 and 2006.

Average temperatures in the island vary from -4°C (min) to 11°C (max) in January, and 9°C (min) to 23°C (max) in July.

One of the coldest nights for the past few years was recorded on Monday, 5 February 2007 when air temperatures in the capital Dublin dipped to -5ºC (23ºF) with parts of Ulster recording lows of -9ºC (15.8ºF).

Cuisine
There are many references to food and drink in early Irish literature. Honey seems to have been widely eaten and used in the making of mead. The old stories also contain many references to banquets, although these may well be greatly exaggerated and provide little insight to every diet. There are also many references to fulacht fiadh. These were sites for cooking deer, and consisted of holes in the ground which were filled with water. The meat was placed in the water and cooked by the introduction of hot stones. Many fulacht fiadh sites have been identified across the island of Ireland, and some of them appear to have been in use up to the 17th century.

Excavations at the Viking settlement in the Wood Quay area of Dublin have produced a significant amount of information on the diet of the inhabitants of the town. The main meats eaten were cattle, sheep and pigs. Poultry and wild geese as well as fish and shellfish were also common, as were a wide range of native berries and nuts, especially hazel. The seeds of knotgrass and goosefoot were widely present and may have been used to make a porridge.

From the middle ages, till the arrival of the potato in the latter half of the 17th Century, the dominant feature of the rural economy was the herding of cattle. The meat produced was mostly the preserve of the gentry and nobility. The poor generally made do with milk, butter, cheese and offal, supplemented with oats and barley. The practice of bleeding cattle and mixing the blood with milk and butter (not unlike the practice of the Masai) was not uncommon. Black pudding remains a breakfast staple in Ireland.

Misconceptions
The commonly-held belief that corned beef and cabbage is an Irish dish is incorrect. Corned beef is an Irish-American innovation to the traditional dish of bacon and cabbage, where corned beef was used as a replacement for the bacon joint when immigrants had difficulty buying it due to a combination of inaccessibility and cost.

Ireland Cities
Dublin | Cork | Limerick | Galway | Waterford  | Kilkenny