Collected notes

Articles by Declan MacGowan

Places, kitchen stories, and the small facts filed along this part of the map.

How to Order a Guinness Like a Local

The first time I tried to order a Guinness “properly” in Ireland, I made the classic mistake: I treated it like any other drink. I said the brand, paid immediately, and hovered like a nervous seagull near a chipper. The barman gave me the pint, sure, but the whole exchange had the faint air of a...

Reading Irish Road Signs and Gaelic Place Names

The first time I drove alone into the backroads of Connemara, my confidence lasted right up until the sat nav went quiet and the sign ahead offered two destinations in two languages, neither of which looked like the spelling rules I’d grown up with in Irish-American kitchens. The English place name...

11 Surprising Truths About Irish Leprechaun Folklore

I still remember the first time I heard a local in rural Kerry say, deadpan, “Ah sure, you wouldn’t want to be crossing them.” Not them as in tourists, or politicians, or even the neighbour’s sheep. Them as in the Good People , the fairy crowd. Leprechauns came up the way they often do in Ireland,...

About Declan MacGowan

Welcome in. I’m Declan MacGowan, the fella behind Ireland Fun Facts , and I’ve got a lifelong habit of following a winding road just to see where it ends. If you’re the sort of traveler who prefers a quiet pier to a crowded selfie spot, who pauses for a ruined tower on a hill, or who hears a bit of...