With international travel largely off the cards for the time being, indulge your Irish wanderlust with these travel guides that look at Ireland's fascinating history and culture.
Traveling around Ireland, whether it’s your first trip or your hundredth, is always a learning experience. Curious travelers will find a rich and abundant history to delve into, as well as a warm and welcoming culture to immerse themselves in.
While international travel might be on hold at the moment, it’s never too early to start perusing Irish travel guides, even if only to distract yourself from the madness of the current world.
Author and artist Leslie Lee has translated her explorations of Ireland into two travel resources that are perfect for not only envisioning your future trip to Ireland, but also for remembering it. Complimented by her own hand-drawn art and original poetry, these travel guides will even help ignite a creative spark.
Some travel guides help you book your vacation, some will help you get around a foreign country, but Leslie Lee’s take you from your initial curiosities about Ireland all the way to your first footsteps on the Emerald Island.
In “We Are the Land, Ireland,” Lee explores some of the most common questions about Ireland - Who are the Celts? Who are the Scotch-Irish or Ulster-Scots? Where did red hair come from? What was the land like at the dawn of modern humans? What were the origins of Irish hospitality, music, and scintillating wit? Who built the megaliths such as Newgrange, Knowth, and Dowth? What was the "potato famine"?
For some, this travel guide may be the eye-opening experience into Ireland’s long and storied past, while for others, it’s a refresher course on the country’s foundations.
“Lee’s ambitious book is brimming with photographs; hand-drawn art, including maps and notable visual spectacles; and original poetry.” - Kirkus Reviews
Once “We Are the Land, Ireland” undoubtedly draws you in, “Leslie's Field Guide to Ireland” will help you as you plot your rambles across the country.
Loaded with hand-drawn maps, places of interest, archaeological sites, mythological characters, DNA and genealogy, a pronunciation key to Gaelic, Irish place-names, the Ogham Alphabet, travel tips, and packing lists, it’s the perfect knowledgeable companion to take wherever you go in Ireland.
Blank pages are provided for the traveler to insert their own itinerary, calendar, and genealogy where personal phone numbers, names, lodgings, and a daily log may be kept. When the trip is done, this little book, along with its notes, drawings, and splashes of whiskey, will become a true memento of the trip.
“Sometimes, to find your home, you have to cross the sea to a place you’ve never been before. That’s the journey Leslie Lee recounts in We Are The Land: Ireland, her luminous travelogue and memoir of Ireland.” - Will Green, Kirkus Reviews
You can purchase Leslie Lee’s “We Are The Land - Ireland” and “Leslie's Field Guide to Ireland” on her website.
