A selection of facts about Ireland contained in The Encyclopaedia of Ireland.
1. No fewer than five Irishmen recorded the natural history of Jamaica (see "Naturalists Abroad").
2. The Swastika Laundry in Dublin (1912-1989) used the Nazi-associated image on its delivery vans, depot and chimney throughout the second World War and after in "possibly the sole benign public display in Europe of the symbol".
3. "Why does a dog turn around twice before he lies down? - Because one good turn deserves another!" is a traditional Irish pun (see "Riddles").
4. Dublin's first bus route was inaugurated in 1919 by the Clondalkin Omnibus Company, using a wooden body from a horse-drawn vehicle on a five-ton chassis.
5. Local patron saints used to be celebrated in a "pattern" ceremony where pilgrims did "rounds" (deiseal) of a holy well while reciting a mixture of traditional and formal prayers.
6. There are documentary records of 9,724 shipwrecks around the Irish coast.
7. In 1757 "a commission with considerable powers was seen as the only means of solving the problem of traffic congestion in the narrow streets of the city, which had defied resolution for more than a century". Almost 250 years before Dublin City Council was formed, the Commissioners for Making Wide and Convenient Ways, Streets and Passages had a go at solving Dublin's traffic problems.
8. Ernesto Guevara Lynch, the father of Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara, was a descendant of a Galway woman, Ana Lynch y Oritz, who settled in Argentina in the 18th century.
Source: The Encyclopaedia of Ireland.