MUNSTER: The province of Munster is composed of Cos. Clare, Cork, Kerry, Limerick, Tipperary and Waterford. It is the largest province in Ireland, rich and confident, having three of the Republic's six cities, four of her great rivers, and the great flow and estuary of the Shannon, longest river in Britain and Ireland. It has a massive diversity of landscape, from the most fertile, the Golden Vale, to the least fertile, the naked limestone plains of north Clare. There, in the Burren, one finds such botanical variety that flowers found elsewhere only in the Alps, and those of the Mediterrean lowlands can be seen growing side by side! Kerry and Cork have fuchsia hedges, rhododendron forests, and plants found nowhere else north of Spain. Of all the provinces it has the longest Gulf Stream coast and the mildest climate. It may rain, deep in the west, but there are a greater number of frost-free days in Munster than anywhere north of the Channel Isles. Migrant birds flock in their hundred thousands to Munster estuaries in winter, and Cape Clear is the oldest bird observatory in the Republic. Of Ireland's 66 Blue Flag beaches (those meeting European Union standards relating to water quality and general cleanliness), 26 are in Munster. For the saltwater fisherman, it is lapped by the most fertile sea - 3/4 of all specimen sea fish are caught in southwestern waters. Here, the first sharks of summer are hooked, tagged and released, drifting north on the Gulf Stream. Whales pass by, and giant leather-back turtles circumnavigate the Atlantic from their nesting beaches in the Caribbean. For the inland angler, Munster rivers are said to hold the most bountiful stocks of brown trout, and almost every river has a respectable salmon run. Waterville is one of the best sea-trout lakes in Europe. Kerry also has a large colony of natterjack toads which live in the dunes backing the five-mile (8 km) long strand at Inch. The elegant snow white egret , a new visitor, favours the southwest and it nests in Ireland. Munster has, also, a richer variety of warm-blooded wild creatures than any other province including the pine marten, bank vole and red squirrel. The Munster people are warm blooded themselves and famous for sport and song. Munster was the nursery of many a journeyman saint who set out from stone cells by lake and sea to carry the Christian light to Dark Age Europe. The oldest surviving Christian church in Ireland is Gallarus Oratory, near Slea Head, and the first Protestant church built in Ireland is in Bandon, Co. Cork. Everywhere the landscape is dotted with relics of an earlier worship; stone circles and dolemns, their capstones like alters under the vault of the sky. Munster has always produced Irish patriots and liberators. It was Brian Boru, from Clare, High King of Ireland, who defeated the Vickings. The ancient abbey that tops the Rock of Cashel-of-the-Kings rises dramatic and lovely out of the Tipperary plain. Daniel O'Connell, "the Liberator," was born in Kerry. Michael Collins, who led the fight for Irish independence in 1919-1921, was born and died in west Cork. The cottage in which de Valera, the first Taoiseach, was reared was at Bruree in the Golden Vale. Cashel is only one of thousands of ruins of old Ireland still extant in Munster. Cork has 2,000 prehistoric sites, and Limerick's Lough Gur offers fine examples of early lake dwellings. Co. Limerick, alone, has 400 castles! Everywhere in Muster one comes upon elegant, roofless abbeys, squat oratories, ivy-bound churches and gutted stately houses. It is also quite likely that Munster was the home to the first potatoes, imported from America and welcomed at Youghal by Sir Walter Raleigh, also an import to Ireland, but not so welcome himself. At Youghal, also, was possibly smoked the first pipe of the insidious tobacco - but we can blame Raleigh for that. Muster has some of the finest progenitors and practioners of Irish music among the people of Clare. Ireland's composer, Wallace, of Waterford, was Munster born, as was the modern composer, Sean O'Riada, and the great poet in Gaelic, Aodhagan O'Rathaille. In science, Munstermen also made their mark - Boyle, of Boyle's Law, was born at Lismore Castle in 1627. For sporting, the Munster people are famous. Jack Doyles, the boxer, was born at Cobh on the Shannon Estuary. Cork also has more All Ireland Hurling medals than any other county, and was the home to the legendary hurler, Christy Ring. Its road bowlers sling a bowl with great flair and accuracy. The first steeplechase ever was galloped between the steeples of Buttevant and Doneraile, in Co. Cork. The fine stud farms of Tipperary and north Cork are famous. Sons of Shergar, prince of stallions, can be seen grazing the parklands on long, slim legs. Vincent O'Brien, doyen of trainers, has his stables, still in business, at Ballydoyle. Master MacGrath, the world-beating greyhound, was pupped in Waterford. Muster offers the finest, most scenic golf in Europe, with four world-class links courses close together in Kerry and Clare. The oldest yacht club in the world is on Cork harbour. Being arguably the most beautiful province, it is the most filmed. "Moby Dick" was made off the Cork coast. "Ryan's Daughter," on the coast of Kerry. Craftsman abound, and the finest crystal glass in the world is made in Waterford, an amazingly successful venture begun by the Penrose brothers. Sellig Michael, one of the two Skellig Rocks which rise out of the Atlantic, is off the coast of Kerry. Its beehive huts are still clinging to the clifftop 700 feet above the sea built in the 6th century by members of a religious order whose successors remained on the island, cut off from the world by eight miles of often raging ocean, for the next 600 years. Humour is the breath of life and the tradition of talk, song, dance and banter is treasured in Munster, where the softest Irish and the most melodious English is spoken. It is said that when Cork men or Kerry women speak, you might think they were singing to you. Excerpts, "Irish Counties," J. J. Lee (1997)