Argument

1. The rise of Great Britain

The Kingdom of Great Britain, also known as the United Kingdom of Great Britain,was a country in northwest Europe, in existence from 1707 to 1801. It was created by the merger of the Kingdom of Scotland and the Kingdom of England, under the Acts of Union 1707, to create a single kingdom encompassing the whole of the island of Great Britain. A single parliament and government, based in Westminster, controlled the new kingdom. The kingdoms had shared the same monarch since James VI, King of Scots became King of England in 1603 following the death of Queen Elizabeth I.The Kingdom of Great Britain was superseded by the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1801, when the Kingdom of Ireland was merged with it with the enactment of the Act of Union 1800 following the suppression of the Irish Rebellion of 1798.

2. Scotland-the land of whisky and kilts

Scotland (Gaelic: Alba) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the southwest. In addition to the mainland, Scotland consists of over 790 islands including the Northern Isles and the Hebrides. Edinburgh, the country's capital and second largest city, is one of Europe's largest financial centres. Edinburgh was the hub of the Scottish Enlightenment of the 18th century, which transformed Scotland into one of the commercial, intellectual and industrial powerhouses of Europe. Glasgow, Scotland's largest city, was once one of the world's leading industrial cities and now lies at the centre of the Greater Glasgow conurbation, which dominates the Scottish Lowlands. Scottish waters consist of a large sector of the North Atlantic and the North Sea, containing the largest oil reserves in the European Union. The Kingdom of Scotland was an independent sovereign state prior to 1st May 1707, upon which date she entered into a political union with the Kingdom of England to create the united Kingdom of Great Britain. This union resulted from the Treaty of Union agreed in 1706 and enacted by the twin Acts of Union passed by the Parliaments of both countries, despite widespread protest across Scotland. Scotland's legal system continues to be separate from those of England, Wales, and Northern Ireland and Scotland still constitutes a distinct jurisdiction in public and in private law. The continued independence of Scots law, the Scottish education system and the Church of Scotland have all contributed to the continuation of Scottish culture and Scottish national identity since the Union. Although Scotland is no longer a separate sovereign state, the constitutional future of Scotland continues to give rise to debate. 2.1 The etymology of Scotland Scotland is from the Latin Scoti, the term applied to Gaels. The Late Latin word Scotia(land of the Gaels) was initially used to refer to Ireland. By the 11th century at the latest, Scotia was being used to refer to (Gaelic-speaking) Scotland north of the river Forth, alongside Albania or Albany, both derived from the Gaelic Alba. The use of the words Scots

and Scotland to encompass all of what is now Scotland became common in the Late Middle Ages.

3. Scottish icons
3.1 The water of life If people are asked what they associate most with Scotland the most common answer is likely to be whisky. Known as Scotland's national drink, whisky - in the Gaelic, uisge beatha (pronounced oosh-ga beh-huh), meaning water of life - has been produced here for longer than anyone can remember. Something that began centuries ago as a way of using up rain-soaked barley after a wet harvest, the whisky industry has now grown into one of the country's biggest earners, bringing in hundreds of millions of pounds every year.

3.2 The bagpippes In fact, the earliest recorded reference to bagpipes is on a Hittite slab from Asia Minor which has been dated to 1000 BC while by the 1st century AD, bagpipes existed in many countries from India to Spain and from France to Egypt. It's also clear that bagpipes were popular throughout the rest of the British isles prior to their documented appearance north of the border. When, and how, they did first appear in Scotland is a hotly contested topic with competing theories claiming they were either a Roman import or that the instrument came from Ireland. Even though different styles of pipe emerged in Scotland, it is the Highland bagpipe or the piob-mhor 'the Great Pipe', which has emerged as our national instrument. These are blown by mouth and the bags were traditionally made from the skin of a sheep, although nowadays leather, rubber or other synthetic materials are used. The pipes themselves were originally made of bone or ivory, but hardwood is the modern choice. The melody is played on a reeded chanter leading down from the bag while the three drone pipes sit on the piper's shoulder and provide a constant, steady sound as a background to the melody.

3.3 The kilt The skirt-like kilt which is familiar to us today evolved around the middle of the 18th century from the more commonly worn and functional belted plaid (in Gaelic, feileadh breacan or feileadh mor, 'the big kilt').The feileadh mor was a longer untailored garment, around five metres in length, which was gathered and then belted at the waist to provide cover for both the upper and lower body. From the waist down, the feileadh mor resembled a modern kilt while the remaining material above the waist was draped over the shoulder and pinned there. This upper portion could be arranged in a variety of ways around the shoulders according to the demands of weather, temperature or freedom of movement required. At the end of day, the belt could be unbuckled to transform the feileadh mor into a warm covering for the night. The Gaelic plaid actually means 'blanket'.Modern kilts have up to eight metres of material which is thickly pleated at the back and sides, with the pleats stitched together only at the waistband. Fashion designers have also tried to update the kilt and make it appeal to a wider audience by using non-tartan designs such as camouflage and material such as leather.

3.4 The Saltire The Scottish national flag is a white-on-blue saltire (i.e. a diagonal cross on a coloured background) and it derives from the shape of the cross on which Scotland's patron saint, St Andrew, was crucified.

4. Art and culture

A nation's artistic and cultural life says much about its people and the vibrancy and creativity we display across a wide range of artforms quickly dispels the myth of the dour, downbeat Scot. In successive generations, Scotland has produced writers, painters, sculptors, musicians, composers and dancers whose talents have received both national and international acclaim. Some of these artforms - such as our traditional dance and music - are uniquely Scottish both in style and inspiration and are appreciated chiefly at home. Others - such as theatre, opera and painting - draw on and incorporate influences from elsewhere in the world and consequently receive wider recognition. All, however, have the power to enthrall, challenge, provoke and inspire.

4.1 The literature Quite what the creative impulse has been which has seen successive generations produce writers and poets of the calibre of Robert Burns, Robert Louis Stevenson, Arthur Conan Doyle, Muriel Spark, Naomi Mitchison, Iain Banks, Sorley Maclean and Alasdair

Gray is impossible to say. What is certain is that the continuing culture of creativity, innovation and experimentation that encourages such talents will ensure that there will always be a new chapter added to Scotland's rich literary heritage.

4.2 The art It's often said that Scotland's contribution to the worlds of engineering, medicine and science far outweighs its size as a nation. The same could also be said of it artistic endeavours. True, we haven't produced the individual genius of a Rembrandt or the collective talents on a par with the Impressionists but since the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Scotland has nutured successive generations of artists who have been ranked alongside the best of their contemporaries worldwide.As a new century begins, Scottish art is thriving. The country's four art schools continue to initiate experimentation and fresh thinking amongst their graduates across a wide range of media while the major galleries are promoting Scottish art to an unprecedented degree. Major exhibitions provide a welcome platform for almost every aspect of the nation's art history which in turn has ensured that the volatile art market has kept pace with it. Scottish art is thus the focus of greater debate, analysis and public interest than at any time in recent memory. 4.3 Music and dance If music is the food of love, then the Scots are true romantics with a wide and varied diet! Whatever the style - whether the orchestral swell of James McMillan's classical work, the lyrical fluency of Dougie McLean's ballads, Blazing Fiddles' irresistably foot-tapping reels and jigs, or the singalong rockabilly of The Fratellis - music is a vital part of the nation's cultural life.It's celebrated across the country and throughout the year in large-scale gatherings like the Gaelic Mod, T in the Park or the Edinburgh International Festival, busy concerts at the Usher Hall or the Royal Concert Hall or more intimately in pubs, clubs and howffs in every town and village.So whether you need your senses soothed, your passions fired or your spirts lifted, there's a music event guaranteed to fit the bill. Mention 'Scotland' and 'dance' in the same breath and for many, you'll immediately conjure up mental pictures of swinging kilts, the 'Highland Fling' and even crossed swords (danced over on the floor, that is!). But these aren't just cliches: since the 18th century, dance 8

has always had an important place at all levels of Scottish society and even today, it is still very much a living tradition, whether in the exhuberant freeform of the local ceilidh, the more structured and graceful sets of the Scottish country dancers, or the balletic precision of the solo Highland dancers.

5. Ireland-the land of the leprechauns

Ireland, locally Irish: ire, Ulster Scots, is the third-largest island in Europe, and the twentieth-largest island in the world. It lies to the north-west of continental Europe and is surrounded by hundreds of islands and islets. To the east of Ireland, separated by the Irish Sea, is the island of Great Britain. Politically, the sovereign country of Ireland (described as 9

the Republic of Ireland) covers five-sixths of the island, with Northern Ireland, part of the United Kingdom, covering the remainder in the north-east.The first settlements in Ireland date from 8000 BC. By 200 BC Celtic migration and influence had come to dominate the island. Relatively small scale settlements of both the Vikings and Normans in the Middle Ages gave way to complete English domination by the 1600s. Protestant English rule resulted in the marginalisation of the Catholic majority, although in the north-east, Protestants were in the majority due to the Plantation of Ulster. Ireland became part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1801. A famine in the mid-1800s caused deaths and emigration. The Anglo-Irish War ended in 1921 with a stalemate and the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, creating the Irish Free State, a Dominion within the British Empire, with effective internal independence but still constitutionally linked with the British Crown. Northern Ireland, consisting of six of the 32 Irish counties which had been established as a devolved region under the 1920 Government of Ireland Act, immediately exercised its option under the treaty to retain its existing status within the United KingdomThe Free State left the Commonwealth to become a republic in 1949. In 1973 both parts of Ireland joined the European Community. Conflict in Northern Ireland led to much unrest from the late 1960s until the 1990s, which subsided following a peace deal in 1998.The population of the island is slightly under 6 million (2006), with 4.2 million in the Republic and an estimated almost 1.75 million in Northern Ireland. This is a significant increase from a modern historical low in the 1960s, but still much lower than the peak population of over 8 million in the early 19th century, prior to the Great Famine. The name Ireland derives from the name of the Celtic goddess riu (in modern Irish, ire) with the addition of the Germanic word land. Most other western European names for Ireland, such as French Irlande, derive from the same source.

6. Culture of Ireland
6.1 Literature and art

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For an island with a relatively small population, Ireland has made a large contribution to world literature in all its branches, mainly in English. Poetry in Irish represents the oldest vernacular poetry in Europe with the earliest examples dating from the 6th century. Jonathan Swift, still often called the foremost satirist in the English language, was wildly popular in his day for works such as Gulliver's Travels and A Modest Proposal, and he remains so in modern times. More recently, Ireland has produced four winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature: George Bernard Shaw, William Butler Yeats, Samuel Beckett and Seamus Heaney. Although not a Nobel Prize winner, James Joyce is widely considered one of the most significant writers of the 20th century; Samuel Beckett himself refused to attend his own Nobel award ceremony, in protest of Joyce not having received the award. Joyce's 1922 novel Ulysses is considered one of the most important works of Modernist literature, and his life is celebrated annually on 16 June in Dublin as the Bloomsday celebrations. The story of art in Ireland begins with Stone Age carvings found at sites such as Newgrange. It is traced through Bronze age artifacts, particularly ornamental gold objects, and the religious carvings and illuminated manuscripts of the medival period. During the course of the 19th and 20th centuries, a strong indigenous tradition of painting emerged, including such figures as John Butler Yeats, William Orpen, Jack Yeats and Louis le Brocquy.Modern Irish literature is still often connected with its rural heritage, through writers like John McGahern and poets like Seamus Heaney.In the performing arts, playwrights such as Sen O'Casey, Brian Friel, Sebastian Barry, Conor McPherson and Billy Roche have placed Ireland on the world stage. There is a thriving performing arts culture all over the country, performing international as well as Irish plays. In addition, Galway has An Taibhdhearc, the Irish Language Theatre established in 1928. 6.2 Science Ireland has a rich history in science and is known for its excellence in scientific research conducted at its many universities and institutions. Noted particularly are Ireland's contributions to fiber optics technology and related technologies. The Irish philosopher and theologian Johannes Scotus Eriugena (c. 815877) was considered one of the leading intellectuals of his era. Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton CVO OBE, (15 February 1874 5 January 1922) was an Anglo-Irish explorer who was one of the principal figures of the period known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. He along with his

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expedition made the first ascent of Mount Erebus, and the discovery of the approximate location of the South Magnetic Pole, reached on 16 January 1909 by Edgeworth David, Douglas Mawson, and Alistair MacKay. Robert Boyle (16271691) was an Irish natural philosopher, chemist, physicist, inventor and early gentleman scientist, largely regarded one of the founders of modern chemistry. He is best known for the formulation of Boyle's law, stating that the pressure and volume of an ideal gas are inversely proportional. Irish physicist John Tyndall (1820-1893) discovered the Tyndall effect, explaining why the sky is blue.Other notable Irish physicists include Ernest Walton (winner of the 1951 Nobel Prize in Physics with Sir John Douglas Cockcroft for splitting the nucleus of the atom by artificial means and contributions in the development of a new theory of wave equation), William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin (or Lord Kelvin) which the absolute temperature unit Kelvin is named after. Sir Joseph Larmor a physicist and mathematician who made innovations in the understanding of electricity, dynamics, thermodynamics, and the electron theory of matter. His most influential work was Aether and Matter, a theoretical physics book published in 1900. George Johnstone Stoney (who introduced the term electron in 1891), John Stewart Bell (the originator of Bell's Theorem and a paper concerning the discovery of the Bell-Jackiw-Adler anomaly), who was nominated for a Nobel prize, mathematical physicist George Francis FitzGerald, Sir George Gabriel Stokes and many others. Notable mathematicians include Sir William Rowan Hamilton (mathematician, physicist, astronomer and discoverer of quaternions), Francis Ysidro Edgeworth (influential in the development of neo-classical economics, including the Edgeworth box), John B. Cosgrave (specialist in number theory, former head of the mathematics department of St. Patrick's College and discoverer of a new 2000-digit prime number in 1999 and a record composite Fermat number in 2003) and John Lighton Synge (who made progress in different fields of science, including mechanics and geometrical methods in general relativity and who had mathematician John Nash as one of his students). The Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies (DIAS) was established in 1940 by the Taoiseach amon de Valera. In 1940, physicist Erwin Schrdinger received an invitation to help establish the Institute. He became the Director of the School for Theoretical Physics and remained there for 17 years, during which time he became a naturalized Irish citizen. 6.3 The Heritage of Ireland

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There are three World Heritage Sites on the island; these are the Bend of the Boyne, Skellig Michael and the Giant's Causeway. A number of other places are on the tentative list, for example the Burren and Mount Stewart. Some of the most visited sites in Ireland include Bunratty Castle, the Rock of Cashel, the Cliffs of Moher, Holy Cross Abbey and Blarney Castle. Historically important monastic sites include Glendalough and Clonmacnoise, which are maintained as national monuments. Dublin is the most heavily touristed region, and home to several top attractions such as the Guinness Storehouse and Book of Kells. The west and south west (including the Killarney and Dingle regions in County Kerry, and Galway and the Aran Islands) are also popular tourist destinations. The stately homes, built during the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries in Palladian, Neoclassical and neo-Gothic styles, such as, Castle Ward, Castletown House, Bantry House, are of interest to tourists, and those converted into hotels, such as Ashford Castle, Castle Leslie and Dromoland Castle can be enjoyed as accommodation. Blarney Castle

Giants Causeway 6.4 Patrick, Patron of Ireland The work of a missionary from somewhere in the west of Britain was crucial to the conversion of Ireland to the Christian faith in the 5th centuryAD. He was a Romanised Celt called Patricius, son of a deacon and grandson of a priest. At the age of sixteen he was seized

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by an Irish raiding party near his home and brought across the sea to this country, where he was sold as a slave. After several years herding animals in lonely places, he managed to escape, and made his way to the Continent, where he studied for the priesthood. One night in his sleep he dreamed that a voice called to him to return to Ireland and to 'walk once more amongst us'. The compassionate and determined way in which he answered that mystical request has caused him to be known and loved ever since as Naomh Padraig, or Saint Patrick, patron of Ireland. So Patrick, the slave-boy forcibly brought here from abroad, has become to many generations of Irish people the epitome of all that they considered best in their culture a courageous and protective figure, proficient in miracles, scrupulous in teaching, but full of human kindness and with his own puckish sense of humour. St Patrick's Day has always had a special meaning for the Irish. The national holiday, which falls on March 17, is an occasion of great celebration not only for the native Irish themselves but also for many- thousands of people of Irish background throughout the world. While the principal parade in Ireland is in Dublin, many cities and towns throughout the country hold parades. Parades and marching band competitions have become the order of the day, and participants come from all over the United States, Canada, Britain and Continental Europe, to join in the festivities. Word of the fun has spread to such an extent that nowadays the period of celebration has increased to a week. 6.5 The Irish Leprechaun In Irish mythology, a leprechaun (Irish: leipreachn) is a type of male faerie said to inhabit the island of Ireland. They are a class of faerie folk associated in Irish folklore with the Tuatha D Danann and other quasi-historical peoples said to have inhabited Ireland before the arrival of the Celts. It is said that the one who ever manages to catch a leprechaun, may end up being the luckiest person alive. As part of Irish mythology and folklore the Leprechauns are part of our faerie folk, called by some as the wee folk. As a cousin of the clurichaun they are known to inhabited Ireland well before the arrival of the Celts. Small enough for one to sit comfortable on your shoulder they are very smartly dressed in small suites with waist coats, hats and buckled shoes. As mischievous and intelligent folk they are general harmless to the general population in Ireland, although they are known to play the odd trick on farmers and local population of villages and towns.

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It is said that every Leprechaun has a pot of gold, hidden deep in the Irish countryside. To protect the leprechauns pot of gold the Irish fairies gave them magical powers to use if ever captured by a human or an animal. Such magic an Irish leprechaun would perform to escape capture would be to grant three wishes or to vanish into thin air! Leprechauns are also very keen musicians who play tin whistles, the Irish Harp and various other Irish traditional instruments. They are known to have wild music sessions at night which in Ireland are known as Ceili's with hundreds of Irish leprechauns gathering to dance, sing and drink. The leprechaun is fond of drinking Poteen, moonshine, but must not be mistaken by their Irish cousins the cluricauns who are drunken creatures who love to cause chaos around Ireland at night time, a headache for us humans.

7. England- the heart of the Kingdom

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Its inhabitants account for more than 83% of the total UK population, while its mainland territory occupies most of the

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southern two-thirds of the island of Great Britain. England is bordered by Scotland to the north, Wales to the west and the North Sea, Irish Sea, Celtic Sea, Bristol Channel and English Channel. The capital is London, the largest urban area in Great Britain, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by many measures. England became a unified state in the year 927 and takes its name from the Angles, one of the Germanic tribes who settled there during the 5th and 6th centuries. It has had a significant cultural and legal impact on the wider world being the place of origin of the English language, the Church of England, and English law, which forms the basis of the common law legal systems of countries around the world. In addition, England was the birth place of the Industrial Revolution, thus being the first country in the world to industrialise. It is home to the Royal Society, which laid the foundations of modern experimental science. England has the world's oldest parliamentary system, and consequently, other constitutional, governmental and legal innovations that stemmed from England have been widely adopted by other nations. The Kingdom of England (including Wales) continued as a separate state until 1 May 1707, when the Acts of Union, putting into effect the terms agreed in the Treaty of Union the previous year, resulted in political union with the Kingdom of Scotland to create the united Kingdom of Great Britain. In 1800, Great Britain was united with Ireland through another Act of Union 1800 to become the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1921, the Irish Free State was created, and the Royal and Parliamentary Titles Act in 1927 officially established the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, which exists today. 7.1 Etymology and usage England is named after the Angles, the largest of the Germanic tribes who settled in England in the 5th and 6th centuries, and who are believed to have originated in the peninsula of Angeln, in what is now Denmark and northern Germany. (The further etymology of this tribe's name remains uncertain, although a popular theory holds that it need be sought no further than the word angle itself, and refers to a fish-hook-shaped region of Holstein). The early 8th century historian Bede, in his Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (Ecclesiastical History of the English People), refers to the English people as Angelfolc (in English) or Angli (in Latin).

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According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first known usage of "England" referring to the southern part of the island of Great Britain was in 897, with the modern spelling first used in 1538. England is officially defined as "subject to any alteration of boundaries under Part IV of the Local Government Act 1972, the area consisting of the counties established by section 1 of that Act, Greater London and the Isles of Scilly

8. Culture of England
England has a vast and influential culture that encompasses elements both old and new. The modern culture of England is sometimes difficult to identify and separate clearly from the culture of the wider United Kingdom, so intertwined are its composite nations. However the English traditional and historic culture remains distinct albeit with substantial regional differences. English Heritage is a governmental body with a broad remit of managing the historic sites, artefacts and environments of England. London's British Museum, British Library and National Gallery contain the finest collections in the world. The English have played a significant role in the development of the arts and sciences. Many of the most important figures in the history of modern western scientific and philosophical thought were either born in, or at one time or other resided in, England. Major English thinkers of international significance include scientists such as Sir Isaac Newton, Francis Bacon, Michael Faraday, Charles Darwin and New Zealand-born Ernest Rutherford, philosophers such as John Locke, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Thomas Hobbes, and economists such as David Ricardo, and John Maynard Keynes. Karl Marx wrote most of his important works, including Das Kapital, while in exile in Manchester, and the team that developed the first atomic bomb began their work in England, under the wartime codename Tube Alloys.

8.1 Engineering and innovation

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As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering. In addition, England produced numerous scientists and inventors such as Richard Arkwright, who invented the first industrial spinning machine, while Charles Babbage was the 19th century inventor of the first computer; Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers invented the modern computer, and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies. Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web, and much of the technologies on which it is based (HTTP, HTML). James Blundell performed the first blood transfusion. Hubert Cecil Booth invented the vacuum cleaner, and James Dyson invented the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner. Edwin Beard Budding invented the lawnmower. George Cayley invented the seat belt. Christopher Cockerell invented the hovercraft, while John Dalton was a pioneer of atomic theory. Michael Faraday, best known for his revolutionary electric motor, also came from England. Thomas Fowler invented the thermosiphon, while Robert Hooke discovered Hooke's law of elasticity. Turn of the 20th century inventor E. Purnell Hooley invented tarmac. Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery were both inventors of the first steam engines. Perhaps the most famous is Isaac Newton, who promulgated universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus. Other inventors include Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band; Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device; George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers; Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb; Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives; Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill; Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine; and Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering. 8.2 Arhitecture England has played a significant part in the advancement of Western architecture. It is home to the most notable medieval castles and forts in the world, including Warwick Castle, the Tower of London and Windsor Castle (the largest inhabited castle in the world and the oldest in continuous occupation). It is known for its numerous grand country houses, and for its many medieval and later churches and cathedrals, such as York Minster. 18

English architects have contributed to many styles over the centuries, including Tudor architecture, English Baroque, the Georgian style and Victorian movements such as Gothic Revival. Among the best-known contemporary English architects are Norman Foster and Richard Rogers. 8.3 Cuisine Although highly regarded in the Middle Ages, English cuisine later became a source of fun among Britain's French and European neighbours, being viewed until the late 20th century as crude and unsophisticated by comparison with continental tastes. However, with the influx of non-European immigrants (particularly those of south and east Asian origins) from the 1950s onwards, the English diet was transformed. Indian and Chinese cuisine in particular were absorbed into British culinary life, with restaurants and takeaways appearing in almost every town in Britain, and 'going for an Indian' becoming a regular part of British social life. A distinct hybrid food style composed of dishes of Asian origin, but adapted to British tastes, emerged and was subsequently exported to other parts of the world. Many of the well-known Indian dishes in the western world, such as Tikka Masala and Balti, are in fact dishes of this sort. 8.4 Literature The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Bront, Emily Bront, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century. Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England

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continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith. 8.5 Science and philosophy Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668. England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism. although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.

Conclusion
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References: A history of Ireland, Mike Cronin 21

Across cultures, Elizabeth Sharman, Longman http://en.wikipedia.org http://www.of-ireland.info/symbol.html http://www.yourirish.com

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