Why Is Ireland Called the Emerald Isle? (And Its Other Nicknames)

Ireland’s nickname is the Emerald Isle. It describes the island’s year-round green countryside, which comes from a mild, wet Atlantic climate that keeps grass growing for most of the year. The phrase first appeared in print in 1795, in the poem “When Erin First Rose” by the Belfast-born poet William Drennan.

Ireland has other names too, including Éire, Erin, Hibernia and the “Land of Saints and Scholars”. This guide covers where each one comes from, why the island really is that green, and where to see it at its best.

What is Ireland’s nickname?

Ireland’s best-known nickname is the Emerald Isle. Travel writers, songwriters and the Irish themselves all use it, and it refers to the whole island rather than only the Republic, so the Glens of Antrim are as much a part of the Emerald Isle as Connemara.

The name is poetic rather than official. The country’s official name is simply Ireland, or Éire in the Irish language.

Why is Ireland called the Emerald Isle?

Because it is unusually green, all year round. Three things make it so:

• A mild Atlantic climate. The North Atlantic Drift, the northern extension of the Gulf Stream, keeps Irish winters far milder than its latitude suggests. Hard frosts are rare near the coast, so grass keeps growing through most of the winter.
• Rain spread across the year. Ireland is not exceptionally rainy by total volume, but the rain is frequent. Met Éireann, the national weather service, records rain on roughly 150 days a year in the east and up to about 225 days in the west. The ground rarely dries out, even in summer.
• Grass, not forest. The green you see is mostly pasture. Ireland is one of the least-forested countries in Europe, with tree cover of only around 11%, and most of its farmland is grazed grass. Stone-walled fields of bright grass, rather than woodland, give the countryside its emerald look.

Seen from a plane on approach to Dublin or Shannon, the patchwork of fields is the clearest explanation of the nickname you will get.

Who first called Ireland the Emerald Isle?

The phrase comes from William Drennan (1754–1820), a Belfast-born doctor, poet and one of the founders of the Society of United Irishmen. His 1795 poem “Erin” — better known by its first line, “When Erin first rose” — calls Ireland “the emerald of Europe” and ends a later verse with “the cause or the men of the Emerald Isle”.

That makes the nickname a little over 230 years old. You will often read that it is far older — credited to ancient Celtic legend, a medieval poet, or W.B. Yeats — but none of these hold up. Yeats was born in 1865, seventy years after Drennan’s poem was published.

The poem was political as well as pastoral. Drennan wrote it in the years before the 1798 rebellion, and his “Emerald Isle” was a nation as much as a landscape. The phrase spread through 19th-century songs and poetry, then through tourism, until it became the shorthand for Ireland that it is today.

Why is green the color of Ireland?

The landscape is only part of it. Green became Ireland’s color through religion and politics as well:

• The shamrock. Tradition holds that St. Patrick used the three-leafed shamrock to explain the Holy Trinity. It became a national emblem, worn on St. Patrick’s Day every March 17.
• “The Wearing of the Green”. Green was the color of the United Irishmen in the 1798 rebellion, and this popular ballad about it made wearing green a statement of Irish identity.
• The flag. On the Irish tricolour, green stands for the Gaelic and nationalist tradition, orange for supporters of William of Orange, and white for peace between them.

Surprisingly, the color first associated with St. Patrick was blue. “St. Patrick’s blue” was used by the Order of St. Patrick, founded in 1783, and it still appears on the Irish presidential standard.

What are Ireland’s other nicknames?

• Éire — the Irish-language name for Ireland, and its official name in the Irish constitution. In mythology it comes from Ériu, a goddess of the land.
• Erin — a poetic English form of Éirinn, the Irish word for “in Ireland” or “to Ireland”. It is best known from the rallying cry “Erin go bragh”, meaning “Ireland forever”.
• Hibernia — the Latin name used by Roman writers. It survives in the names of Irish institutions and companies.
• Banba and Fódla — two more goddesses who, with Ériu, gave their names to Ireland in early Irish legend. Both still appear in Irish poetry.
• The Land of Saints and Scholars — from the early medieval period, when Irish monasteries such as Clonmacnoise and Glendalough were centers of learning and Irish monks carried Christianity and scholarship across Europe.
• Ireland of the Welcomes — from the traditional Irish greeting céad míle fáilte, “a hundred thousand welcomes”.

Which country is known as the Emerald Isle?

Ireland. When people say “the Emerald Isle”, they almost always mean the island of Ireland, both the Republic and Northern Ireland.

There is one other contender: Montserrat, a British territory in the Caribbean, calls itself the “Emerald Isle of the Caribbean”. The name comes from its green, volcanic landscape and its Irish heritage — many early settlers were Irish, and St. Patrick’s Day is a public holiday there.

Where can you see the greenest parts of Ireland?

The west and southwest are the greenest, because they take the Atlantic weather first:

• The Ring of Kerry and Killarney National Park — mountains, lakes and some of Ireland’s last native oak woodland.
• Connemara — wide bogland, stone walls and the Twelve Bens, with greens that shift to gold and brown in the bog.
• The Wicklow Mountains and Glendalough — within an hour of Dublin, with a 6th-century monastic site set in a wooded glacial valley.
• The Glens of Antrim — nine green valleys running down to the sea in Northern Ireland, on the way to the Giant’s Causeway.

For the most vivid green, travel in May or June, when the grass is new and Dublin gets close to 17 hours of daylight around midsummer. September is a quieter alternative, with the fields still green after the summer. See our guide to the best time to visit Ireland for a month-by-month breakdown.

To cover the west at your own pace, a self-drive tour of Ireland is the most flexible option. Our Best of Ireland itinerary links Dublin, Kerry and the Atlantic coast in one trip.

Frequently asked questions

Why is Ireland so green?

Mild winters warmed by the North Atlantic Drift, rain spread across most days of the year, and land that is largely grass pasture. Grass keeps growing through most of the winter, so the countryside stays green in every season.

Is it the Emerald Isle or the Emerald Island?

The Emerald Isle. “Isle” is the poetic word for island, and it is the form William Drennan used in 1795.

Is Northern Ireland part of the Emerald Isle?

Yes. The nickname describes the island of Ireland as a whole, and Drennan himself was from Belfast.

What does Erin mean?

Erin is a poetic English form of Éirinn, the Irish word for Ireland used after a preposition (“in Ireland”, “to Ireland”). It became a common way to refer to Ireland in English songs and verse.

Is Ireland green all year?

Largely, yes. Grass growth slows in midwinter, but frost and snow are rare at low altitude, so the fields rarely turn brown the way they do in colder or drier climates.

For more about the island, read our 10 fun facts about Ireland.

Ireland trips are designed by Taryn Harrison — book a call.