Cork leads way for its Irishness

IRELAND has been celebrating all things Irish this week for St Patrick's Day, but which city is truly classed as the "most" Irish?

- BY CHLOE BARRETT

While Dublin has the largest population, it turns out size isn’t everything when it comes to having the strongest Irish spirit.

The numbers have been crunched on St Patrick's Day parade attendance, the number of GAA clubs, Irish-language speakers, pub and Irish restaurant density, and even online searches for classic Irish dishes per person to figure out which city can truly claim to be Ireland's most Irish.

And the findings revealed what proud Leesiders have known all along - Cork is officially the country's most Irish city, seeing off Dublin with a culture score of 51 compared to the capital's 32, topping the charts with the highest concentration of GAA clubs at 166 and the second highest percentage of Irish speakers at 44.8%.