Ireland

An island in the Atlantic off northwestern Europe, and the name of the republic that covers most of it. The northeastern part of the island is Northern Ireland, which belongs to the United Kingdom.

Halloween's jack-o'-lantern wasn't originally a pumpkin. In Ireland, people carved turnips and lit them from inside after the folktale of Stingy Jack. When the Great Famine sent Irish immigrants to America, they found pumpkins bigger and easier to hollow out, and pumpkins took over.

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The word Boycott traces its Etymology to Captain Charles Boycott, a land agent in 1880s Ireland. When he refused to lower rents during a poor harvest, the community shunned him — workers, shopkeepers, even the postman cut him off. The tactic took his name and entered the OED by 1888.

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