The Emerald Isle and a note about Adjectives!

Hi everyone,
I’ve just arrived back from a quick trip to the Emerald Isle. Have you ever heard of it? If not, it’s maybe because this is only the country’s informal nickname, so called because of all its beautiful lush vibrant green foliage and a link to a famous ancient poem by William Drennan.

The poem, called When Erin First Rose, starts like this:

"When Erin first rose from the dark swelling flood,

God blessed the green island and saw it was good;

The emerald of Europe, it sparkled and shone,

In the ring of the world the most precious stone.

In her sun, in her soil, in her station thrice blest,

With her back towards Britain, her face to the West,

Erin stands proudly insular, on her steep shore,

And strikes her high harp amid the ocean's deep roar."

There are some clues in the poem as to what the real name of the country is. The poem refers to it being in Europe, back towards Britain and being called Erin in Gaelic or Celtic language.

Did you guess? The country is Ireland. Ireland is a delightful rural historical country.

Let’s pull out a grammar point that you might have missed – take a look at the three pieces of text below:

beautiful lush vibrant green foliage
famous ancient poem
delightful rural historical country

Foliage, poem and country are nouns. But beautiful, lush, vibrant, green, famous, ancient, delightful, rural and historical are ALL ADJECTIVES! So, in English, we can make our sentences more colourful by using multiple adjectives before a noun. However, it’s not as easy as it looks. There is a special order that you must put the adjectives into, otherwise your grammar will be wrong.

Do you want to try to learn the order of adjectives? Then have a go at my lesson.

Thank you!