Finished Ireland by Frank Delaney, who fittingly, is himself Irish which I'm claiming solves the top row of my bingo card.

This book follows one of the last traditional itinerant storytellers in Ireland who visits a home in 1950 and has a lasting impact on the young boy there. It's about this mysterious Storyteller, the boy, and Ireland. It includes a decent summary of Irish history from Newgrange to the Easter Rebellion of 1916, which I did need a refresher on. I suspect it's not a very academic history of Ireland and that some of the Storyteller's versions are probably embellished if not fabricated, but it's good enough for me.