The Republic of Ireland

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The Republic of Ireland

1. Flag of Ireland

The national flag of Ireland

The national flag of Ireland (Irish: bratach na hЙireann) - frequently referred to as the Irish tricolour - is a vertical tricolour of green (at the hoist), white, and orange.

The proportions of the flag are 1:2 (that is to say that, as flown horizontally, the flag is half as high as it is wide). The Irish government has described the symbolism behind each colour as being that of green representing the Gaelic tradition of Ireland, orange representing the followers of William of Orange in Ireland, and white representing the aspiration for peace between them.

Presented as a gift in 1848 to Thomas Francis Meagher from a small group of French women sympathetic to the Irish cause, it was not until the Easter Rising of 1916, when it was raised above the General Post Office in Dublin, that the tricolour came to be regarded as the national flag. Meagher was the son of Newfoundland-born mayor of Waterford, Thomas Meagher Jr. However, there are two theories on his inspiration for the flag: the similarly-coloured Newfoundland Tricolour credited in legend as having been created in 1843, though this seems unlikely given the actual known history surrounding the Newfoundland Tricolour; and the French Tricolour.

The flag was adopted in 1916 by the Easter Rising rebels and subsequently by the Irish Republic during the Irish War of Independence (1919-1921). Its use was continued by the Irish Free State (1922-1937) and it was later given constitutional status under the 1937 Constitution of Ireland. The tricolour is used by nationalists on both sides of the border as the national flag of the whole island of Ireland since 1916.Thus it is flown by many nationalists in Northern Ireland as well as by the Gaelic Athletic Association.

Symbolism

The green pale in the flag symbolises Irish republicanism dating back to the Society of United Irishmen in the 1790s. The orange represents the minority who were supporters of King William III, who was of the House of Orange and originally the Stadtholder of the Netherlands, had defeated King James II and his predominantly Irish Catholic army at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. His title came from the Principality of Orange in the south of France that had been a Protestant bastion from the 16th century. It was included in the Irish flag in an attempt to reconcile the Orange Order in Ireland with the Irish independence movement. The white in the centre signifies a lasting truce between the two cultures and a living together in peace. The flag, as a whole, is intended to symbolise the inclusion and hoped-for union of the people of different traditions on the island of Ireland, which is expressed in the Constitution as the entitlement of every person born in Ireland to be part of the independent Irish nation, regardless of ethnic origin, religion or political conviction. There are exceptions to the general beneficent theory. Green was also used as the colour of such Irish bodies as the mainly-Protestant and non-sectarian Friendly Brothers of St. Patrick, established in 1751.

Occasionally, differing shades of yellow, instead of orange, are seen at civilian functions. However the Department of the Taoiseach state that this is a misrepresentation which "should be actively discouraged", and that worn-out flags should be replaced. In songs and poems, the colours are sometimes enumerated as "green, white and gold" in song, using poetic license. The Irish government actively discourages this since the Good Friday Agreement was signed in 1998 in an effort to foster peace and unity. Variants of different guises are utilised to include -for example, various emblems of Ireland, such as the presidential harp, the four provinces or county arms.

History

A green flag featuring a harp was an older symbol of the nation of Ireland, dating back at least to Confederate Ireland and the pursuits of Owen Roe O'Neill from 1642.

It was subsequently widely adopted by the Irish Volunteers and especially theUnited Irishmen. A rival organisation, the Orange Order, whose main strength was in Ulster, and which was exclusively for members of the Anglican Church of Ireland, was founded in 1795 in memory of King William of Orange and the "Glorious Revolution" of 1688. Following the Irish Rebellion of 1798, which pitted the "green"tradition of the republican United Irishmen against the "orange" tradition of Anglican Protestant Ascendancy loyal to the British Crown, the ideal of a later nationalist generation in the mid-19th century was to make peace between the two traditions and, if possible, to found a self-governing Ireland on such peace and union.

The oldest known reference to the use of the three colours of green, white and orange as a nationalist emblem dates from September 1830 when tricolour cockades were worn at a meeting held to celebrate the French Revolution of that year -- a revolution which restored the use of the French tricolour.The colours were also used in the same period for rosettes and badges, and on the banners of trade guilds. However, widespread recognition was not accorded to the flag until 1848. At a meeting in his native city of Waterford on 7 March 1848,Thomas Francis Meagher, the Young Ireland leader, first publicly unveiled the flag from a second-floor window of the Wolfe Tone Club as he addressed a gathered crowd on the street below who were present to celebrate another revolution that had just taken place in France. It was inspired by the tricolours of France and Newfoundland; Meagher's father was born in Newfoundland .Speeches made at that time by Meagher suggest that it was regarded as an innovation and not as the revival of an older flag. From March of that year Irish tricolours appeared side-by-side with French ones at meetings held all over the country. John Mitchel, referring to the tricolour of green, white and orange that Meagher had presented from Paris at a later meeting in Dublin on 15 April 1848, said: "I hope to see that flag one day waving, as our national banner".

Although the tricolour was not forgotten as a symbol of the ideal of union and a banner associated with the Young Irelanders and revolution, it was rarely used between 1848 and 1916. Even up to the eve of the Easter Rising of 1916, the green flag featuring a harp held undisputed sway. Neither the colours nor the arrangement of the early tricolours were standardised. All of the 1848 tricolours showed green, white and orange, but orange was sometimes put next to the staff, and in at least one flag the order was orange, green and white. In 1850 a flag of green for the Roman Catholics, orange for the Protestants of the Established Church and blue for the Presbyterians was proposed. In 1883, a Parnellite tricolour of yellow, white and green, arranged horizontally, was recorded. Down to modern times, yellow has occasionally been used instead of orange, but by this substitution the fundamental symbolism is destroyed.

Associated with separatism in the past, flown during the Easter Rising of 1916 and capturing the national imagination as the banner of the new revolutionary Ireland, the tricolour came to be acclaimed throughout the country as somewhat of a national flag. To many Irish people, though, it was considered to be a "Sinn Fйin flag".

In the Irish Free State which existed between 1922 and 1937, the flag was adopted by the Executive Council. TheFree State constitution did not specify national symbols; the decision to use the flag was made without recourse to statute. When the Free State joined the League of Nations in September 1923, the new flag "created a good deal of interest amongst the general public" in Geneva. The defeated republicans who had fought the Free State's forces in the 1922-23 Civil War regarded the tricolour as the flag of the self-proclaimed Irish Republic, and condemned its appropriation by the new state, as expressed in the song "Take It Down From The Mast".

2. Geography of Ireland

Introduction Ireland is an island on the western fringe of Europe between latitude 51 1/2 and 55 1/2 degrees north, and longitude 5 1/2 to 10 1/2 degrees west. Its greatest length, from Malin Head in the north to Mizen Head in the south, is 486 km and its greatest width from east to west is approximately 275 km. Since 1921 the island has been divided politically into two parts. The independent twenty-six county area, comprising 70,282 sq. km, has a population of 3,523,401 (1991). Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom and contains six of the nine counties of the ancient province of Ulster, has a population of 1,569,971 (1991). In 1973 Ireland became a member of the European Union (EU).

Rivers The lowland is drained by numerous slow- flowing streams, the largest of which is the River Shannon, 340 km in length. In its middle course this river broadens into a number of attractive lakes but as it approaches the sea its gradient steepens. This is the location of Ireland's earliest hydro-electric power scheme. The main rivers draining eastwards are the Lagan, which flows into Belfast Lough, the Liffey, with Dublin at its mouth, and the Slaney, which enters the sea at Wexford. In the south of Ireland the long east-west synclinal valleys are occupied by such rivers as the Suir, the Lee and the Blackwater which reach the coast by making right-angled turns to pass southwards through the sandstone ridges in narrow gorge-like valleys.

Climate Ireland's mild and equable climate is a reflection of the fact that its shores are bathed by the relatively warm ocean waters of the North Atlantic Drift. Valencia, in the extreme south-west, has an average January temperature of 7ЎC and a July temperature of 1 5ЎC, a range of only eight degrees. The figures for Dublin are 4.5ЎC in January and 1 5.5ЎC in July, a range of eleven degrees. Extremely high or low temperatures are virtually unknown. Rainfall is heaviest on the westward facing slopes of the hills where it may exceed 3,000 mm in Kerry, Mayo and Donegal. The east is much drier and Dublin records on average only 785 mm annually. The outstanding feature of the Irish weather is its changeability, a characteristic which it shares with all the countries that lie in the path of the temperate depressions. However more stable atmospheric conditions may arise in winter with the extension of the continental high pressure system bringing clear skies and cool conditions, especially to the eastern part of the country. In summer an extension of the Azores high pressure system may bring periods of light easterly winds and bright sunny weather.

Forestry There has been an active state afforestation programme in this century, especially since 1950. Over 400,000 hectares have been planted by the state. There was a rapid increase in private afforestation in the 1980s. Forests now cover 6 per cent of the land area, but Ireland still remains the least forested country in Europe apart from Iceland. The objectives have been to provide a domestic supply of timber, to make profitable use of land and to afford employment. Forestry policy had been to use land which was less suited for agriculture, mainly in upland and peat bog areas. There the environmental conditions favour coniferous trees which mature rapidly, planting being mainly of sitka spruce and lodgepole pine. From the early 1950s the use of hardier species and of machinery and fertilisers facilitated planting on deep peat and in more difficult environments, resulting in a westward and upward shift in the focus of afforestation. The remoter rural and western areas already derive employment and income benefits but as the forests mature and timber output increases the impact will be much greater. Planting of land which is marginal for agriculture has been encouraged under EU policies from the 1980s. The recreational role of forests has increased dramatically since the 196Os with twenty forest parks and about five hundred other forest sites being open to the public.

History

Home-rule movement

From the Act of Union on 1 January 1801 until 6 December 1922, the island of Ireland was part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. During the Great Famine, from 1845 to 1849, the island's population of over 8 million fell by 30%. One million Irish died of starvation and/or disease and another 1.5 million emigrated, particularly to the United States. This set the pattern of emigration for the century to come, resulting in a constant population decline up to the 1960s.

The Irish Parliamentary Party was formed in 1882 byCharles Stewart Parnell (1846-1891).

From 1874, particularly under Charles Stewart Parnell from 1880, the Irish Parliamentary Party moved to prominence through widespread agrarian agitation, via the Irish Land League, that won improved tenant land reforms in the form of theIrish Land Acts, and with its attempts to achieve Home Rule, via two unsuccessful Bills which would have granted Ireland limited national autonomy. These led to the "grass-roots" control of national affairs under the Local Government Act 1898 previously in the hands of landlord-dominated grand juries of the Protestant Ascendancy.

Home Rule seemed certain when the Parliament Act 1911 abolished the veto of the House of Lords, and John Redmond secured the Third Home Rule Act 1914. However, the Unionist movement had been growing since 1886 among Irish Protestants after the introduction of the first home rule bill, fearing discrimination and loss of economic and social privileges if Irish Catholics achieved real political power. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century unionism was particularly strong in parts of Ulster, where industrialisation was more common in contrast to the more agrarian rest of the island. It was feared that any tariff barriers would heavily affect that region. In addition, the Protestant population was more prominent in Ulster, with a majority in four counties. Under the leadership of the Dublin-born Sir Edward Carson of the Irish Unionist Party and the northerner Sir James Craig of the Ulster Unionist Party, unionists became strongly militant in order to oppose the Coercion of Ulster. After the Home Rule Bill passed parliament in May 1914, to avoid rebellion with Ulster, the British Prime Minister H. H. Asquith introduced an Amending Bill reluctantly conceded to by the Irish Party leadership. This provided for the temporary exclusion of Ulster from the workings of the bill for a trial period of six years, with an as yet undecided new set of measures to be introduced for the area to be temporarily excluded.

3. Revolution and steps to independence

ireland history national

Though it received the Royal Assent and was placed on the statute books in 1914, the implementation of the Third Home Rule Act was suspended until after the First World War. For the prior reasons of ensuring the implementation of the Act at the end of the war, Redmond and his Irish National Volunteers supported Britain, with 175,000 joining Irish regiments of the10th (Irish), 16th (Irish), while Unionists joined the 36th (Ulster) divisions of the New British Army.

The core of the Irish Volunteers, who opposed any support of Britain, together with the Irish Citizen Army launched an armed insurrection against British Rule in the 1916 Easter Rising. This commenced on 24 April 1916 with the declaration of independence. After a week of heavy fighting, primarily in Dublin, the surviving rebels were forced to surrender their positions. The majority were imprisoned but fifteen of the prisoners (including most of the leaders) were executed as traitors to Britain. This included Patrick Pearse, the man recognised as Ireland's first President and founding father of the modern Irish nation, as well as James Connolly, socialist and founder of the Industrial Workers of the World union, and both the Irish and Scottish Labour movements, who was General during the rising and wounded. This event had a profound effect on public opinion in Ireland.

In January 1919, after the December 1918 general election, 73 of Ireland's 106 MPs elected were Sinn Fйin members who refused to take their seats in the British House of Commons. Instead, they set up an Irish parliament called Dбil Йireann.This Dбil in January 1919 issued a Declaration of Independence and proclaimed an Irish Republic. The Declaration was mainly a restatement of the 1916 Proclamation with the additional provision that Ireland was no longer a part of the United Kingdom. The new Irish Republic was recognised internationally only by the Russian Soviet Republic. The Republic's Aireacht (ministry) sent a delegation under Ceann Comhairle Seбn T. O'Kelly to the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, but it was not admitted.

In 1922 a new parliament called the Oireachtas was established, of which Dбil Йireann became the lower house.

After the War of Independence and truce called in July 1921, representatives of the British government and the Irish treaty delegates, led by Arthur Griffith, Robert Barton and Michael Collins, negotiated the Anglo-Irish Treaty in London from 11 October to 6 December 1921. The Irish delegates set up headquarters at Hans Place inKnightsbridge and it was here in private discussions that the decision was taken on 5 December to recommend the Treaty to Dбil Йireann. The Second Dбil Йireann narrowly ratified the Treaty.

In accordance with the Treaty, on 6 December 1922 the entire island of Ireland became a self-governing British dominion called the Irish Free State (Saorstбt Йireann). Under the Constitution of the Irish Free State, the Parliament of Northern Ireland had the option to leave the Irish Free State exactly one month later and return to the United Kingdom. During the intervening period, the powers of the Parliament of the Irish Free State and Executive Council of the Irish Free State did not extend to Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland exercised its right under the Treaty to leave the new dominion and rejoined the United Kingdom on 8 December 1922. It did so by making an Address to the King requesting, "that the powers of the Parliament and Government of the Irish Free State shall no longer extend to Northern Ireland.”

The Irish Free State was a constitutional monarchy over which the British monarch reigned. It had a Governor-General, a bicameral parliament, a cabinet called the "Executive Council" and a prime minister called the President of the Executive Council.

4. Irish Civil War

On a vote of 64 to 57, the Dбil narrowly passed the Anglo-Irish Treaty on 7 January 1922. Йamon de Valera, President of the Republic and several other cabinet members resigned in protest.

The pro-Treaty leadership of Michael Collins and Arthur Griffith, organised in a Provisional Government, set about establishing the Irish Free State created by the Treaty. To this end, they began recruiting for a new army, based initially at Beggar's Bush Barracks in Dublin, composed of pro-Treaty IRA units. They also began recruiting for a new police, the Civic Guard, to replace the RIC which was disbanded as of August 1922.

However a majority of the IRA led by Rory O'Connor opposed the Treaty, on the grounds that it disestablished the Irish republic, which they argued they were sworn to defend, and that it imposed a declaration of fidelity to the British monarch on Irish parliamentarians. The IRA held a convention in March 1922, in which they renounced their allegiance to the Dбil and vested it in their own Army Council.^[23] O'Connor in April led the occupation by anti-Treaty forces of several public buildings in Dublin, notably the Four Courts - centre of the Irish legal system. Йamon de Valera, while not in command of the anti-Treaty IRA, also led political opposition to the Treaty in a new party named Cumann na Poblachta.

With two rival Irish armed forces now in the country, civil war looked likely from the spring of 1922. Three events set it off. The first was the election of 18 June 1922, which the pro-Treaty Sinn Fйin party won, giving the Free State a popular mandate. The second was the assassination by Irish republicans in London of a retired British general Henry Hughes Wilson. While it is not clear who ordered the killing, the British government assumed it was the anti-Treaty IRA and ordered Collins to act against them or risk armed British intervention to do it. The third trigger was the kidnapping by the IRA in the Four Courts of Free State general, JJ O'Connell. This combination of events forced the Collins government to assault and take the anti-Treaty positions in Dublin, which it succeeded in doing after a week's fighting in July 1922. Йamon de Valera declared his support for the anti-Treaty IRA after the outbreak of hostilities.

A further military offensive secured Free State control over the other major towns and cities in its territory by the beginning of August. Despite their defeat in open warfare, the IRA regrouped and took up a guerrilla campaign, as they saw it, to restore the Irish Republic. The war dragged on in a guerrilla form until April 1923. In August 1922, the Free State was rocked by the death of its two main leaders. Michael Collins was killed in an ambush at Beal na mBlath, Cork, on 22 August 1922 and Arthur Griffith died of a stroke a week earlier. W. T. Cosgrave assumed control of both the Irish Republic's cabinet and the Provisional Government and both administrations disappeared simultaneously shortly afterwards, replaced by the institutions of the Irish Free State on 6 December 1922.

The anti-Treaty IRA under Liam Lynch tried to use the same guerrilla tactics against the Free State as they had against the British in 1919-1921. However, without the same degree of popular support, they were less effective. By late 1922, the Irish National Army had taken all the major towns in the country and reduced the IRA's campaign to small scale attacks. A very large number of anti-Treaty fighters, some 12,000 in all, were interned by the Free State. Moreover, as it went on the war produced acts of great cruelty on both sides. The Free State embarked on a policy of selective executions - 77 prisoners were judicially shot with over 100 more 'unofficially' killed in the field. The anti-Treaty forces assassinated one pro-Treaty member of Parliament, and several other civilian politicians, wounded more and burned their houses. However the Free State's tactics of internment and executions combined to cripple the anti-Treaty forces by April 1923.

The death in action of Liam Lynch in this month led to the anti-Treaty IRA, under the orders of Frank Aiken and on the urgings of civilian leader de Valera, calling a ceasefire and to "dump arms". There was no negotiated end to the war however.

The Civil War between Irish nationalists created a great deal of bitterness and the Civil War cleavage also produced the two main parties of independent Ireland in the 20th century. The number of dead has yet to be accurately counted but is considered to be around 2,000; at least as high as the number killed in the preceding War of Independence.

5. 1937 Constitution

Following a national referendum, on 29 December 1937 the new Constitution of Ireland (Bunreacht na hЙireann) came into force. This replaced the Constitution of the Irish Free State and called the state Ireland, or Йire in Irish. The former Irish Free State government had taken steps to formally abolish the Office of Governor-General some months before the new Constitution came into force. Although the Constitution established the office of President of Ireland, the question over whether Ireland was a republic remained open. Diplomats were accredited to the King, but the President exercised the internal functions of a Head of State.For instance, the President gave assent to new laws with his own authority, without reference to King George VI. George VI was only an "organ", that was provided for by statute law.

Ireland remained neutral during World War II, a period it described as the Emergency. The link with the monarchy ceased with the passage of the Republic of Ireland Act 1948, which came into force on 18 April 1949 and declared that the state was a republic. Later, the Crown of Ireland Act was formally repealed in Ireland by the Statute Law Revision (Pre-Union Irish Statutes) Act, 1962. Ireland was technically a member of the British Commonwealth after independence until the declaration of a republic on 18 April 1949. At the time, a declaration of a republic terminated Commonwealth membership. This rule was changed 10 days after Ireland declared itself a republic, with the London Declaration of 28 April 1949. Ireland did not reapply when the rules were altered to permit republics to join.

6. National scandals

Part of the reason why, by the 1990s, social liberalisaton was widely accepted was that the Catholic Church was hit by a very damaging series of scandals in that decade. The revelation that one senior Catholic bishop, Eamon Casey, fathered a child by a divorcйe caused a major reaction, as did the discovery of child abuse by a large number of clerics, notably the infamous paedophile Father Brendan Smyth (the incompetent handling of a request for the extradition of Smyth brought down an Irish government in 1994). Another bishop, McGee, subsequently resigned over his mishandling of child abuse cases in his diocese. It was also revealed, in the 2000s, after an enquiry, the Ryan Commission, that there had been widespread physical and sexual abuse of children in the Church-run industrial schools and orphanages from the 1920s until the 1960s. These were institutions which were set up to house children of unmarried or poor parents. In some cases, it was revealed, these children had been forcibly removed from their parents by the state and put into institutions where they were badly fed and clothed and in some cases beaten and raped.

All of these revelations very deeply damaged the moral authority of the Catholic Church. While other factors have also played a role, the scandals in the Catholic Church have contributed to a steep decline in church attendance among Irish Catholics. While in 1991, 92% of the Republic's population identified themselves as Roman Catholics, by 2006 this had dropped to 86%. More starkly, whereas in 1990, 85% of Catholics attended mass weekly, by 2008 this had fallen to 43% among Catholics and 40% of the population in general. (See also Catholic sexual abuse scandal in Ireland)

Also in the 1990s, a series of tribunals began inquiring into major allegations of corruption against senior politicians. Ray Burke, who served as Minister for Foreign Affairs in 1997 was gaoled on charges of tax evasion in January 2005. The Beef Tribunal in the early 1990s found that that major food companies, notably in Iraq had been given preferential treatment by the Fianna Fбil government in return for donations to that party. Former Taoisaighs Charles Haughey and Bertie Ahern were also brought before Tribunals to explain their acceptance of very large personal donations of money to them by private businessmen.

7. Recent history

Ireland became a member of the United Nations in December 1955, after previously being denied membership due to its neutral stance during the Second World War and not supporting the Allied cause. At the time, joining the UN involved a commitment to using force to deter aggression by one state against another if the UN thought it was necessary.

Interest towards membership of the European Economic Community developed in Ireland during the 1950s, with consideration also given to membership of the European Free Trade Area. As the United Kingdom intended on EEC membership, Ireland formally applied for membership in July 1961 due to the substantial economic linkages with the United Kingdom. However, the founding EEC members remained skeptical regarding Ireland's economic capacity, neutrality, and unattractive protectionist policy. Many Irish economists and politicians realised that economic policy reform was necessary. The prospect of EEC membership became doubtful in 1963 when French President General Charles de Gaulle stated that France opposed Britain's accession, which ceased negotiations with all other candidate countries. However, in 1969 his successor, Georges Pompidou, was not opposed to British and Irish membership. Negotiations began and in 1972 the Treaty of Accession was signed. A referendum held in 1972 confirmed Ireland's entry, and it finally succeeded in joining the EEC in 1973.

The economic crisis of the late 1970s was fueled by Fianna Fбil's budget, the abolition of the car tax, excessive borrowing, and global economic instability. There were significant policy changes from 1989 onwards, with economic reform, tax cuts, welfare reform, an increase in competition, and a ban on borrowing to fund current spending. This policy began in 1989-1992 by the Fianna Fбil/Progressive Democrat government, and continued by the subsequent Fianna Fбil/Labour government and Fine Gael/Labour/Democratic Left government. Ireland became one of the world's fastest growing economies by the late 1990s in what was known as the Celtic Tiger period, which lasted until the global Financial crisis of 2007-08.

In the Northern Ireland question, the British and Irish governments started to seek a peaceful resolution to the violent conflict involving many paramilitaries and the British Army in Northern Ireland known as "The Troubles". A peace settlement for Northern Ireland, known as the Good Friday Agreement, was approved in 1998 in referendums north and south of the border. As part of the peace settlement, the territorial claim to Northern Ireland in Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution of Ireland was removed by referendum.

8. Languages

There are a number of languages used in Ireland. Irish is the main language to have originated from within the island, while others have been introduced through foreign settlements. Since the late nineteenth century, English has been the predominant first language. A large minority claims some ability to use Irish, but it is the first language for a small percentage of the population. Within the Republic of Ireland, under the Constitution of Ireland, both languages have official status, with Irish being the national and first official language.

Irish

The original Primitive Irish was introduced by Celtic speakers. Primitive Irish gradually evolved into Old Irish, spoken between the 5th and the 10th centuries, and then into Middle Irish. Middle Irish was spoken in Ireland, Scotland, and the Isle of Man through the 12th century, when it began to evolve into modern Irish in Ireland, Scottish Gaelic in Scotland, and the Manx language in the Isle of Man. Today, Irish is recognised as the first official language of the Republic of Ireland and is officially recognised in Northern Ireland and in the European Union. Communities that speak Irish as their first language, generally in sporadic regions on the island's west coast, are collectively called the Gaeltacht. According to more detailed census data, in 2011, there has been an increase of 5,000 in the number of daily Irish speakers since the previous census. There are 77,185 daily speakers, a third of which are located in the Gaeltacht and the remaining 55,554 are located in the rest of the country as well as another estimated 109,663 weekly speakers.

In the over 80 years since the independence of the South, efforts to revive Irish as an Active daily vernacular of most of the nation have relied on compulsion and have generally failed thus far however in trying to achieve this, more and more people are becoming passive speakers of Irish (who watch Irish-language TV, listen to Irish-language radio, read Irish-language newspapers and magazines) with an estimated 10% (400,000+) of the population of the Republic who would be classified as fluent, near fluent or reasonably good passive speakers.

Although the use of Irish in educational and broadcasting contexts has soared with the 600 plus Irish-language primary/secondary schools and creches, English is still overwhelmingly dominant in almost all social, economic and cultural contexts. In the media, there is an Irish-language TV station TG4, Cъla 4 a children's channel on satellite, 5 radio stations such as the national station RTЙ Raidiу na Gaeltachta, Raidiу na Life in Dublin, Raidiу Fбilte in Belfast as well as youth radio stations Raidiу Rн-Rб and Anocht FM and four newspapers, Lб Nua a Belfast daily, Foinse a weekly, Gaelscйal a weekly, and Saol a monthly. There are also occasional columns written in Irish in English-language newspapers, including The Irish Times, The Irish News, The Irish Examiner, Metro Eireann, Irish Echo, Evening Echo and Andersonstown News. All of the 40 or so radio stations in the Republic have to have some weekly Irish-language programming to obtain their broadcasting license. Similarly, RTЙ runs Nuacht, a news show, in Irish and Lйargas, a documentary show, in Irish with English subtitles. The Official Languages Act 2003 gave many new rights to Irish citizens with respect to the Irish language, including the use of Irish in court proceedings. All Dбil debates are to be recorded in Irish also. In 2007, Irish became the 21st official language of the European Union.

English

Middle English was first introduced by the Cambro-Norman settlers in the 12th century. It did not initially take hold as a widely-spoken language, as the Norman йlite spoke Anglo-Norman. In time, many Norman settlers intermarried and assimilated to the Irish cultures and some even became "more Irish than the Irish themselves". Following the Tudor conquest of Ireland and the 1610-15 Ulster Plantation, particularly in the old Pale, Elizabethan English became the language of court, justice, administration, business, trade and of the landed gentry. Monolingual Irish speakers were generally of the poorer and less educated classes with no land. Irish was accepted as a vernacular language, but then as now, fluency in English was an essential element for those who wanted social mobility and personal advancement. After the legislative Union of Great Britain and Ireland's succession of Irish Education Acts that sponsored the Irish national schools and provided free public primary education, Hiberno-English replaced the Irish language. Since the 1850s, English medium education was promoted by both the UK administration and the Roman Catholic Church. This greatly assisted the waves of immigrants forced to seek new lives in the US and throughout the Empire after the Famine. Since then the various local Hiberno-English dialects comprise the vernacular language throughout the island.

The 2002 census found that 103,000 British citizens were living in the Republic of Ireland, along with 11,300 from the US and 8,900 from Nigeria, all of whom would speak other dialects of English. The 2006 census listed 165,000 people from Britain and 22,000 from the US.

Ulster Scots

Ulster Scots sometimes called Ullans is a dialect of Scots spoken in some parts of County Donegal and Northern Ireland. It is promoted by the Ulster Scots Agency, a cross-border body. Its status as a recognised language as opposed to a dialect of Scots is still under debate.

Shelta

Shelta is a cant, based upon both Irish and English, generally spoken by the Irish traveller community.

Sign languages

Irish Sign Language (ISL) is the sign language of most of Ireland. It has little relation to either spoken Irish or English, and is more closely related to French Sign Language (LSF) than to British Sign Language (BSL).

Northern Ireland Sign Language is used in Northern Ireland, and is related to both ISL and BSL in various ways. ISL is also used in Northern Ireland.

Immigrant languages

With increased immigration into Ireland, there has been a substantial increase in the number of people speaking languages (the top ten listed) such asGreek, Polish, Lithuanian, Latvian, Spanish, Cantonese,Japanese, Mandarin, Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi and Arabic.

References

ireland history national

1. http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/plaintexthistories.asp?historyid=aa31

2.http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/european_languages/countries/ireland.shtml

3. http://ireland.iol.ie/~dluby/republic.htm

4. http://www.gov.ie/en/essays/geography.html

5. http://geography.about.com/library/cia/blcireland.htm

6. http://www.infoplease.com/country/ireland.html

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