IRELAND

May

Ireland

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Categories: Ireland

Quoted from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

Ireland (Irish: Éire; Ulster Scots: Airlann) is the third largest island in Europe and the twentieth largest in the world. It lies to the northwest of Continental Europe. To the east of Ireland, across the Irish Sea, is the island of Great Britain. Politically it is divided into the Republic of Ireland, a sovereign state occupying five-sixths of the island, and Northern Ireland, a part of the United Kingdom, occupying the northeastern sixth of the island. The name ‘Ireland’ derives from the name Ériu (in modern Irish, Éire) with the addition of the Germanic word ‘land’.

The population of the island is slightly under six million (2006), with 4,239,848 in the Republic of Ireland (1.7 million in Greater Dublin) and about 1.7 million in Northern Ireland (0.6 million in Greater Belfast).

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May

Geography

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Traditionally, Ireland is subdivided into four provinces: Connacht, Leinster, Munster and Ulster (Meath was a province one time, it is now a county), and since the 19th century, 32 counties. Twenty-six of the counties are in the Republic of Ireland, and the remaining six (all in Ulster) are in Northern Ireland. Since 1974, the counties in Northern Ireland only have ceremonial status, being replaced by District Councils.

A ring of coastal mountains surrounds low central plains. The highest peak is Carrauntuohill (Irish: Corrán Tuathail) in County Kerry, which is 1,041 m (3,414 feet). The River Shannon, at 386 km (240 miles) is the longest river in Ireland. The island’s lush vegetation, a product of its mild climate and frequent but soft rainfall, earns it the sobriquet “Emerald Isle”. The island’s area is 84,412 km² (32,591 square miles).

Ireland’s least arable land lies in the south-western and western counties. These areas are largely mountainous and rocky, with dramatic green vistas.

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May

Sports

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Categories: Sports

Gaelic football and hurling are the most popular sports in Ireland, with rugby and soccer also being popular. Hurling and Gaelic football, along with Camogie, Ladies’ Gaelic football, handball and rounders, make up the national sports of Ireland, collectively known as Gaelic Games. All Gaelic games are governed by the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA), with the exception of Ladies’ Gaelic Football, which is governed by a separate organisation. The GAA is organised on an all-Ireland basis with all 32 counties competing; traditionally, counties first compete within their province, in the provincial championships, and the winners then compete in the All-Ireland senior hurling or football championships. The headquarters of the GAA (and the main stadium) is located at the 82,500[29] capacity Croke Park in north Dublin. Major GAA games are played there, including the semi-finals and finals of the All-Ireland championships. During the redevelopment of the Lansdowne Road stadium, International Rugby is being played there, with huge success. All GAA players, even at the highest level, are amateurs and receive no wages.

The Irish rugby team includes players from north and south, and the Irish Rugby Football Union governs the sport on both sides of the border. Consequently in international rugby, the Ireland team represents the whole island. The same is true of cricket, golf, tennis and hockey. The Irish rugby team have played in every Rugby World Cup, making the quarter-finals at four of them. Ireland also hosted games during the 1991 Rugby World Cup (including a quarter and semi-final) and the 1999 Rugby World Cup (including a quarter-final). There are also four professional provincial sides that contest the Celtic League and European Heineken Cup. Irish rugby has become increasingly competitive at both the international and provincial levels since the sport went professional in 1994. During that time, Ulster (1999) and Munster (2006) have both won the European Cup.

The Irish Football Association (IFA) was originally the governing body for football (soccer) throughout the island. Football has been played in Ireland since the 1860s (Cliftonville F.C. Belfast being the oldest club on the island), but remained a minority sport outside of Ulster until the 1880s. However, some clubs based outside Belfast felt that the IFA largely favoured Ulster-based, Protestant clubs in such matters as selection for the national team. Following an incident in which, despite an earlier promise, the IFA moved an Irish Cup final replay from Dublin to Belfast, the clubs based in the Free State set up a new Football Association of the Irish Free State (FAIFS) - now known as the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) - in 1921.

Despite the new organisation being initially blacklisted by the Home Nations’ football associations, the Association was recognised by FIFA in 1923 and organised its first international fixture in 1926 (against Italy in Turin). However, both the IFA and FAI continued to select their teams from the whole of Ireland, with some players earning international caps for matches with both teams. Both also referred to their respective teams as “Ireland”. It was not until 1950 that FIFA directed the Associations to only select players from within their respective territories, and in 1953 FIFA further clarified that the FAI’s team was to be known only as “Republic of Ireland”, and the IFA’s team only as “Northern Ireland” (with certain exceptions).

Northern Ireland qualified for the FIFA World Cup finals in 1958 (where they made it to the quarter-finals), 1982 and 1986. The Republic of Ireland made it to the World Cup in 1990 (where they made it to the quarter-finals), 1994 and 2002. The IFA still retains All-Ireland cups and trophies at its Belfast HQ.

Greyhound racing and horse racing are both popular in Ireland: greyhound stadiums are well attended and there are frequent horse race meetings. The Republic is noted for the breeding and training of race horses and is also a large exporter of racing dogs. The horse racing sector is largely concentrated in the central east of the Republic. Boxing is also an all-island sport governed by the Irish Amateur Boxing Association.

The west-coast of Ireland, and Donegal Bay in particular has some superb surfing beaches; being fully exposed to the fury of the Atlantic Ocean, beaches such as Rossnowlagh and Bundoran catch any swell going. Surfing in Donegal Bay is big business, as it attracts surfers from all over Western Europe aiming to catch Europe’s largest waves. Since Donegal Bay is shaped like a funnel (like the Bristol Channel), the West/South-West winds coming off the Atlantic get funnelled and trapped into a generally short area, therefore increasing the speed and size of the incoming rollers, and creating, especially in winter, some truly fantastic surf. Donegal Bay also boasts good facilities and excellent water quality. In recent years, Bundoran has hosted European championship surfing. The south-west of Ireland, such as the Dingle Peninsula also boasts excellent surf beaches, although Donegal Bay is usually first choice for Ireland’s surfing community.

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May

Music

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Categories: Music

The Irish tradition of folk music and dance is also widely known. In the middle years of the 20th century, as Irish society was attempting to modernise, traditional music tended to fall out of favour, especially in urban areas. During the 1960s, and inspired by the American folk music movement, there was a revival of interest in the Irish tradition. This revival was led by such groups as The Dubliners, The Chieftains, the Clancy Brothers, Sweeney’s Men, and individuals like Seán Ó Riada. Irish and Scottish traditional music are similar.

Before too long, groups and musicians including Horslips, Van Morrison, and even Thin Lizzy were incorporating elements of traditional music into a rock idiom to form a unique new sound. During the 1970s and 1980s, the distinction between traditional and rock musicians became blurred, with many individuals regularly crossing over between these styles of playing as a matter of course. This trend can be seen more recently in the work of artists like U2, Enya, Moya Brennan, The Saw Doctors, Damien Rice, The Corrs, Sinéad O’Connor, Clannad, The Cranberries, Rory Gallagher, Westlife, B*witched, BoyZone, Gilbert O’Sullivan, Black 47, Wolfe Tones, Ash and The Pogues.

Of note also is a growing genre of Irish music fused with heavy heavy metal called Celtic Metal / Celtic Battle Metal (also sometimes called Folk Metal). Geasa, Primordial, Waylander, and Cruachan are examples of bands who perform this style of music. Irish music has shown an immense inflation of popularity with many attempting to return to their roots. Some contemporary music groups stick closer to a “traditional” sound, including Altan, Gaelic Storm, Lúnasa, and Solas. Others incorporate multiple cultures in a fusion of style, such as Afro Celt Sound System.

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May

Literature

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Categories: Literature

For an island of relatively small population, Ireland has made a disproportionately large contribution to world literature in all its branches, mainly in English. Poetry in Irish represents the oldest vernacular poetry in Europe with the earliest examples dating from the 6th century; Jonathan Swift, still often called the foremost satirist in the English language, was wildly popular in his day (Gulliver’s Travels, A Modest Proposal etc.) and remains so in modern times amongst both children and adults. In more recent times, Ireland has produced four winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature: George Bernard Shaw, William Butler Yeats, Samuel Beckett and Seamus Heaney. Although not a Nobel Prize winner, James Joyce is widely considered one of the most, if not the most, significant writers of the 20th century. His 1922 novel Ulysses is cited as the greatest English-language novel of the 20th century and his life is celebrated annually on June 16 in Dublin as the Bloomsday celebrations.

The early history of Irish visual art is generally considered to begin with early carvings found at sites such as Newgrange and is traced through Bronze age artifacts, particularly ornamental gold objects, and the religious carvings and illuminated manuscripts of the mediæval period. During the course of the 19th and 20th centuries, a strong indigenous tradition of painting emerged, including such figures as John Butler Yeats, William Orpen, Jack Yeats and Louis le Brocquy.

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May

Demographics

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Categories: Demographics

Ireland has been inhabited for at least 9,000 years, although little is known about the paleolithic and neolithic inhabitants of the island (other than by inference from genetic research in 2004 that challenges the idea of migration from central Europe and proposes a flow along the Atlantic coast from Spain). Early historical and genealogical records note the existence of dozens of different peoples that may or may not be “mythological” (Cruithne, Attacotti, Conmaicne, Eóganachta, Érainn, Soghain, to name but a few).

A population density map of Ireland showing the heavily weighted eastern sea-board and the northern province of Ulster. Prior to the famine, the provinces of Connacht, Munster and Leinster were more or less evenly populated. Ulster was far less densely populated than the other three.During the past 1,000 years or so, the genetic mix has added Vikings, Normans, Scottish and English ancestors to the indigenous gene pool.

Ireland’s largest religious group is the Catholic Church (about 70% for the entire island, and over 90% for the Republic), and most of the rest of the population adhere to one of the various Protestant denominations. The largest is the Anglican Church of Ireland. The Irish Muslim community is growing, mostly through increased immigration (see Islam in Ireland). The island also has a small Jewish community (See History of the Jews in Ireland), although this has declined somewhat in recent years. Since joining the EU in 2004, Polish people have been the largest source of immigrants (over 180,000) from Central Europe, followed by other immigrants from Lithuania, the Czech Republic and Latvia.

It is Ireland’s high standard of living, high wage economy and EU membership that attract many migrants from the newest of the European Union countries: Ireland has had a significant number of Romanian immigrants since the 1990s. In recent years, mainland Chinese have been migrating to Ireland in significant numbers. Nigerians, along with people from other African countries have accounted for a large proportion of the non-European Union migrants to Ireland. After Dublin (1,661,185 in Greater Dublin), Ireland’s largest cities are Belfast (579,276 in Greater Belfast), Cork (380,000 in Metropolitan Cork), Derry (94,329 in Derry Urban Area), Limerick (93,321 incl. suburbs), Galway (71,983), Lisburn (71,465), Waterford (45,775 excluding near suburbs), Newry (27,433), Kilkenny (23,967 incl. suburbs) and Armagh (14,590).

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May

Economy

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Categories: Economy

In the 1920s and early 1930s, the Republic of Ireland pursued a low-tax, low-spending policy under the government of W.T. Cosgrave and Cumann na nGaedheal, focused mainly on agriculture, livestock farming being of primary importance. The only notable expense the government went to during this time was for the rural electrification scheme, which saw £5,000,000 being spent (a colossal sum of money) constructing the Ardnacrusha hydroelectric power station on the river Shannon. During this period, 97% of trade was done with Britain.

Construction plays an important role in the Irish economyIn 1932, Eamonn De Valera’s Fianna Fáil party defeated Cosgrave’s party with a solid majority. De Valera focused on agriculture again. Fianna Fáil abandoned free trade and put up protective tariffs on almost all industries, spurring a long economic war with the United Kingdom, who taxed imports from Ireland in retaliation. The economic war resulted in widespread hardship for Irish farming. It ended in 1938, when control of several naval ports in the country was transferred to the free state, an important factor in Ireland’s neutrality during World War II.

Fianna Fáil remained in power until 1948, when the first coalition government ousted them from power. To the present day, the two largest parties, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, have dominated the scene, Fine Gael traditionally being pro-business, low tax and low spending, although with Fianna Fáil’s alliance with the Progressive Democrats, it has modified its standpoint to be more pro-business.

Northern Ireland experienced a boom during World War II and received British support thereafter. In comparison, the Republic did not experience a WWII boom and its situation declined relative to Northern Ireland. Overall, until the early 1960s, population and economic decline plagued Ireland. In the early 1960s, Sean Lemass became Taioseach and embarked on a programme of economic reform. For the first time in Ireland, second level education was made free and compulsory. The Republic abandoned protectionism and applied to join the European Economic Community, along with Britain, gaining entry in 1973.

Though the 1960s and early 1970s saw a boom and, for the first time since 1842, a rise in population, the late 1970s and the 1980s saw a long recession. There was mass unemployment, with many people with tertiary education working minimum wage jobs or being out of work. Emigration returned to 50,000 per year.

This situation changed dramatically in the early 1990s as the result of a second, more prodigious, economic boom, known as “The Celtic Tiger” (as in “tiger economy”). In July of 2006, a survey undertaken by Bank of Ireland Private Banking showed that, of the top 8 leading OECD nations, the Republic of Ireland was ranked the second wealthiest per capita, behind Japan and ahead of the UK (which includes Northern Ireland), US, Italy, France, Germany and Spain, showing an average wealth per head of nearly €150,000 (~ $190,000)

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