Gavin points to a graph that tells the awful truth about the Irish Republic’s housing market… Elsewhere the same site records An estimated 4,239,848 people live in Ireland… Yep, it seems we have quite disappeared from sight and mind… No wait, “In 1841, before the famine, the population peaked at 8 million…” Some creative accountancy there. Come on guys, make your minds up and stick with it!!
This reads as if a mad picaresque tale. Myers as first a reporter for RTÉ and then as a freelance journalist with no real experience, finds himself wandering into savagery as he hastens north as the Troubles explode. A soldier dies next to him; he witnesses an IRA ambush; he sees children shot to death [...] read our review »
Writer Christopher Hitchens has died aged 62. He was as contrary as he was brilliant. Here is a brief In Memoriam from Vanity Fair (his outlet of choice since 1992) and, here, a longer tribute from his friend Christopher Buckley Stanley in The New Yorker. Better, perhaps, though to post one of Hitchens’ own writings in [...] read our review »
Mick,
That is, of course not an ‘official’ web site, much less the site of either the CSO or the Irish government.
In fact, the site is based in the USA, never a hot-bed of factual accuracy! Oddly enough, the site even ‘protects’ its identity, so beyond knowing that it all of the leads end at:
8939 S. Sepulveda Blvd. #110 – 732
Westchester, CA 90045
… we are no wiser about it.
My own advice would be to forget it! Link us to the CSO and NISRA for real professional stats.
You can get them in the blogroll if you want them Horse… the point was not made with regard to statistical accuracy but rather a cultural bent in the opposite direction…
Mick,
I’m well able to find the CSO and NISRA on my own, but thanks for the thought!
My point is that the ‘cultural bent’ is not a native cultural bent – it is a US site full of the ignorance of the world for which that country is known. The site is an irrelevancy for us.
Yep, I’ve come across that mistake quiet a bit in conversation.
Population of RoI today – 4.42 million
http://www.cso.ie/releasespublications/documents/population/current/popmig.pdf
Population of NI today – 1.79 million
http://www.nisra.gov.uk/archive/demography/population/midyear/mye_report_2007.pdf
Population of Ireland – 6.21 million
There is a good chance some of us alive today will see that peak exceeded (if only they accept the terms!).
My favourite graph on the housing problem…
http://daftwatch.atspace.com/
Mick, here’s the population figure from the Irish government website:
According to the most recent census return some 88 per cent of Ireland’s four million population classify themselves as members of the Roman Catholic Church.
Nevin – constitutionally, the name of the state is Ireland. I would imagine any legal documents are obligated to descibe the state as such and that practice extends into official communications.
Mack, I note your use of RoI whereas CSO gives its address as “Published by the Central Statistics Office, Ireland.”
I’m a little bit surprised that Irish nationalists here haven’t made an issue of this ‘exclusion’.
I’ve drawn the UK government’s attention to the confusing use of ‘Britain’ for its annual digest of statistics and its USA website. Lo and behold, they’ve both been changed.
Nevin,
You’re being deliberately mischievous, of course. That site is clearly titled ‘Information on the Irish State’, and goes on to talk of the republic in many places.
The bit I really prefer, though is “In 1841 the Republic of Ireland had a recorded population of 6,528,770 … . And I thought the Republic was only declared on Easter Monday 1916!
Nevin bis,
Central Statistics Office, Ireland is correct. The name of the state is Ireland, just like the name of the country, and the island. Confusing, huh?
It won’t be, after re-unification
Nevin – see comment above your last one – (assume you were looking at my first comment).
The Constitution insists the state be called Ireland. I don’t think there’s much northerners can do about it, it would be very expensive to change.
It may not be an issue solely for nationalists, I’ve certainly heard unionists complain too – at minimum because it could be interpreted to imply irredentism. I think it’s not ideal, personally, not least because it encourages a degree of myopia in the south about what Ireland / Irishness encompasses…
Horseman
The Republic of Ireland was declared in 1948:-)
An interesting if usually-forgotten fact is that the first declaration of “the Irish Republic” was in 1867…
Mike,
The Republic of Ireland was declared in 1948:-)
Pah! That was only the Fine Gael republic. The real one had already been declared in 1916!
I believe Emmett had also had a provisional government for his new Republic planned and declared on paper before his 4 hour riot/insurrection.
And I thought the Fenians in America declared themselves the government of the Irish Republic in exile in 1866 or so.
Horseman, I’ve also pointed out to the Irish government that its use of ‘Ireland’ was misleading.
I rang Iveagh House quite a few years ago to inquire about the name officials used for the 26-county territory and was put through to the the DFA’s Department of Protocol. I was told ‘Ireland’ and when I suggested that this was confusing for those who were trying to make sense of Agreement documents I was redirected to the Taoiseach’s Department of Protocol. I queried the receptionist’s use of ‘the Republic’; she checked and confirmed my ‘Ireland’ suggestion and then put me through to Head of Protocol. When I mentioned my exchange with his colleague in Iveagh House he said, “Those b**tards were supposed to have sorted that [confusion] out”!!
Horse,
Go watch last week’s edition of Prime Time on the unpatriotic shoppers of the Republic to see Conor Lenihan turn sharply on a sixpence. It’s simply not ‘the Republic’ in common parlance any more. And it’s been that way for some time.
As Mack points out it is ‘An Bunreacht na hEireann’ – the hint is in the title – that consolidates it… It would be good to know just when the elision began (I have to admit only taking cognisance of it very recently)…
For instance, I’ve a book buried somewhere round here which refers to the Republic of Ireland as the title of the team; if I could dig it out that might give us a hint. When did the FAI ‘claim ownership’ of the whole island by dropping the term ‘Republic’ from its title?
So here’s another possibly rhetorical question: Did the dropping of articles 2 and 3 lead to a type of ‘dressed down’ Ireland that has purged the 26 of all memory and kinship with the 6?
The nomenclature is particularly awkward when Minister of Finance in the Dail tries to make otherwise reasonable socio-economic points about real world relationships with Northern Ireland.
Horseman, Mary McAleese has taken to using ‘the island of Ireland’ which will be news to the diaspora who never thought it was anything else.
I miss Bertie Ahern’s use of ‘Ireland’ because you could never be sure whether he meant the 26 or the 32
Answering my own rhetorical question; if it has, then the term has already gone popular and there’s not much vexed Nordies can do about it.
Mick, Mary Robinson may be the one to blame with her ‘reality therapy’ from 1994, ‘island of Ireland’ and all.
Maybe, but I suspect it might have had something more to do with the standing down of old style Republicanism in the Republic following 1998…
Hi,
The website referenced is my site, I noticed some traffic coming from here so I came for a look. Just to clear some matters up. The sources of all the data are clearly stated and plenty of time has gone into getting the information correct. Info is mainly from the CSO site but other reputable sites are used. Statusireland.com is just presenting them in an easier to read fashion. If there are any errors in data then feel free to contact me via the site. Errors of minor details shouldn’t diminish the actual solid facts presented and if you are easily distracted by them then I am sorry for you and will try to fix them all up so that you sleep easier at night.
Someone mentioned something about the site being American and hidden identity and a big conspiracy or something. The server may well be in America but I am Irish, the owner details are hidden by default when you buy any domain name with WHOISGAURD because of spammers abusing your contact details but also USING your email address and details to get around spam filters.
The site is there as a reference point and a useful one at that I have to admit. There are plenty of people out there clutching onto the hope that house prices, for example, will bounce back rather than follow the obvious patterns of other property bubbles. A quick look at a chart can sometimes be enough for people to understand a situation, put it in context at least.
I hope that at least 1 person will find the charts useful.
thanks,
Ste
Ste,
Indeed. Slugger is hosted in the states too… Cost being the primary consideration…
Except the erroneous comparison between the figure for the Republic’s pop figure and the island-wide population of the 1840s, I didn’t notice any other discrepancies.
That, it seems to me, springs out of the elision of the term for the southern state and that for the island. It’s a commonplace I doubt would raise any eyebrows south of the border.
Up here (as you might expect) it matters…
Mick,
I’ll make a note of it and update the site later. I remember thinking about it when I was doing the stats but where my justifications were I can’t recall. There was no strange intent in the wording anyways.
cheers,
Ste
I’m sure not. Thanks for that!
Mick,
I’m glad you’re discussing this. It’s long irked me that us ‘Nordies’ seem to have our status of being Irish, or indeed living in one of two political versions of Ireland, a little crowded out by our bigger brother in the south. My southern friends are never too receptive to me telling them Northern Ireland is the real Ireland for some reason though..
Ste,
I think the confusion is that your stats seem to loosely compare all Ireland population pre-partition (and pre famine) with the post partition Republic. It’s a little hard to do that I’d think. Not sure you got that above. Interesting site. I do take umbridge with The Horseman’s fleeting xenophobia either way!
Took me a while to complete that post- you can probably ignore second paragraph, given above conversation!
So we’re all agreed they are a shower of free state bastards then?
Mick,
The southern consitution envisions itself covering the whole island (still, despite the revisions to articles two and three), so the elision does not come there.
it does when you give up the territorial claim. That fastened us together temporally in the minds of southern politicians; now it is an indefinitely deferred pleasure they’re plumping for what they now hold under the Constitution and calling that Ireland. No?
It at least has the virtue of being logical. But I welcome anyone testing it for sound good sense.
But you lot are British as UMH points out continually.
Speaking as a half breed Mexican who is loose and free with the term Ireland can I say I resemble many of the allegations put forth here.
I don’t agree with that interpretation of the new wording though Mick. It says that unity will come with the consent of the people of the north. But still envisages unity. It may give up the claim, but not the vision of being applicable across the island.
However, in many senses the ellision can be found before the constitution anyway, especially among the politicians and civil servants of the free state. The name of the state was Ireland, and they thought in terms of the state. That hasn’t changed magically since 1998. Think of the title of Clair Wills’ book about the free state’s neutrality and WWII – that neutral island. This is drawn from a contemporary, and I think northern poet.
I suspect the increase in popular usage partly reflects the confidence from the Tiger. Let’s see if that reverses now that has gone belly up.
Tidbit from wikipedia:
In 1989 the Irish Supreme Court rejected an extradition warrant that used the name Republic of Ireland. Justice Walsh justfied the decision by saying: “if the courts of other countries seeking the assistance of this country are unwilling to give this State its constitutionally correct and internationally recognised name, then in my view, the warrants should be returned to such countries until they have been rectified.”
Gari,
I’m not offering an interpretation of the words Gari. Just a view on how socially Ireland’s post GFA reality is being lived out south and west of the border.
Fair enough Mick. But I think to say that the current words are not envisioning encompassing the whole island eventually is incorrect, and in that sense it is an interpretation.
But I agree the free staters have an overwhelmingly partitionist mindset.
But is precisely where the confusion arises. The withdrawal of former articles 2 and 3 risk making the constitution a nonsense.
That’s an interesting comment Mick. I think a certain interpretation of it can make the foundation ideology of the state a nonsense certainly. But I do think that it can be interpreted in a way that doesn’t do that. More constructive ambiguity perhaps?
Here’s the paradox of that constructive ambiguity:
- Northern Irish nationalists feel more Irish (they now have the same citizenship rights as friends and relatives on the other side of the border).
- Southern Irish nationalist feel that Northern Ireland is less Irish, not simply because of the ongoing structural differences but because of the way Constitution encourages a national forgetfulness of the ‘wee six’.
Does that make sense?
“Article 4
The name of the State is Éire, or, in the English
language, Ireland.
Article 5
Ireland is a sovereign, independent, democratic state.”
There’s no ambiguity there.
Nevin,
I agree. There is though ambiguity in how people interpret how the constitution envisions Ireland. I’m not sure the text though is that ambiguous.
Mick,
I see what you are saying now, and it does make sense. The southerners definitely do have a perception that Ireland means the 26 county state as opposed to the island. I even had to pull up that southern blogger of yours over saying it regarding football results. Totally ingrained in their consciousness.
Mick,
- Northern Irish nationalists feel more Irish (they now have the same citizenship rights as friends and relatives on the other side of the border).
- Southern Irish nationalist feel that Northern Ireland is less Irish, not simply because of the ongoing structural differences but because of the way Constitution encourages a national forgetfulness of the ‘wee six’.
Does that make sense?
No.
You are mixing up citizenship of the Irish state with Irishness. They are different things. Our ancestors were Irish when there was no Irish state.
Nobody has the power, or right, to tell you that you are (or aren’t) Irish if you’re from Ireland. The southern state can give or deny citizenship of one state (covering only 3/4 of the country), but cannot take away your Irishness.
I think one of the weaknesses of the current arrangement is that northern people see the Dublin government as the arbitror of ‘Irishness’, when it is not. It matters not a whit what ‘Southern Irish nationalist feel’ – they are just residents of a different part of our country. The state that they are in, and their government, applies to them only, not to ‘Ireland’.
In this respect I would agree with some unionists who say that they, and their culture, are as Irish as the ‘gaelic nationalist’ version. They are as Irish as you and me, just in a different way.
Thanks Mick for raising this issue. It’s surprising that southern partitionists have gotten away with this for so long.
The 26 counties are not and never will be Ireland. As you have pointed out, calling the state Ireland only ever made sense in the context of a territorial claim to the 6 counties. At this point it is a merely ostentation.
There is one island, but two nations live on it with one of those nations refusing to join the Irish nation. So, despite the propaganda that seeks to portray one ‘Ireland’ as meaning one nation, that is not the case. Hence, you have two states on one island with two separate claims to self-determination to reflect the aspirations of the two separate nations.
In the Republic of Ireland, you have the Irish nation and their nation-state, and in Northern Ireland you have two nations who agreed to share one claim to self-determination as Northern Irishmen (their new shared nationalism) under ad hoc consociationalism and bi-nationalism arrangements that requires the constant support of stable political arrangements, i.e. the sovereign government of the Republic of Ireland and the British government (which owns the sovereignty of Northern Ireland). Good luck to them in that arrangement and, more pertinently, good luck to the hard working taxpayers in the United Kingdom who have to finance it.
Because the Republic of Ireland renounced it claim to sovereignty over the territory of Northern Ireland at the request of northern Irish nationalists, the term ‘Ireland’ could no longer refer to the Republic of Ireland with the claim of sovereignty remaining implicit, so they clarified it to mean the ‘island of Ireland’ with the recognition that there were two separate states on one island.
It’s sweet that the northern Irish nationalists have agreed to accept the constitution of Northern Ireland and agreed that they have no right to self-determination as a part of the Irish nation, but instead have an aspiration that is subject to the veto of those whose claim to self-determination as a part of the British nation is now validated and legitimised. Rights, unlike aspirations, are not subject to the discretion of others.
Unfortunately for them, however, the citizens of the Republic of Ireland did not negotiate or agree to be bound by political arrangements affected their nationality that are applicable only in the British domain of Northern Ireland, and the Whitehall-devised process now requires those who have formally converted their own claim to self-determination into an aspiration to act as quislings against the Irish nation and the Irish nation-state and encourage the citizens of the Republic of Ireland to follow their dismal and pitiful example and surrender their rights to live within an Irish nation-state, accepting that a cantankerous minority of ne’er-do-well British nationalists have an equal claim to the whole island which must be reflected in similar political and constitutional arrangements as apply in Northern Ireland.
Again, good luck with that.
Dave – your analysis in terms of two competing nations in Northern Ireland is spot on. The rest of your piece was confused or just plain inaccurate.
Witness :
“Because the Republic of Ireland renounced it claim to sovereignty over the territory of Northern Ireland at the request of northern Irish nationalists, the term ‘Ireland’ could no longer refer to the Republic of Ireland with the claim of sovereignty remaining implicit, so they clarified it to mean the ‘island of Ireland’ with the recognition that there were two separate states on one island. ”
The bizarre definitions you profer above, do not square with Bunreacht na hÉireann, which has legal primacy.
And by the way, Mack, even if the northern British nationalists did grant the request of the northern Irish nationalists (who have converted their right to self-determination into an aspiration that is subject to the discretion of the minority nation on the island of Ireland) to abandon their new shared nationalism of Northern Irishmen and unify, that unity wouldn’t result in the attainment of the right to self-determination for northern Irish nationalists since the outcome is predicated on the disbandment of the nation-state of Ireland and the agreement of the Irish nation to be bound by a similar veto over their right to self-determination as applies in Northern Ireland.
Dave,
… even if the northern British nationalists did grant the request of the northern Irish nationalists (who have converted their right to self-determination into an aspiration that is subject to the discretion of the minority nation on the island of Ireland) …
Only until such time as the ‘northern Irish nationalists’ achieve a majority in NI. Thn its Game Over.
… to abandon their new shared nationalism of Northern Irishmen and unify, that unity wouldn’t result in the attainment of the right to self-determination for northern Irish nationalists since the outcome is predicated on the disbandment of the nation-state of Ireland and the agreement of the Irish nation to be bound by a similar veto over their right to self-determination as applies in Northern Ireland.
What on earth does that mean? Seriously.
Horseman, that isn’t the case. Because you have accepted that you do not have a right to live within an Irish nation-state, you will find that the gameplan is then to persuade others that they allow have no such right. That is why the quisling (paid, and free-wheeling) are promoting that agenda. Because you got ‘parity of esteem’ with British nationalism in NI, you will be persuaded that you must recipocate with ‘parity of esteem’ for British nationalism in the Republic of Ireland. There is no basis for this other than British intelligence don’t spend a few hundred million per year in Ireland without expecting to see some pro-British sentiment emerging from their investment.
Let’s clarify for those who find it confusing:
Article 1 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights “All peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.”
Three rights to self-determination on one island:
Northern Irish: the qualified right of the citizens of that territory to determine their own future. This is two nations competing with each other for control of one state. The sovereignty of this right to self-determination is held not by citizens, however, but by the British government.
Irish: the right of the Irish nation to freely determine their own destiny. The nation-state is the sovereign territorial entity by which a nation “freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.” This requires that the state be sovereign.
British: a nation that is comprised of a member of other nations.
The northern Irish nationalists rejected their right to live within an Irish nation state. In return, they accepted that the right to self-determination that applies to them is Northern Irish.
Typo: “…that they [b]also[/b] have no such right.”
Dave,
Your posts are long and complexly argued. But wrong.
The GFA (and subsequent legislation) guarantees two things to northern nationalists:
(1) That they do form part of the Irish nation (NB not state), and,
(2) That a simple 50%+1 vote can reunite the country into one state.
Your argument appears to be a complicated smokescreen to try to obscure those two simple facts.
Horse:
“You are mixing up citizenship of the Irish state with Irishness.”
With respect I am clearer than most about the distinction between the two; but the confusion, I think, may lie in the Nineteenth Amendment of the Constitution Act, 1998.
I think you need to go back and read my remarks on the paradoxical nature of this situation. Northerners now have automatic rights to citizenship, but not the right to pay taxes or be represented in the Dail.
Few nationalists in Northern Ireland refer to the south as ‘Ireland’. To do so would be tantamount to sawing off the branch you were sitting on.
Few nationalists in the south refer to their own territorial state as the Republic these days either. It is Ireland, as stated in the Bunreacht; regardless of how anyone feels about it.
[b]Confusion over what Ireland really is, and what it once was…[/b]
why are we all so confused? , Ireland is an invention from the 12th century. The name Ireland never came about until after the 12th century. so being Irish is a relatively new thing.
Dave – there’s no need to panic over any of this. The circle of competing nationalities and identities needs to be squared within Northern Ireland anyway. People have to live there, get on with each other and their lives. I’m confident they will find a way to respect both cultures and in time develop a common northern identity.
If a united Ireland ever comes about, do you seriously believe, that the entire legal framework of the Irish state will be disbanded and replaced with something else? Ditto, for Northern Ireland? For both civil services? For all the trappings of state?
In all likelihood, in the event of a transfer of sovereignty, both states would continue to exist, perhaps with gradually more powerful merged all-island bodies. Northern Ireland, at least until people feel comfortable otherwise, will continue to exist – with the same safe guards you rail against above – just under some form of Irish sovereignty rather than UK sovereignty.