Tuesday, December 02, 2008
Confusion over what Ireland really is, and what it once was…
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!!
Mick Fealty @ 11:24 AM
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.
Posted by on Dec 02, 2008 @ 12:39 PMYou 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…
Posted by on Dec 02, 2008 @ 12:54 PMMick,
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.
Posted by on Dec 02, 2008 @ 12:59 PMYep, 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.pdfPopulation of NI today - 1.79 million
http://www.nisra.gov.uk/archive/demography/population/midyear/mye_report_2007.pdfPopulation 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…
Posted by on Dec 02, 2008 @ 01:05 PMMick, 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.
Posted by on Dec 02, 2008 @ 01:06 PMNevin - 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.
Posted by on Dec 02, 2008 @ 01:08 PMMack, 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.
Posted by on Dec 02, 2008 @ 01:19 PMNevin,
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!
Posted by on Dec 02, 2008 @ 01:22 PMNevin 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 ;-)
Posted by on Dec 02, 2008 @ 01:24 PMNevin - 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…
Posted by on Dec 02, 2008 @ 01:25 PMHorseman
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…
Posted by on Dec 02, 2008 @ 01:33 PMMike,
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!
;-)
Posted by on Dec 02, 2008 @ 01:37 PMI 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.
Posted by on Dec 02, 2008 @ 01:37 PMHorseman, 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”!!
Posted by on Dec 02, 2008 @ 01:39 PMHorse,
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.
Posted by on Dec 02, 2008 @ 01:43 PMHorseman, 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 :)
Posted by on Dec 02, 2008 @ 01:46 PMAnswering 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.
Posted by on Dec 02, 2008 @ 01:48 PMMick, Mary Robinson may be the one to blame with her ‘reality therapy’ from 1994, ‘island of Ireland’ and all.
Posted by on Dec 02, 2008 @ 01:59 PMMaybe, but I suspect it might have had something more to do with the standing down of old style Republicanism in the Republic following 1998…
Posted by on Dec 02, 2008 @ 02:00 PMHi,
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,
StePosted by on Dec 02, 2008 @ 02:09 PMSte,
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…
Posted by on Dec 02, 2008 @ 02:24 PMMick,
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,
StePosted by on Dec 02, 2008 @ 02:34 PMI’m sure not. Thanks for that!
Posted by on Dec 02, 2008 @ 02:39 PMMick,
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!
Posted by on Dec 02, 2008 @ 02:41 PMTook me a while to complete that post- you can probably ignore second paragraph, given above conversation!
Posted by on Dec 02, 2008 @ 02:43 PM
