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Éire (IPA: [ˈeːrʲə] pronunciation) is the Irish (Gaeilge) name of the island called Ireland in the English language. Éire is the nominative form in modern Irish of the name for the goddess called Ériu in Old Irish, a mythical figure who helped the Gaels conquer Ireland as described in the Book of Invasions. Éire is still used in the Irish language today to refer to the island of Ireland as well as the Republic of Ireland - as well as the goddess. The dative form Éirinn is anglicized as Erin, which is occasionally used as a poetic name for Ireland in English, and has also become a common feminine name in English. The name "Éire" features on all Irish coinage (and Irish euro coins), postage stamps, passports and other official state documents issued since 1937 — for instance the Official Seal of the President of Ireland. Before then, "Saorstát Éireann", the Irish translation of Irish Free State, was used except for postage stamps which regularly used "Éire" during the Irish Free State era in both definitive and special issues.

The name was given in Article 4 of the 1937 Irish constitution to the Irish state, created under the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty, which was known between 1922 and 1937 as the Irish Free State. Article 4 stated that: "The name of the state is Éire, or, in the English language, Ireland." Article 8 states that Irish is the first official language. Since 1949, the term Republic of Ireland has generally been used in preference to Éire, when speaking English. Technically, as the Republic of Ireland Act enacted in 1948 makes clear that the "Republic of Ireland" is actually a description rather than the name of the state, even if generally used as such. The Constitution of Ireland makes clear that the name of the state in the English Language is "Ireland".

From January 2007, the Irish government nameplates at meetings of the European Union have borne both Éire and Ireland following the adoption of Irish as a working language of the European Union.

Etymology

Éire is the modern Irish form of Old Irish Ériu. Comparison with ancient transcriptions of the name of the island of Ireland, and forms known from other Celtic languages, yields the Common Celtic reconstruction *φīwerjō, stem *φīwerjon-. The Celtic form implies Proto-Indo-European *piHwerjon-, likely related to the adjectival stem *piHwer- "fat" (cf. Sanskrit pīvan, f. pīvarī and by-form pīvara, "fat, full, abounding") hence meaning "fat land" or "land of abundance".

From the later Q-Celtic form *īwerjon-, in which the original p of the stem had been dropped (cf. *pater > athair "father"), was borrowed the Welsh Iwerddon "Ireland". From a similar or somewhat later form were also borrowed Greek Template:Polytonic Iernē and Template:Polytonic Iouernia; the latter form was converted into Latin Hibernia. Old Irish Ériu is directly descended from *φīwerjō > Q-Celtic *īweriū; from it was borrowed Old English Íras "men of Ireland", whence Íraland "land of the Íras, Ireland".

Older explanations for the etymology of Éire, no longer considered linguistically plausible, are:

• Derived from a root word Ara (also spelt Arya, Aire or Aera) meaning noble, as in 'Aryan'. Among the very many poetic names for the island of Ireland was Mág Ealga meaning plain of the nobles.
• Ar or Ir in the Irish language also meant land, and according to old manuscripts was the name given to the lands of the mythological Celtic tribe of Gael Glas who travelled from Scythia across Greece and eventually to Ireland.

Éire in the Irish Constitution

From 1922 the postage stamps of the Irish Free State had used the word "Éire" as well the official form "Saorstat Éireann". In 1937 the Fianna Fáil party government (1932–48) of Éamon de Valera drafted an entirely new constitution, called Bunreacht na hÉireann. The constitution is not an act of the parliament of the Irish Free State but was "enacted by the people", by a plebiscite in 1937. The simple terms, Ireland and Éire, were used in the constitution to indicate a break with the Irish Free State without implying a return to the Irish Republic or a break with the Crown. Irish was described as the "first official language". Among the new features of that new constitution were a President of Ireland, renaming the President of the Executive Council the Taoiseach, and restoring the senate Seanad Éireann. As it was the religion of over 95% of the population, there was a reference (repealed by plebiscite in 1972) to the "special position of the Roman Catholic church". Unlike the Irish Free State constitution which it replaced, Bunreacht na hÉireann had no constitutional link with the Crown, except in external relations through a combination of Article 29 of the Constitution and the External Relations Act 1936. The repeal of the latter Act by the Republic of Ireland Act 1948 created Ireland as a sovereign Republic in 1949, with Republic of Ireland as a new description but without changing the name of the state from Éire or Ireland.

European Union

In 2006 it was announced that the Republic of Ireland would use nameplates bearing Éire and Ireland at European Union meetings from 2007. This change was made at the same time as the adoption of Irish as a working language of the European Union as of 1 January 2007.

Footnotes

1. "Bunreacht Na Éireann". Office of the Houses of the Oireachtas. Retrieved on 14 March, 2007
2. Article 4, Bunreacht na hÉireann (Constitution of Ireland): "The name of the State is Éire, or, in the English language, Ireland."
3. Mallory, J.P. and D.Q. Adams, ed. Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture. London: Fitzroy Dearborn Pub., 1997, p. 194
4. Higgins critical of plan for 'Éire Ireland' plates, Gaelport, 29 June 2006

Bibliography and sources

• Noel Browne, Against the Tide
• Bunreacht na hÉireann (1937 Irish Constitution)
• Stephen Collins, The Cosgrave Legacy
• Tim Pat Coogan, De Valera (Hutchinson, 1993)
• Brian Farrell, De Valera's Constitution and Ours
• F.S.L. Lyons, Ireland since the Famine
• David Gwynn Morgan, Constitutional Law of Ireland
• Tim Murphy and Patrick Twomey (eds.) Ireland's Evolving Constitution: 1937–1997 Collected Essays (Hart, 1998) ISBN 1901362175
• Alan J. Ward, The Irish Constitutional Tradition: Responsible Government and Modern Ireland 1782–1992 (Irish Academic Press, 1994) ISBN 07165252283

Also: Dáil Debates, papers from the National Archives of Ireland and information from a forthcoming book.

• Ireland
• History of the Republic of Ireland
• Endonyms
• Irish words and phrases