This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Daicaregos (talk | contribs) at 15:48, 1 June 2009 (Undid revision 293736562 by SarekOfVulcan (talk)Article provides information relevant to its title). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
Revision as of 15:48, 1 June 2009 by Daicaregos (talk | contribs) (Undid revision 293736562 by SarekOfVulcan (talk)Article provides information relevant to its title)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)For the sovereign country see Ireland.
On April 18, 1949, The Republic of Ireland Act, 1948 (No. 22 of 1948), came into operation. Under the Act, Ireland formally left the British Commonwealth and became an independent republic. To affirm this, section two of the Act stated "It is hereby declared that the description of the State shall be the Republic of Ireland."
Origin
This last breaking of the ties between Ireland and Britain, however, had begun in 1937. Éamon de Valera had gradually whittled away the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1922 and had significantly accomplished it with a new constitution in 1937. With its introduction, there would no longer be a Governor General representing the King, but a President who would be elected by the people. This had all been made possible by the British government’s introduction of the Statute of Westminster 1931, which granted sovereignty to its dominions.
In 1938, the British government, legislating for certain accords with the Irish State, included the following in the Eire (Confirmation of Agreements) Act:
The territory which, in accordance with the provisions of the Irish Free State (Agreement) Act, 1922, and the Irish Free State Constitution Act, 1922, ... was required to be styled and known as the Irish Free State shall be styled and known as Eire, and accordingly, references in any enactment to the Irish Free State shall be construed as references to Eire. (s 1)
This reflected in British law the Irish Constitution of 1937, which meant that, in British and unionist minds, the twenty-six counties had become “Eire”.
The Irish Constitution had facilitated this usage by the British government by saying that:
The name of the State is Éire, or in the English language, Ireland.
The phrase “or in the English language, Ireland” had been a late insertion, according to Mary Daly, and was adopted on foot of an amendment tabled in Dáil Éireann by an independent Teachta Dála (deputy). A typewritten preliminary draft of Heads of Constitution for Saorstát Éireann, she says, dated 18 May 1936, by John Hearne, who was a legal adviser in the Department of External Affairs, and played a leading role in drafting the 1937 Constitution, gave Article 1 as “Saorstát Éireann is a sovereign, independent state,” but Saorstát Éireann was crossed out in pencil and replaced with Eire, and this was repeated throughout Hearne’s draft. In a version dated 14 October 1936, Article 1, Daly notes, used the term “The Irish Nation”; this draft referred to “the parliament of Eire” and “the laws of Eire.”
Daltún Ó Callaigh suggests that a better drafting would have been simply “The name of the State is Ireland” and, in the Irish version, “Is ainm don Stét Eire”. He maintains that the existing style is rather like a German constitution saying in translation: “The name of the State is Deutschland or in the English language Germany.” Ó Callaigh noted that the Irish practice is peculiar, and that it facilitated partitionists by giving them a word to describe “the twenty-six counties which made the area seem to a non-Irish speaker like a natural entity in itself.”
Use of the term by Britain
The British government would not use the term “Ireland” in any official document, according to Daly, until the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which included an undertaking by the Irish government to delete Articles 2 and 3 of the Irish Constitution. Britain’s refusal to use the constitutional title of the Irish state, and its efforts to persuade other nations to adopt a similar practice, can be interpreted, Daly says, as an effort to exercise a residual authority over independent Ireland. Britain appeared to have gone to significant lengths, she says, to stop international organizations from using the name Ireland to designate the twenty six county state, and that this was often in response to pressure from the Northern Ireland government. In March 1938, the Irish government issued a directive to departments that “generally we should try to have Ireland and Irish used so far as possible in the English language in preference to Éire and ‘of Éire.’” The resolve on the part of the Irish government to call the state Ireland rather than Éire was, Daly suggests, a reaction to Britain’s decision to use Eire (without the accent) as the name of the independent Irish state.
According to Daly, the British government refusal to use the constitutional title of the Irish state was because they interpreted it as a claim by the Irish Government to the entire island. To support this interpretation they pointed to Article 2 of the Irish Constitution, which stated that “the national territory consists of the whole island of Ireland, its islands and the territorial seas.” However, Article 3, qualified this claim:
Pending the reintegration of the national territory, and without prejudice to the right of the Parliament and Government established by this Constitution to exercise jurisdiction over the whole of that territory, the laws enacted by that parliament shall have the like area and extent of applications as the laws of Saorstát Éireann and the like extra territorial effect.
The Irish State was now in essence a republic, but it still did not describe itself as such. This final step would be legislated for and the Irish government signalled its intension to cut all remaining ties with the Commonwealth. In July 1948, a number of months before the Republic of Ireland Bill was introduced, the Minister for External Affairs, Seán MacBride, told the Dáil that Ireland was “certainly not a member of the British Commonwealth of Nations.” The Taoiseach John A. Costello explained that Ireland’s exit from the Commonwealth had been “a gradual development.” In 1949 Ireland, by passing the Republic of Ireland Act 1949, became a republic and left the Commonwealth. This decision to declare a republic, consisted of all political parties except Fianna Fáil.
The British government then passed the Ireland Act, which stated:
It is hereby recognized and declared that the part of Ireland heretofore known as Eire ceased, as from the eighteenth day of April, nineteen hundred and forty-nine, to be part of His Majesty’s dominions.” (s 1.1)
When the Ireland Act had been passed, Clement Attlee, the British prime minister, set out the protocol for future relations with Ireland, which though no longer a member of the Commonwealth, was not to be treated as a foreign state, "in view of the bonds of history and blood between the Commonwealth countries and the people of Southern Ireland."
In other words according to Ó Callaigh, it was acknowledged that “Eire” had become a republic in every sense and was outside not only the United Kingdom, as the twenty-six counties “had been in one way or another since 1922,” but the royal domain altogether, or “the Commonwealth” of which the British King was Head.
British and European accept Ireland
The 1948 Republic of Ireland Act however led to further misunderstanding over the name of the state. Section 2 stated:
that the description of the State shall be the Republic of Ireland.
In Dáil Éireann, while introducing the bill John A. Costello stressed that it did not purport to amend the constitution of 1937:
There is the name of the State and there is the description of the State. The name of the State is Ireland and the description of the State is the Republic of Ireland. That is the description of its constitutional and international status.
In the Seanad, Costello explained 'its name in Irish is Éire and in the English language Ireland. Its description in the English language is "the Republic of Ireland".'
The Government Information Bureau in 1953 issued a directive, noting that Article 4 of the 1937 Constitution gave the name as “Éire” or, in the English language, “Ireland”; they noted that whenever the name of the state was mentioned in an English language document, Ireland should be used and that “Care should be taken,” the directive stated, “to avoid the use of the expression Republic of Ireland or Irish Republic in such a context or in such a manner as might suggest that it is a geographical term applicable to the area of the Twenty‐Six counties.” This directive according to Daly remained in use for a number of years and that a copy was sent to Bord Fáilte, (the Irish tourist board), in 1959, reminding them not to use the title “the Republic of Ireland” on their promotional literature.
In 1963, under the auspices of the Council of Europe, to revise geography textbooks, the Irish Department of Education issued guidelines to delegates on politically correct geographic terminology: “British Isles” and “United Kingdom” were deemed objectionable and that delegates insist on “Ireland” and "Great Britain." The term "Republic of Ireland" should be avoided but that delegates were no longer to insist on “the Six Counties” in place of “Northern Ireland” in an attempt to improve relations with Northern Ireland.
In February 1964, the Irish government indicated it's wish to appoint an ambassador to Canberra. The one issue, however, that blocked the exchange of ambassadors had been the insistence of Australia that the letters carried by the Irish ambassador should have the royal title as "Queen Elizabeth the Second of the United Kingdom, Greater Britain and Northern Ireland, Australia." This was, according to Daly, despite the fact that the Royal Style and Titles Act did not mention Northern Ireland. However that November when Eoin MacWhite presented his credentials as Irish ambassador to Australia, a circular was issued to all Australian government departments indicating to them to use the word "Ireland" rather than "the Irish Republic." Britain was by the mid 1960s, the only country not to refer to the state as Ireland.
In 1985 the British command papers described the Anglo-Irish Agreement as an "agreement between the government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the government of the Republic of Ireland," with the Irish official papers described it as an "agreement between the government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the government of Ireland." The British Foreign and Commonwealth Office referred to Ireland as the "Republic of Ireland" - however since 2000 it has referred to the State as "Ireland." The credentials presented by the British ambassador, Stewart Eldon, in 2003, were addressed to the President of Ireland.
Today, the European Union note that the names of the Member States of the European Union must always be written and abbreviated according to the Interinstitutional Style Guide rules and that neither “Republic of Ireland” nor “Irish Republic” should be used when referring to the Irish State.
Tommy Graham editor of History Iraland in the May/June 2009 issue said the correct name for the country is "Ireland" not "the Republic of Ireland," except when talking about the international soccer team.
References
- Irish Constitution, Bunreacht na hÉirean
- Daltún Ó Ceallaigh, Britain & Ireland, Sovereignty & Nationality, Elo Press Ltd (Ireland), ISBN 0 9518777 4 7, Pg. 77
- Daltún Ó Ceallaigh, Britain & Ireland, Sovereignty & Nationality, Elo Press Ltd (Ireland), ISBN 0 9518777 4 7, Pg. 78
- Daltún Ó Ceallaigh, Britain & Ireland, Sovereignty & Nationality, Elo Press Ltd (Ireland), ISBN 0 9518777 4 7, Pg. 78
- Irish Constitution BUNREACHT NA hÉIREANN.
- A Country by any other Name, Mary Daly, Journal of British Studies, Jan 2007 volume 46 number 1
- Daltún Ó Ceallaigh, Britain & Ireland, Sovereignty & Nationality, Elo Press Ltd (Ireland), ISBN 0 9518777 4 7, Pg. 78
- A Country by any other Name, Mary Daly, Journal of British Studies, Jan 2007 volume 46 number 1
- A Country by any other Name, Mary Daly, Journal of British Studies, Jan 2007 volume 46 number 1
- Daltún Ó Ceallaigh, Britain & Ireland, Sovereignty & Nationality, Elo Press Ltd (Ireland), ISBN 0 9518777 4 7, Pg. 79
- A Country by any other Name, Mary Daly, Journal of British Studies, Jan 2007 volume 46 number 1
- A Country by any other Name, Mary Daly, Journal of British Studies, Jan 2007 volume 46 number 1
- Daltún Ó Ceallaigh, Britain & Ireland, Sovereignty & Nationality, Elo Press Ltd (Ireland), ISBN 0 9518777 4 7, Pg. 79
- Ireland Act 1949
- A Country by any other Name, Mary Daly, Journal of British Studies, Jan 2007 volume 46 number 1
- Daltún Ó Ceallaigh, Britain & Ireland, Sovereignty & Nationality, Elo Press Ltd (Ireland), ISBN 0 9518777 4 7, Pg. 79
- A Country by any other Name, Mary Daly, Journal of British Studies, Jan 2007 volume 46 number 1
- Tommy Graham (Editor), History Iraland (May/June 2009, Vol 17, No.3), History Publications Ltd, ISSN 0791 8224, Pg.5 (note: Italics are by Tommy Graham)
- A Country by any other Name, Mary Daly, Journal of British Studies, Jan 2007 volume 46 number 1
- A Country by any other Name, Mary Daly, Journal of British Studies, Jan 2007 volume 46 number 1
- A Country by any other Name, Mary Daly, Journal of British Studies, Jan 2007 volume 46 number 1
- A Country by any other Name, Mary Daly, Journal of British Studies, Jan 2007 volume 46 number 1
- European Union Interinstitutional Style Guide.
- Tommy Graham (Editor), History Iraland (May/June 2009, Vol 17, No.3), History Publications Ltd, ISSN 0791 8224, Pg.5
External links
- Government
- Irish State – Official governmental portal
- Áras an Uachtaráin – Official presidential site
- Taoiseach – Official prime ministerial site
- Tithe an Oireachtais – Houses of Parliament, official parliamentary site
- Chief of State and Cabinet Members
- General information
- "Ireland". The World Factbook (2025 ed.). Central Intelligence Agency.
- Ireland information from the United States Department of State
- Portals to the World from the United States Library of Congress
- Ireland at UCB Libraries GovPubs
- Template:Dmoz
Wikimedia Atlas of Ireland- Template:Wikitravel
External links
- Template:Wikitravel
- Template:Wikitravel
- History of Ireland: Primary Documents
- Encyclopaedia Britannica's Ireland country page
- Ireland Facts Photo and information gallery from AOL Research & Learn
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