Names of the Irish state
According to the Constitution of Ireland, the names of the Irish state are Ireland and Éire. From 1922 to 1937, its legal names were the Irish Free State and Saorstát Éireann. The state has jurisdiction over almost five-sixths of the island of Ireland. The rest of the island is Northern Ireland, a part of the United Kingdom. In 1948 Ireland adopted the terms Republic of Ireland and Poblacht na hÉireann as the official descriptions of the state, without changing the constitutional names.
The terms Republic of Ireland, the Republic, the 26 counties or the South are the alternative names most often encountered. The term "Southern Ireland", although only having legal basis from 1921 to 1922, is still seen occasionally, particularly in Britain.
Until the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, British government and media declined to use the name Ireland, preferring Eire until 1949 and Republic of Ireland thereafter.
Constitutional name
Article 4 of the Constitution of Ireland, adopted in 1937, provides that "he name of the State is Éire, or, in the English language, Ireland".Hence, the Irish state has two official names, Éire and Ireland. For official purposes, the Irish government uses the name Éire in documents written in Irish, while using Ireland where the language of the documents is English, including in international treaties and other legal documents. The name of the state is reflected in its institutions and public offices. For example, there is a President of Ireland and a Constitution of Ireland. The name Ireland is also used in the state's diplomatic relations with foreign nations and at meetings of the United Nations, European Union, Council of Europe, International Monetary Fund, and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
The Constitution gives the Irish language formal precedence over English, and a reflection of this is that Éire is the only name of the Irish state to feature on a range of national symbols including the seal of the president, postage stamps and Irish euro coins. In 1981 the Department of Posts and Telegraphs recommended the inclusion of the word "Ireland" along with "Éire" on stamps but the Department of the Taoiseach vetoed the idea on the basis it could cause "constitutional and political repercussions" and that "the change could be unwelcome", as the name "Ireland" was considered by Unionists in Northern Ireland to refer to all 32 counties of Ireland.
The spelling "Eire", with an E rather than an É, is not correct Irish orthography despite being preferred for many years by British government and media and others.
Official description
Since 1949, the Republic of Ireland Act 1948 has provided that the Republic of Ireland is the official description for the state. However, Ireland remains the constitutional name of the state.The constitutional name Ireland is normally used. However, the official description Republic of Ireland is sometimes used when disambiguation is desired between the state and the island of Ireland. In colloquial use this is often shortened to 'the Republic'.
This distinction between description and name was and remains important because the Act was not a constitutional amendment and did not change the name of the state. If it had purported to do so, it would have been unconstitutional. The distinction between a description and a name has sometimes caused confusion. The Taoiseach, John A. Costello introduced the legislation with an explanation of the difference in the following way:
Many republics, including the French Republic and the Italian Republic reference the institutional form of the state in their long form names, but others, such as Hungary and Ukraine do not.
European Union
The state joined the European Economic Community in 1973. Its accession treaty was drawn up in all of the EU's then-official treaty languages and, as such, the Irish state joined under both of its names, Éire and Ireland. On 1 January 2007, Irish became an official working language of the EU. This did not change the name of the Irish state in EU law. However, it has meant for example that at official meetings of the EU Council of Ministers, nameplates for the Irish state now read as Éire – Ireland, whereas previously they would simply have read as Ireland.The Inter Institutional Style Guide of The Office for Official Publications of the European Communities sets out how the names of the member states of the European Union must always be written and abbreviated in EU publications. Concerning Ireland, it states that its official names are Éire and Ireland; its official name in English is Ireland; its country code is IE; and its former abbreviation was IRL. It also adds the following guidance: "NB: Do not use 'Republic of Ireland' nor 'Irish Republic'."
Historical names
Ancient
The Annals of the Four Masters describe how Ireland was referred to in ancient times:- During the time of the Partholonians, Nemedians, Fomorians, and Firbolg, the island was given a number of names:
- * Inis Ealga signifying the noble or excellent island. The Latin translation was Insula Nobilis
- * Fiodh-Inis signifying the Woody island. In Latin this was Insula nemorosa
- * Crioch Fuinidh signifying the Final or remote country. In Latin as Terra finalia.
- Inisfáil meaning the Island of Destiny, and Inisfalia or Insula Fatalis in Latin. This was the name used by the Tuatha Dé Danann and from this 'Fál' became an ancient name for Ireland. In this respect, therefore, Lia Fáil, the Stone of Destiny, came to mean 'Stone of Ireland'. Inisfail appears as a synonym for Erin in some Irish romantic and nationalist poetry in English in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; Aubrey Thomas de Vere's 1863 poem Inisfail is an example.
- Ériu, Banba and Fódla were names given by the Dananns from three of their queens.
- Ierne refers to Ireland by various ancient Greek writers and many scholars have the opinion that in the poem when the Argonauts pass Neson Iernida, that is, the Island Iernis, they are referring to the island of Ireland, thus referring to Ireland longer ago than 1000 BC.
- Ogygia meaning the most ancient land is a name used by Plutarch in the first century which may refer to Ireland.
- Hibernia is first used to refer to Ireland by Julius Caesar in his account of Britain, and became a common term used by the Romans. They also used a number of other terms, namely Juverna, Juvernia, Ouvernia, Ibernia, Ierna, Vernia. Ptolemy also refers to it as Iouernia or Ivernia.
- Scotia or the land of the Scots is a term used by various Roman and other Latin writers, who referred to Irish raiders as Scoti. Some of the earliest mentions are in the 5th century, St. Patrick calls the Irish "Scoti", and in the 6th century, St. Isidore bishop of Seville and Gildas the British historian both refer to Ireland as Scotia. It was a term that exclusively referred to Ireland up until the eleventh century when modern Scotland was first referred to as Scotia. But even up until the sixteenth century, many Latin writers continued to refer to Ireland as Scotia. From the twelfth to the sixteenth century, various scholars used to distinguish between Ireland and Scotland by using Scotia Vetus or Scotia Major meaning Old Scotia or the Greater Scotia for Ireland, and Scotia Minor or Lesser Scotia for Scotland.. The name Scoti is used to describe the High King of Ireland in the 9th Century Book of Armagh, where Brian Boru is declared Imperator Scottorum, or Emperor of the Irish
- Insula Sanctorum or the Island of the Saints and Insula Doctorum or the Island of the Learned are names used by various Latin writers; hence the modern-day quasi-poetic description of the island as the "Island of Saints and Scholars".
Pre-1919
According to Roderick O'Flaherty, Joseph Justus Scaliger "reckons up eleven of twelve matricular languages yet remaining in Europe; viz. Latin, Greek, Teutonic, Sclavonian, Epirotic, Tartarian, Hungarian, Finnonian, Hibernian, the Cantabrian, and the British.". This could be the first mention of the name of Ireland.
Irish Republic (1919–1922)
In English, the revolutionary 32 county state proclaimed in 1916 and ratified in 1919 was known as the Irish Republic or, occasionally, the Republic of Ireland. Two different Irish language names were used: Poblacht na hÉireann and Saorstát Éireann, based on two competing Irish translations of the word republic: Poblacht and Saorstát. Poblacht was a direct translation coming from the Irish pobal, cognate with the Latin populus. Saorstát, on the other hand, was a compound of the words: saor and stát.The term Poblacht na hÉireann is the one used in the Easter Proclamation of 1916. However the Declaration of Independence and other documents adopted in 1919 eschew this title in favour of Saorstát Éireann. A slight variant of this title, Saorstát na hÉireann, was also sometimes used in later days as was the Latin Respublica Hibernica.
''.''