- This page is about the island of Ireland. For the political territories on the island, see Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland and the History section below.
- For an explanation of often confusing terms like Ulster, (Republic of) Ireland, (Great) Britain and United Kingdom see British Isles (terminology) .
Ireland is located west of the European landmass, which is part of the continent of Europe.
Ireland (Éire in Irish) is the third-largest island in Europe. It lies in the Atlantic Ocean and is part of the Anglo-Irish (or Anglo-Celtic) archipelago. It is composed of the Republic of Ireland which covers five sixths of the island (south, east, west and north-west) and Northern Ireland, part of the United Kingdom, which covers the northeastern sixth of the island.
The population of the island is approximately 5.7 million people, 4 million in the Republic and 1.7 million in Northern Ireland. Most live on or near the east coast.
Geography
Some physical features of Ireland are shown on this map. See also this larger version with more details.
- Main article: Geography of Ireland
A ring of coastal mountains surrounds low central plains. The highest peak is Carrauntuohill (Irish: Corrán Tuathail), which is 1041 m (3414 feet). The island is bisected by the River Shannon, at 259 km (161 mi) the longest river in Ireland or Britain. The island's lush vegetation, a product of its mild climate and frequent but soft rainfall, earns it the sobriquet "Emerald Isle". The island's area is 84,079 km² (32,477 mile²).
Ireland is divided into four provinces: Connacht, Leinster, Munster and Ulster. These were further divided into 32 counties for administrative purposes. Six of the Ulster counties remain under British sovereignty as Northern Ireland following Ireland's partition in 1922 (the remaining 26 forming present-day Republic of Ireland); since the UK's 1974 reshuffle these county boundaries no longer exist in Northern Ireland for administrative purposes, although Fermanagh District Council is almost identical to the county. In the Republic, the county boundaries are still adhered to for local government, albeit with Tipperary and Dublin subdivided (some cities also have their own administrative regions). For election constituencies, some counties are merged or divided, but constitutionally the boundaries have to be observed. Across Ireland, the 32 counties are still used in sports and in some other cultural areas and retain a strong sense of local identity.
Ireland's least arable land lies in the south-western and western counties. These areas are largely spectacularly mountainous and rocky, with beautiful green vistas.
Politics
Main articles: Politics of Northern Ireland; Politics of the Republic of Ireland
Politically, Ireland is divided into:
- The Republic of Ireland, with its capital in Dublin. This state is often simply referred to internally and internationally as "Ireland" or "Éire". Technically Ireland and Éire are the official names of the state while the "Republic of Ireland" is its official description.
- Northern Ireland is unofficially known as the 'North of Ireland', and 'Ulster' (although the province of Ulster also includes Donegal, Cavan, and Monaghan in the Republic) . Northern Ireland is a region of the United Kingdom.
Prior to the Government of Ireland Act 1920 the island had existed for centuries as one unified political entity, most recently as the Kingdom of Ireland or as part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Prior to English rule in mediæval times a national kingdom had emerged headed by an Ard Ri or High King of Ireland. See Irish States (1171-present).
In a number of areas, the island operates officially as a single entity, for example, in most kinds of sports. The major religions, the Roman Catholic Church, the Church of Ireland and the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, are organised on an all-island basis. Some 92% of the population of the Republic of Ireland and over 40% of Northern Ireland is Roman Catholic. Some trade unions are also organised on an all-Irish basis and associated with the Irish Congress of Trades Unions (ICTU) in Dublin, while others in Northern Ireland are affiliated with the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in the United Kingdom - though such unions may organise in both parts of the island as well as in Britain. The island also has a shared culture across the divide in many other ways. Traditional Irish music, for example, though showing some variance in all geographical areas, is, broadly speaking, the same on both sides of the border. Irish and Scottish traditional music have many similarities. The Ireland Funds, an international fund-raising organisation, tries to help people on both sides find peace and reconciliation through community development, education, arts and culture.
The island is often referred to as being part of the British Isles. However, some people, especially in Ireland, take exception to this name, which seems to suggest that both islands belong to Britain. For this reason, "Britain and Ireland" is commonly used as a more neutral alternative. Another suggestion, although much less used, is the Islands of the North Atlantic (IONA).
Flag of Ireland
| Irish Flags |
|
|
|
|
19th century unofficial Irish flag, also the flag of Leinster.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The British Royal Standard shows an ancient Irish flag in its lower left quadrant
|
|
|
There is no agreed flag that represents the island of Ireland. Historically a number of flags were used, including St Patrick's Saltire, the flag sometimes used for the Kingdom of Ireland and which represented Ireland on the Union Jack after the Act of Union, a green flag with a harp (used by some radical nationalists in the 19th century and which is also the flag of Leinster), a blue flag with a harp used from the 18th century onwards by many nationalists (now the standard of the President of Ireland), and the Irish tricolour. However as the tricolour is the flag of the Republic of Ireland it is not used to represent the island of Ireland, given that the island also includes Northern Ireland.
The Royal Standard also shows a version of an ancient Irish flag in one of its four quadrants.
St. Patrick's Saltire is used to represent the island of Ireland by the all-island Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU). In contrast the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) uses the tricolour to represent the whole island.
History
Main article: History of Ireland
Prehistoric
Main article: Early history of Ireland
The period before the coming of Christianity in Ireland is largely prehistoric. The island, which was mostly ice-covered and joined by land to Britain and Europe during the last ice age, has been inhabited for about 9,000 years. Stone age inhabitants arrived sometime after 8000 BC, with the culture progressing from Mesolithic to high Neolithic over the course of three or four millennia. This saw the appearance of huge stone monuments, many of them astronomically aligned. The Bronze Age, which began around 2500 BC, saw the production of elaborate gold and bronze ornaments and weapons. See the Early history of Ireland for a fuller treatment of this period of Irish history.
Iron Age
The Iron Age in Ireland is associated with people now known as Celts. The Celts are traditionally thought to have colonised Ireland in a series of waves between the 8th and 1st centuries BC, with the Gael, the last wave of Celts, conquering the island and dividing it into five or more kingdoms. Many scholars, however, now favour a view that emphasises cultural diffusion from overseas over significant colonisation.
The Romans referred to Ireland as Hibernia. Ptolemy in AD 100 records Ireland's geography and tribes. Native accounts are confined to Irish poetry, myth, and archaeology. The exact relationship between Rome and the tribes of Hibernia is unclear; the only references are a few Roman writings.
Early Christian era and Vikings (432-1014)
Tradition maintains that in AD 432, St. Patrick arrived on the island and, in the years that followed, worked to convert the Irish to Christianity. The druid tradition collapsed in the face of the spread of the new faith. Irish scholars excelled in the study of Latin learning and Christian theology in the monasteries that flourished, preserving Latin learning during the Dark Ages. The arts of manuscript illumination, metalworking, and sculpture flourished and produced such treasures as the Book of Kells, ornate jewellery, and the many carved stone crosses that dot the island. Sites dating to this period include clochans, ringforts and promontory forts. This golden age was interrupted in the 9th century by 200 years of intermittent warfare with waves of Viking raiders (mainly Vikings from Denmark and Norway) who plundered monasteries and towns. Eventually they settled in Ireland, and established many towns, including the modern day cities of Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Waterford. In 1014 a Norse or Norwegian earl or jarl of Orkney, Sigurd the Stout, made a bid to become high king of Ireland. He was defeated and killed in the battle of Clontarf. The established high king, Brian Boru, was killed in the same battle.
Anglo-Norman and English control (1172-1800)
In 1172, King Henry II of England gained Irish lands, and from the 13th century, English law began to be introduced. English rule was largely limited to the area around Dublin, known as the Pale, and Waterford, but this began to expand in the 16th century with the final collapse of the Gaelic social and political superstructure at the end of the 17th century, as a result of the English and Scottish Plantation of Ulster and other plantations in Leix ("King's County", modern day Laois) and Offaly ("Queen's County"). In an incident known as the Flight of the Earls, the leaders of Gaelic Ireland in Ulster fled to France and onwards to Rome in 1607. Having been defeated by Elizabethan forces in 1603, they found life under English suzerainty intolerable. The higher echelons of the clan left en masse to take titles in Catholic Europe, thus marking the end of the Gaelic aristocracy in Ireland. After the Protestant Reformation and the Irish Rebellion of 1641, Irish Catholics were barred from voting or attending the Irish Parliament.
See History of Ireland for the 17th and 18th century period to the Act of Union.
Union with Britain (1801-1922)
Main article: History of Ireland (1801-1922)
| Irish Notables |
J.M. Synge — Irish playwright.
|
|
|
Charles Stewart Parnell — the 'uncrowned King of Ireland'.
|
Maud Gonne — feminist and revolutionary.
|
James Craig — first Prime Minister of Northern Ireland.
|
Eamon de Valera — Taoiseach and President of Ireland.
|
In 1800, after the Irish Rebellion of 1798, the British and the Irish parliaments (the latter controversially, as massive bribery was involved) enacted the Act of Union, which merged Ireland and the Kingdom of Great Britain (itself a union of England and Scotland, created almost 100 years earlier), to create the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Part of the deal for the union was that Catholic Emancipation would be conceded to remove discrimination against Catholics, Presbyterians and others. However King George III controversially blocked any change.
In 1823, a radical Catholic lawyer, Daniel O'Connell, "the Great Emancipator" began a successful campaign to achieve emancipation, which was finally conceded in 1829. He later led an unsuccessful campaign for "Repeal" (i.e., the repeal of the Act of Union).
The second of Ireland's "Great Famines", An Gorta Mór struck the country severely in the period 1845-1849, with potato blight leading to mass starvation and emigration. (See the Irish Potato Famine (1845-1849).) The impact of emigration in Ireland was severe; the population dropped from over 8 million before the Famine to 4.4 million in 1911.
The Irish language, once the spoken language of the entire island, declined in use sharply in the nineteenth century as a result of the Famine and the creation of the National School education system, as well as hostility to the language from leading Irish politicians of the time; it was largely replaced by English. The form of English used in Ireland differs somewhat from British English and its variants. Blurring linguistic structures from older forms of English (notably Elizabethan English) and the Irish language, it is known as Hiberno-English and was in the twentieth century strongly associated with writers like J.M. Synge, George Bernard Shaw, Sean O'Casey, and had resonances in the English of Dublin-born Oscar Wilde.
In the 1870s the issue of Irish self-government again became a major focus of debate under Protestant landowner, Charles Stewart Parnell and the Home Rule League. British prime minister William Ewart Gladstone made two unsuccessful attempts to introduce Home Rule in 1886 and 1893. Parnell's controversial leadership eventually ended when he was implicated in a divorce scandal, when it was revealed that he had been living with the wife of a fellow Irish MP, Katherine O'Shea, and was the father of some of her children. However, with the introduction of the First Home Rule Bill of 1886 to the British House of Commons, Parnell was known throughout the country as the Uncrowned King of Ireland.
The debate over Home Rule led to tensions between Irish nationalists and Irish unionists (those who favoured maintenance of the union). Most of the island was predominantly nationalist, Catholic and agrarian. The northeast, however, was predominantly unionist, Protestant and industrialised. Unionists feared a loss of political power and economic wealth in a predominantly rural, nationalist, Catholic home rule state. Nationalists believed that they would remain economically and politically second class citizens without self-government.
Outside mainstream nationalism, a series of violent rebellions by Irish republicans took place in 1803, under Robert Emmet; in 1848, by the Young Irelanders, most prominent among them, Thomas Francis Meagher; and in 1868, by the Irish Republican Brotherhood. All failed, but physical force nationalism remained an undercurrent in the nineteenth century.
The late nineteenth century also witnessed major land reform, spearheaded by the Land League under Michael Davitt. From 1870 various British governments introduced a series of Land Acts that broke up large estates and gradually gave rural landholders and tenants what became known as the 3 Fs; Fair rent, free sale, fixity of tenure."
Dublin, however, remained a city marked by extremes of poverty and wealth, possessing some of the worst slums anywhere in the British Empire. It also possessed one of the world's biggest "red light districts" known as Monto (after its focal point, Mountgomery Street, on the northside of the city). Monto was to feature in many novels set in Dublin, most notably in the writings of James Joyce.
Partial independence (1916-1922)
The division of the island into "Northern" and "Republic" is a relatively recent development, coming about by the Government of Ireland Act 1920 which, amid much acrimony, divided the island into what the British government termed Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland. A bi-lateral Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1922 formalised independence of what was later to become the Republic of Ireland, while Northern Ireland remained part of the United Kingdom.
The Easter Proclamation
It was issued by the Leaders of the Easter Rising.
In September 1914, just as the First World War broke out, the UK Parliament enacted Home Rule for Ireland, but was suspended for the duration of what was expected to be a very short war.
An attempt was made to gain independence for Ireland with the 1916 Easter Rising, an insurrection largely confined to Dublin. Though support for the insurgents was small, the violence used in its suppression (being considered a serious treason in time of war) led to a swing in support of the rebels. The unprecedented threat of Irishmen being conscripted to the British Army for service in France accelerated this change. In December 1918 most voters voted for Sinn Féin, the party of the rebels. Having won three-quarters of all the seats in Ireland, its MPs assembled in Dublin on 21 January 1919 to form an Irish parliament, Dáil Éireann.
| Irish parliaments |
|
|
House of Lords of the Kingdom of Ireland. (abolished 1800)
|
House of Commons of the Kingdom of Ireland.(Abolished 1800)
|
First Dáil meeting in the Mansion House, Dublin (1919)
|
|
|
Seanad Chamber in the Republic of Ireland.
|
Dáil Chamber in the Republic of Ireland.
|
Stormont Parliament buildings in Northern Ireland. (opened 1932)
|
|
|
A War of Independence often called the Anglo-Irish War raged from 1919 to 1921. In mid-1921 the Irish and British governments signed a truce that halted the war. In December 1921 an Anglo-Irish Treaty was signed between representatives of both governments. The Irish delegation was led by Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins. This created the self-governing Irish Free State, which later became a dominion. Under the Treaty, Northern Ireland could opt out of the Free State and stay with the United Kingdom. This was a foregone conclusion and Northern Ireland promptly did so. For most of the next 75 years, each territory was strongly aligned to either Catholic or Protestant ideologies, although this was more marked in the six counties of Northern Ireland.
Free State/Republic (1922-present)
Main articles: History of the Republic of Ireland; Republic of Ireland; Names of the Irish state
After the treaty to sever the Union was ratified, the republican movement divided into pro-treaty and anti-treaty supporters. Between 1922 and 1923 both sides fought the bloody Irish Civil War. This division among Nationalists still colours Irish politics today, specifically between the two leading Irish political parties, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael [[|thumb|Leinster House
Parliament building of the Republic of Ireland]] The new Irish Free State (1922–37) existed against the backdrop of the growth of dictatorships in Europe and a major world economic downturn in 1929. In contrast with many contemporary European states it remained a democracy, in which the losing faction in the Irish civil war, Eamon de Valera's Fianna Fáil, was able to take power by winning the 1932 general election. In contrast to many other states in the period, the Free State remained financially solvent. However, unemployment and emigration were high. The Catholic Church had a powerful influence over the state for much of its history.
In 1937, a new Constitution of Ireland proclaimed the state of Éire (or Ireland). The state remained neutral throughout World War II (see Irish neutrality) and this saved it from much of the horrors of the war, although tens of thousands volunteered to serve in the British forces. Ireland was also hit badly by rationing of food, and coal in particular (peat production became a priority during this time). Though nominally neutral, recent studies have suggested a far greater level involvement by the South with the Allies than was realised, with D Day's date set on the basis of secret weather information on Atlantic storms supplied by the Republic. For more detail on 1939–45, see main article The Emergency.
In 1949 the state was formally declared the Republic of Ireland and it left the British Commonwealth.
In the 1960s, Ireland underwent a major economic change under reforming Taoiseach (prime minister) Seán Lemass and radical senior civil servant T.K. Whitaker, who produced a series of economic plans. Free second-level education was introduced by Brian Lenihan as Minister for Education in 1968. The Republic from the early 1960s sought admission to the European Economic Community but because of its economy's dependence on the United Kingdom's market, it could not enter until the UK entered in 1973.
Economic downturn in the 1970s, augmented by a set of misjudged economic policies followed by Taoiseach Jack Lynch, caused the Irish economy to stagnate. However, economic reforms in the late 1980s and considerable investment from the European Community led to the emergence of one of the world's highest economic growth rates, with mass immigration (particularly of people from Asia and Eastern Europe) as a feature of the late 1990s. This period came to be known as the Celtic Tiger and was focused on as a model for economic development in the former Eastern Bloc states, which entered the European Union in the early 2000s.
Irish society also adopted relatively liberal social policies during this period. Divorce was legalised, homosexuality decriminalised, while a right to abortion in limited cases was granted by the Irish Supreme Court in the X Case legal judgement. Major scandals in the Roman Catholic Church, both sexual and financial, coincided with a wholescale collapse in religious practice, with weekly attendance at Roman Catholic Mass halving in twenty years.
Northern Ireland
"A Protestant State" (1921-1971)
Main article: History of Northern Ireland
From 1921 to 1971, Northern Ireland was governed by the Ulster Unionist Party government, based at Stormont in East Belfast. The founding Prime Minister, James Craig, proudly declared that it would be "a Protestant State for a Protestant People" (in contrast to the "Papist" state to the south). Discrimination against the minority nationalist community, and their total exclusion from political power (gerrymandering), led to the appearance of a civil rights campaign in the late 1960s, inspired by Martin Luther King's civil rights movement in the United States of America. A violent counter-reaction from the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) and right-wing unionists such as the Rev. Ian Paisley led to civil disorder. British troops were deployed to the streets of Northern Ireland at this time.
Tensions came to a head with the events of Bloody Sunday and Bloody Friday, and the worst years (early 1970s) of what became known as The Troubles resulted. The Stormont majoritarian government was prorogued in 1971 and abolished totally in 1972. Paramilitaries such as the traditional Irish republican Provisional IRA, and the Marxist Official IRA, unionist groups like the Ulster Defence Association and the Ulster Volunteer Force, the British army and the RUC fought a bitter "war", which resulted in the deaths of well over three thousand of men, women and children, civilians and military. Most of the violence took place in Northern Ireland, but some also spread to England and across the Irish border.
Direct Rule (1971-1998)
For the next 27 years, Northern Ireland was under "direct rule" with a Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in the British Cabinet responsible for the departments of the Northern Ireland executive/government. Principal acts were passed by the United Kingdom Parliament in the same way as for much of the rest of the UK, but many smaller measures were dealt with by Order in Council with minimal parliamentary scrutiny. Throughout this time the aim was to restore devolution but three attempts - the power-sharing executive established by the Northern Ireland Constitution Act and the Sunningdale Agreement, the 1975 Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention and Jim Prior's 1982 assembly all failed to either reach consensus or operate in the longer term.
During the 1970s British policy concentrated on defeating the IRA by military means including the policy of Ulsterisation (compelling unionists in the RUC and UDR to be at the forefront of combatting the IRA) and the introduction of the Special Air Service (SAS). Although IRA violence decreased it was obvious that no military victory was on hand in either short or medium terms. Even Catholics that generally rejected the IRA were unwilling to offer support to a state that seemed to remain mired in sectarian discrimination and the Unionists plainly were not interested in Catholic participation in running the state in any case. In the 1980s the IRA attempted to secure a decisive military victory based on massive arms shipments from Libya. When this failed - probably because of MI5's penetration of the IRA's senior commands - senior republican figures began to look to broaden the struggle from purely military means. In time this began a move towards military cessation. In 1986 the British and Irish governments signed the Anglo Irish Agreement signalling a formal partnership in seeking a political solution. Socially and economically Northern Ireland suffered the worst levels of unemployment in the UK and although high levels of public spending ensured a slow modernisation of public services and moves towards equality, progress was slow in the 70s and 80s, only in the 1990s when progress towards peace became tangible, did the economic situation brighten. By then, too, the demographics of Northern Ireland had undergone significant change, and more than 40% of the population are Catholics.
Devolution and Direct Rule (1998-present)
More recently, the Good Friday Agreement of April 10, 1998 has brought a degree of power sharing to Northern Ireland, giving both unionists, who favour it remaining a part of the United Kingdom, and nationalists, who favour it becoming part of an All-Ireland state (not necessarily the Republic of Ireland), control of limited areas of government. However, both the power-sharing Executive and the elected Assembly have been suspended since October 2002 following a breakdown in trust between the political parties. Efforts to resolve outstanding issues, including "decommissioning" of paramilitary weapons, policing reform and the removal of controversial British army bases are continuing.
Sport
Main article: Sport in Ireland
Gaelic football and hurling are the most popular sports in Ireland. Along with Camogie, Ladies' Gaelic football, handball and rounders, they make up the national sports of Ireland, collectively known as Gaelic Games. All Gaelic games are governed by the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA), with the exception of Ladies' Gaelic Football, which is governed by a separate organisation. The GAA is organised on an all-Ireland basis with all 32 counties competing; traditionally, counties first compete within their province, in the provincial championships, and the winners then compete in the All-Ireland senior hurling or football championships. The headquarters of the GAA (and the main stadium) is located at the 83,000 seater Croke Park in north Dublin. All major GAA games are played here, including the semi-finals and finals of the All-Ireland championships. All GAA players, even at the highest level, are amateurs and receive no wages.
The Irish rugby team includes players from north and south, and the Irish Rugby Football Union governs the sport on both sides of the border. Consequently in international rugby, the Ireland team represents the whole island. The same is true of cricket.
However, when Ireland was partitioned, organisation of football (soccer) in the Republic was transferred from the Belfast-based Irish Football Association (IFA) to the new Football Association of Ireland (FAI). The IFA remained in charge of the game in the six counties. (Consequently in International Association Football, the island has two teams: the Republic of Ireland, and Northern Ireland.) In 1990, the Republic of Ireland made the quarter finals of the World Cup (this was the country's first appearance in the World Cup finals)
| Irish Sport |
Gaelic Football Association (GAA) — all-island.
|
Irish Football Association (IFA) — Northern Ireland.
|
Football Association of Ireland (FAI) — Republic of Ireland.
|
Greyhound racing and horse racing are both popular in Ireland: greyhound stadiums are well attended and there are frequent horse race meetings. The Republic is noted for the breeding and training of race horses and is also a large exporter of racing dogs. The horse racing sector is largely concentrated in the central east of the Republic.
Boxing is also an all-island sport governed by the Irish Amateur Boxing Association.
Golf is an extremely popular sport in Ireland and Golfing Tourism is a major industry. The 2005 Ryder Cup will be held in the K-Club in Straffen, Co Kildare.
Irish Sporting Stars would include: Brian O'Driscoll (Rugby, Captain of Ireland and the British & Irish Loins), Roy Keane (Captain of Manchester Utd), Damien Duff (Chelsea and Republic of Ireland), DJ Carey (Killkenny All-Star Hurler), Peter Canavan (Tyrone Gaelic Football Captain and All-Star), Aidan O'Brien (Horse Trainer), Keiran Fallon (Jockey), Eddie Jordan (former F1 Team Owner), Padraig Harrigton (Golfer), Sonia O'Sullivan (Athlethics),Steve Collins (Boxing) and Ken Doherty(Snooker).
Culture
Main article: Culture of Ireland
Literature and the arts
Main articles: Irish literature, Irish art
For a comparatively small country, Ireland has made a disproportionate contribution to world literature in all its branches, mainly in English. Poetry in Irish represents the oldest vernacular poetry in Europe with the earliest examples dating from the 6th century. In more recent times, Ireland has produced four winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature: George Bernard Shaw, William Butler Yeats, Samuel Beckett and Seamus Heaney. Although not a Nobel Prize winner, James Joyce is widely considered one of the most significant writers of the 20th century. His 1922 novel Ulysses is sometimes cited as the greatest English-language novel of the 20th century and his life is celebrated annually on June 16th in Dublin as the Bloomsday celebrations.
The early history of Irish visual art is generally considered to begin with early carvings found at sites such as Newgrange and is traced through Bronze age artefacts, particularly ornamental gold objects, and the religious carvings and illuminated manuscripts of the mediæval period. During the course of the 19th and 20th centuries, a strong indigenous tradition of painting emerged, including such figures as John Butler Yeats, William Orpen, Jack Yeats and Louis le Brocquy.
Music and dance
Main article: Irish music
The Irish tradition of folk music and dance is also widely known. In the middle years of the 20th century, as Irish society was attempting to modernise, traditional music tended to fall out of favour, especially in urban areas. During the 1960s, and inspired by the American folk music movement, there was a revival of interest in the Irish tradition. This revival was led by such groups as The Dubliners, The Chieftains, the Clancy Brothers and Sweeney's Men and individuals like Sean Ó Riada and Danny O'Flaherty. Irish and Scottish traditional music are similar.
Before long, groups and musicians including Horslips, Van Morrison and even Thin Lizzy were incorporating elements of traditional music into a rock idiom to form a unique new sound. During the 1970s and 1980s, the distinction between traditional and rock musicians became blurred, with many individuals regularly crossing over between these styles of playing as a matter of course. This trend can be seen more recently in the work of bands and individuals like U2, Clannad, The Cranberries, The Corrs, Van Morrison, Rory Gallagher, and The Pogues.
Nevertheless, Irish music has shown an immense inflation of popularity with many attempting to return to their roots. There are also contemporary music groups that stick closer to a "traditional" sound, including Altan, Gaelic Storm, Lúnasa, and Solas. Others incorporate multiple cultures in a fusion of style, such as Afro Celt Sound System and Canadian Loreena McKennitt.
Ireland has done well in the Eurovision Song Contest, being the most successful country in the competition with seven wins. This achievement evokes mixed feelings in many Irish people.
Infrastructure
Transport
Main article: Transport in Ireland
Air
Airbus A320-200 of Aer Lingus (EI-CVA)
The three most important international airports in the Republic are Dublin Airport, Cork Airport and Shannon Airport. All provide extensive services to the UK, Europe and North America. The Irish national airline Aer Lingus and low-cost operator Ryanair are based at Dublin. Shannon is an important stopover on trans-Atlantic route for refuelling operations. There are several smaller regional airports in the Republic (Galway Airport, Kerry Airport, Knock International Airport, Sligo Airport, Waterford Airport) that mostly limit their services to Ireland and the United Kingdom.
In Northern Ireland there are three main airports. Belfast International (Aldergrove) provides routes to Ireland and Great Britain, as well as many international services to Europe and recently Belfast-New York (Newark). Belfast City and City of Derry Airport mainly provide flights to Great Britain.
Rail
Main articles: History of rail transport in Ireland; Rail transport in Ireland
The rail network in Ireland was developed by various private companies with the help of British Government funding throughout the late 19th century, reaching its greatest extent around the 1920s. The standard gauge of 1600 mm (5 ft 3 in) was eventually settled upon throughout the island, although there were narrow gauge (3 ft) railways also. Ireland also has one of the largest freight railways in Europe, operated by Bord na Móna, this company has a narrow gauge railway of 1200 miles. In Dublin a new Light Rail System, named Luas opened in 2004. Two lines serve the south and west suburbs as well as the north city centre. More lines are planned as well as an eventual upgrade to Metro. The scheme is being run by the RPA.
Road
Main article: Roads in Ireland
The island of Ireland has an extensive road network, despite the low quality of many of these until recently. Northern Ireland has historically had better main roads, while the Republic of Ireland has an increasing motorway network, focused on Dublin and the east coast.
Energy
For much of their existence electricity networks in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland were entirely separate. Both networks were designed and constructed independently, but are now connected with three interlinks and also connected by Northern Ireland Electricity (NIE) though Great Britain to mainland Europe. The Electricity Supply Board (ESB) in the Republic drove a rural electrification programme in the 1940s until the 1970s.
| Arts in Ireland |
U2 — one of the world's biggest selling bands.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The natural gas network is also now all-island, with a connection from Northern Ireland to Scotland. Most of Ireland's gas comes from the Kinsale field. The Corrib field has yet to come online, and is facing fierce opposition over the controversial decision to refine the gas onshore.
Ireland, north and south has faced difficulties in providing continuous power at peak load. Especially during the winter, power outages have been forced due to inadequate power generation. The situation in Northern Ireland is complicated by the issue of private companies not supplying NIE with enough power, while in the Republic, the government has failed to modernise power plants owned by ESB. In the latter case, availability of power plants has averaged 66% recently, one of the worst such figures in Western Europe.
There have been recent efforts in Ireland to use renewable energy such as wind energy with large wind farms being constructed in coastal counties such as Mayo and County Antrim. Recently what will be the world's largest offshore wind farm is being developed at Arklow Bank off the coast of Wicklow. It is estimated to generate 10% of Irelands energy needs when it is complete. These constructions have in some cases been delayed by opposition from locals, most recently on Achill Island, some of whom consider the wind turbines to be unsightly. Another issue in the Republic of Ireland is the failure of the ageing network to cope with the varying availability of power from such installations. Turlough Hill is the only energy storage mechanism in Ireland.
See also
External links
|
