[net.nlang.celts] "Eire" yet again

respess@ut-ngp.UUCP (John) (08/31/84)

[To James Beausang: This is a response to your re: Eire posting. I'm
going to keep it up; if you're not interested, hit the delete key quick.
But this bears a lot more relevance to a natural language newsgroup than
Stonehenge articles or even articles about Celtic life do. After all, 
it's about words.]

But, I'm assuming you're still with me. (And if it's happened before,
look at it like this - you're entering  the same river twice. We're
proving Heraclitus was wrong.)

I can understand how you could have thought I was making a political
stand - I was defending someone who had made a political statement
against someone who was responding to that statement. But I hoped that
the subject line would make it clear that I had something else in mind -
that I was responding to another matter. I'm apolitical in this case.
(As regards the problem being semantic, I usually don't know what that
means anymore. Sometimes it's used as a token that allows people to
part amicably, claiming that their differences are "only questions of
semantics"; in other cases, it licenses them to denigrate their adver-
saries by implying they're only playing with words. If however, you 
mean that it's a matter of historical linguistic usage, I think we
can argue sensibly about it.)

First though, I've got to disagree with your rationalization about why
"Eire" appears on Irish coins. Why can we get "United States of America"
on our dimes (which are smaller than any Irish coin I've seen) but the
Irish can't get "Poblacht na hEireann" on their 50p piece, say? I could
make slurs about Stone Age cultures not having the skills to mill fine
minting manufacturies or about the Irish being so pie-eyed from drink
that they wouldn't be able to make out smaller print, but I won't (hav-
ing already done so). But doesn't it damage your argument about lack of
space beyond repair that "Poblacht na hEireann" *doesn't* appear on the
punt? (Here I sit examining a 1980 one. I see the Irish for "Central
Bank of Ireland", but I can't find "Poblacht na hEireann". (Holds it
up to light ... sees Cathleen ... "Nope, not there.") If this is "all
its glory", its effulgence has dimmed considerably since 1948.) Now, I
don't know what's on the larger denominations, but there's not much
more room on those and there's a sufficiency of space if they'd wanted
to put it on the punt.

In the second place, I have to dispute your claim that "Eire" is even mild-
ly derogatory. I have Irish friends and other friends who've either lived
or been in school in Ireland in the recent past who don't find any problems
with that name. And if you think about, it ought to be considered a 
laudatory term, harking back, as it does, to the greatest concessions that
England has had to make to the Irish in 135 years. Granted, the heroes
of '16 - '21 didn't get all they wanted, but they got a damned sight
more than the English wanted to give.

And here's this: Irish dictionaries give the translation of "Eire" as
"Ireland". "Eireann", as in "Poblacht na hEireann" is the genitive of
"Eire". So even the term you claimed was on the currency and which I'll
concede is the official name, is a form of "Eire" - a form which flaunts
the "Poblacht" perhaps, but doesn't divest itself of the "Eire".

My point, at long last, is that there appears to be significant support
in Ireland for the appelation "Eire". The point I was trying to make in
my previous posting was that McGhee had no business telling O Tuama that
Ireland hasn't been called "Eire" in three decades - and hence, by impli-
cation, she was wrong to do so. Joe's dredged something up out of his
musty archives and tried to make it a rule for us to live by. And he's
just plain wrong.

And after all, shouldn't you agree with me now? You deplore the ossifi-
cation of the Irish language; I was only objecting to a pedantic ap-
proach to the other Irish language, Irish English - which, I submit, due
to its cohabitation with Irish, is the richest of the dialects of English.

John Respess
respess@ut-ngp

james@ur-valhalla.UUCP (James Beausang) (09/01/84)

[An attempt at a definitive clarification on the use or abuse of "Eire"
and answers to John Respess' reply to my original posting]

The correct use of "Eire" is best explained by distinguishing between the 
political and geographical uses of the word. Geographically, "Ireland" and 
"Eire" serve equally to denote a small island in the North Atlantic. Where 
problems arise is when either are used in the political sense.

Consider the well-nigh immortal phrase

> What I don't like is the interfamily relation between Church and
> State that exists in Eire today.

which undoubtedly suggests that a temporal State called "Eire" exists. This 
use of "Eire" to describe a present-day political entity is incorrect. Instead
the Republic of Ireland or "Poblacht na hEireann" should have been used.

Readily conceding my "Jack Lynch" on the punt to John Respess'
currency-in-the-hand technique, the question remains as to why then the "Eire"
on Irish coins, postage stamps and government documents. I can only speculate
on the reason for this. Perhaps the anti-climactic break with Great Britain 
caught an unpopular and divided government, still struggling with a country 
emerging from the closed economy of the Emergency, unwilling to commit the 
expense and manpower necessary to ring in such incidental changes. Doubtless 
the inconsistency is intentional, which leads me to suppose that some 
beaurocratic amendment reserved the use of "Eire" for such purposes.

John Respess writes in his reply:

>In the second place, I have to dispute your claim that "Eire" is even mild-
>ly derogatory.
>  ............ And if you think about, it ought to be considered a 
>laudatory term, harking back, as it does, to the greatest concessions that
>England has had to make to the Irish in 135 years.

Two comments John. The statement I make is that

>>Any description of the Republic of Ireland as 'Eire' could be considered 
>>mildly derogatory, 
>>                   .......................................     , but
>>only by those who have nothing better to do than harp on such trivialities.

which is not the unqualified claim you make it out to be. Also, what was
this last great concession? Surely not Catholic Emancipation? :-)

John Respess' initial posting was laudably apolitical, but when faced with 
such historical vulgarities as these from another gentleman of lesser wit;

>By the way, Ireland hasn't been called "Eire" for about three decades.
>Some time ago the country renounced all ties of political dependency to England
>and since that time it has officially been named the Republic of Ireland. I
>think it was after that "communist" Eamon De Valera got into office. But
>that's all right, Trisha, I know how the word "Republic" sticks in some
>people's throats.

(To add to my list, Mr deValera, who was no communist, first "got into 
office", if by that is meant became Prime Minister, in 1932. If not he was 
elected to the House of Commons as far back as 1918.)

I wished to balance my interpretation of the use of "Eire", which supported 
his, with my abhorrance that "facts" which seemed to have been learned over
several pints of Stout should follow in artless argument.

	   James Beausang

garret@oddjob.UChicago.UUCP (Trisha O Tuama) (09/06/84)

*****

Having read all the correspondence produced thus far on this subject,
I have come to the conclusion that no one here actually knows for
sure just how Irish people themselves feel about the use of "Eire."
I've therefore decided to write Garret Fitzgerald and ask him.
I will post his reply.

For what it's worth, the only reason I used "Eire" in that sentence
at all was to vary the terminology somewhat, having used "Ireland"
several times already.  I was truly amazed that jmm took it as an
insult.  Actually I'm truly amazed that jmm takes all of this so
personally as he admits to not being Irish or having Irish ancestors.
The situation in South Africa is ten times worse than that existing in 
Northern Ireland -- if he wants to get personally involved in other 
people's crises, why not take that on instead; or for that matter, 
confine his attention to the problems existing here at home.

Yours for a clearer understanding of the world's problems,

Trisha O Tuama