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