IRELAND IS STILL IRELAND

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 98, 22 October 1938, Page 26

IRELAND IS STILL IRELAND

Some discontent is being expressed in Dublin concerning the use of the word "Eire" to describe what was once the area of the Irish Free State, says the correspondent of the "Daily Telegraph and Morning Post."

The question has been revived by the fact that the official programmes of the Royal Dublin £>ciety's horse show recently, in announcing the international military jumping contests, referred consistently to the home entry as "Ireland," rather than "Eire."

The question of the State's name began at the Pianna Fail Party's general convention in the autumn of 1936, when Mr. de Valera revealed in advance some of the main features of the new Constitution.

The State's name, he said, would be Eire. This is the name which Ireland has borne from the earliest times in the Gaelic language. It bears the same relationship to "Ireland" as "Deutschland" bears to "Germany."

Anybody speaking in Gaelic habitually uses "Eire" just as anyone speaking in German uses "Deutschland." Mr. de Valera is an ardent apostle of the Gaelic revival, and he envisaged the new Constitution as a Gaelic document, of which the English version would be a translation, rather than the reverse.

When the first draft of the Constitution 'was issued in English, Article 4 reading "The name of the State is Eire," was made the subject of an amendment by Mr, Frank MacDermot

during the second reading of. the Constitution in the Dail. He argued that the Article should read: "The name of the State is Eire—in the English language Ireland." The amendment was carried.

In the meanwhile, however, some English and certain Irish newspapers began to use the term "Eire." But nobody in Ireland when speaking generally, ever uses it.

Within the boundaries of the 26 counties, at all events, the official name of the State in the English language is "Ireland." v

Unfortunately the lack of a distinctive term is inconvenient. One cannot talk of crossing from Ireland into Northern Ireland, or of "Northern Ireland's exports to Ireland." The result is that those Irish newspapers which refuse to follow the English style resort to makeshifts—"Southern Ireland" as opposed to "Northern Ireland" and "the 26 counties."

It is interesting to notice that the text of the recently-concluded agreement as issued in England, spoke of "the Government of Eire," but as issued in Dublin it referred to the "Government of Ireland." State documents— including the envelopes that contain income tax demands—bear the name "Eire." On the other hand, the latest Government publication of importance, the report of the Banking Commission, bears the name "Ireland" on its cover and title-page.