“IRELAND” OR “EIRE”?

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23599, 8 September 1938, Page 17

“IRELAND” OR “EIRE”?

SARAH MINUS S AND H CONTROVERSY IN DUBLIN VARYING PRACTICE (From Our Own Correspondbnt) (By Air Mail) LONDON, Aug. 15, Not long ago, interest was aroused as to the correct pronunciation of Eire. One Irish authority stated that it was like Sarah minus the S and the H. Now, according to the Dublin cortespondent of the Daily Telegraph: The question has been revived by the fact that the official programmes of the Royal Dublin Society’s horse show last week, in announcing the international military jumping ■ contests, referred consistently to the home entry as “Ireland,” rather than “Eire.” This question of the State’s name began at the Fianna 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.” MR DE VALERA’S VIEW 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 Enjglish 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 Mac Dermot 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, hbwever, 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.” RESORT TO MAKESHIFTS 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, re sort to makeshifts—“ Southern Ireland” as opposed to “Northern Ire land ” and “ the 26 counties.” - ■ :