New Ireland Blog
There’s a new Ireland blog about. That would be a new blog about Ireland rather than a blog about new Ireland.
By John O’Brien Jnr, a well known figure on the Irish festival and Irish news scene in America.
With a rather ambitious niche:
about Ireland - news, history, blurb, events, issues and discussion
- the blog will likely be more manageable than it sounds if as I imagine it is filtered through the Cleveland Irish experience.
I mention it for a couple of reasons.
1) To give it publicity
2) To point out a couple of things I hear repeatedly about Ireland from America that are not strictly true, both of which been largely corrected since initial posting on the blog.
The flag and the language.
Let me quote the Constitution of Ireland, the 1937 Bunreacht na hEireann.
Article 7 (in its entirety):
The national flag is the tricolour of green, white and orange.
No more, no less, no gold.
UPDATE: Hearing of a recommended change for the Irish flag today.
Article 8 (in its entirety):
1. The Irish language as the national language is the first official language.2. The English language is recognised as a second official language.
3. Provision may, however, be made by law for the exclusive use of either of the said languages for any one or more official purposes, either throughout the State or in any part thereof.
It’s often said that Irish is the official language and English is the spoken language. English is also an official language. And Irish is spoken nearly as much as Polish.
The CIA WorldBook is a handy reference point for such matters coming from an American perspective though I notice in the Government section it has the “Administrative Divisions” incorrect in stating there are 26 Counties in the Republic. It has been some years since there has been an administrative division for a county called Dublin.
Coming from an Irish perspective you may want to check out my Staying Irish Away From Ireland links.
If it’s in your area, geographical or thematically, go check out the blog about Ireland by the Plain Dealer’s Mosaic Ireland, in association with the International Community Council and Cleveland.com - and give John some support and discussion.
See Posts Vaguely Related:
• Ireland Begins Here
• Irish Press Banned as Irish Independence Revoked
• Ban the Irish Language
• Ireland and/or Eire
Eolaí gan Fhéile:
Thanks for the tip! I’d like to figure out how you did the nice Twitter quote. Can you ’splain me?
stwidgie - The time or time/date detail on each tweet is a link to that tweet (status) by itself. So no magic from myself I’m afraid.