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Éire - a faux pas?

Goodshape

Just having a quick look through Wikipedia's international List of faux pas (which is quite interesting anyway). One of the Irish entries is :

"Referring to the Republic of Ireland as Éire: although this is the official title of the state in the Irish language, it is considered an irksome and patronizing term used only by the English, though usually well-intentioned. Simply refer to the country as "Ireland" or "the Republic of Ireland"."

Personally, I quite like the name 'Éire' and certainly wouldn't consider it an irksome term or a faux pas. It might cause me to do a slight double-take, but only because it's not too often you hear it, maybe not often enough imo.

Is that just me? What do others think?

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John_C

Kwekubo wrote:

Which Ireland do you mean though, the republic or the island? The word can of course mean both. Some people however use Éire as if it doesn't mean the exact same thing as Ireland, they use it to refer to the republic only. I take that as a little insulting, I know it's usually not meant to offend but it comes across as if they're implying the Irish language is only relevant to the republic and not to Northern Ireland.

The soccer team of the 26 counties used to be called Éire, that's why foreigners often use Éire to refer to the 26 counties. The same way the soccer team is now called the Republic of Ireland and that term is often used to refer to the 26 counties.

Goodshape

Kwekubo wrote:

I don't think anyone's suggesting that you shouldn't use the name Éire when you're speaking Irish, just that it doesn't make sense to use it when speaking English.

The thought came to me yesterday; if the English language is no place to be calling Irish things by Irish names, what's your view of Dáil Éireann, the Oireachtas, An Taoiseach, An Garda Síochána, and so on?

..or should we, in the interest of preserving The Queen's English, be calling them the Houses of Parlament, the Prime Minister and the Police Servce?

Ponster

John_C wrote:

The soccer team of the 26 counties used to be called Éire, that's why foreigners often use Éire to refer to the 26 counties. The same way the soccer team is now called the Republic of Ireland and that term is often used to refer to the 26 counties.

Ahh I see now. As I already posted, in France the rugby team is referred to as 'Ireland' yet the football team as 'Eire'.

An Ginearál

Goodshape wrote:

The thought came to me yesterday; if the English language is no place to be calling Irish things by Irish names, what's your view of Dáil Éireann, the Oireachtas, An Taoiseach, An Garda Síochána, and so on?

..or should we, in the interest of preserving The Queen's English, be calling them the Houses of Parlament, the Prime Minister and the Police Servce?

The names you mention are all official names and so they remain unchanged when referring to them in English. And its the same when speaking Irish, you don't translate an official name. But people who tend to use some Irish words when speaking in English, e.g. craic, are speaking Hiberno-English, the Irish dialect of English, not another language by itself as mentioned by someone on the last page, but a dialect only found in Ireland, this dialect is dying out now though as a lot of people are now speaking American-English rather than Hiberno-English.

Thirdfox

Eire is the official name too (along with Ireland)...

An Ginearál

Thirdfox wrote:

Eire is the official name too (along with Ireland)...

Yes but it states that Ireland be used in English, which it is. But have ever heard an Irish person, tv station, radio station or newspaper ever refer to An Taoiseach as the Irish Prime Minsiter, or Dáil Éireann as the Irish Parliament, and tv and newspapers will always refer to An Garda Síochána as the Gardaí, not the Police.

DemonOfTheFall

I don't like it either, but like they say, it is well intentioned.

LordSutch

So many Irish people are confused about local geography anyway, I am not surprised that even EIRE is confusing to some!

We have already had all the cafufful about the british isles, & I know that many irish people still refer to "Northern ireland & the UK" or "I am travelling from Scotland to Britain" or "I am flying from Belfast to the UK" and many other various confused & crazy spin-offs!

Great fun but very confusing, & 99% of the time these people are supposedly well educated professionals ~ & yet they go "To the UK for the weekend" whatever that means?

Glasgow? Belfast? Cardiff? Leeds? London?

At least with EIRE there shouldnt be any confusion ~ should there?

Esel

Lil Kitten wrote:

On Nickelodeon the presenters always said "if you're calling from Eire"... it annoys me!! So is the north "Ireland" then? Bollix! Thats Northern Irelnad. We're ROI. Not Eire. Unless you're speaking as Gaeilge of course

ROI annoys me much more than Eire, tbh. ROI to me is Return On Investment!

Goodshape

An Ginear&#225 wrote: »

Yes but it states that Ireland be used in English, which it is. But have ever heard an Irish person, tv station, radio station or newspaper ever refer to An Taoiseach as the Irish Prime Minsiter, or Dáil Éireann as the Irish Parliament, and tv and newspapers will always refer to An Garda Síochána as the Gardaí, not the Police.

I've heard plenty of English news presenters refer to those things as The Irish Prime Minister, Parliament and Police Force.

Thirdfox

In most countries An Taoiseach is known as the Irish Premier...

An Ginearál

Goodshape wrote:

I've heard plenty of English news presenters refer to those things as The Irish Prime Minister, Parliament and Police Force.

Not in Ireland I'm guessing, as I've never heard it from an Irish news presenter.

Goodshape

An Ginear&#225 wrote: »

Not in Ireland I'm guessing, as I've never heard it from an Irish news presenter.

No, not in Ireland. Here in Ireland we still use at least some of our native language, like An Taoiseach agus Dáil Éireann, but not, for reasons which I'm trying to ascertain, Éire.

arybvtcw0eolkf

flogen wrote:

Well referring to it as Éire in an English sentence isn't really logical; the constitution states 'the name of the State is Éire, or, in the English language, Ireland'... so I'd say 'I'm from Ireland' rather than 'I'm from Éire.'

Spot on...

I remember along time ago the British served an extradition warrent on an IRA escapee who was in Guarda custody for other offences here.

The judge refused the extradition on the grounds that in putting 'Eire' on an English extradition paper was wrong as the paper should have been in either English or Irish bot not both.

Btw, I love the name Eire.

Stompbox

Good find,Goodshape.

Sonnenblumen

Goodshape wrote:

Just having a quick look through Wikipedia's international List of faux pas (which is quite interesting anyway). One of the Irish entries is :

"Referring to the Republic of Ireland as Éire: although this is the official title of the state in the Irish language, it is considered an irksome and patronizing term used only by the English, though usually well-intentioned. Simply refer to the country as "Ireland" or "the Republic of Ireland"."

Personally, I quite like the name 'Éire' and certainly wouldn't consider it an irksome term or a faux pas. It might cause me to do a slight double-take, but only because it's not too often you hear it, maybe not often enough imo.

Is that just me? What do others think?

Not so and no matter what your views about name or state, the official name is Eireann. If in doubt, ask any foreigner, they tend to be good on geography!!

Kwekubo

Goodshape wrote:

The thought came to me yesterday; if the English language is no place to be calling Irish things by Irish names, what's your view of Dáil Éireann, the Oireachtas, An Taoiseach, An Garda Síochána, and so on?

..or should we, in the interest of preserving The Queen's English, be calling them the Houses of Parlament, the Prime Minister and the Police Servce?

You've misunderstood me a little - what I was getting at was that the meaning of the word Éire shouldn't change just because you're speaking English. It shares (or, at least, should share) the same meaning as Ireland. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for people using Irish, just that in this instance it can come across as politicizing the language to be only for people in the south etc.

Fratton Fred

Firstly, I’d like to clarify something. I’m English and find it patronising to be called a Brit. I’m not a Brit and I would never call someone from Britain a Brit. We are all either English, Welsh, Scottish and there are those who live in Northern Ireland who are Irish. Brit is a term which, as far as I am concerned, is like “European”, it is a collective term for people from a group of countries.

I sometimes use the word Eire, because it is an easy way to distinguish between the two parts of Ireland. It’s not meant to patronising, just convenient and, I thought, respectful that I know the Irish term for Ireland. generally though I, like most English people I know, refer to this country as Ireland and Northern Ireland as errr Nother Ireland.

If you want people to stop using the term Eire, fine, stop writing it on things then. If you want people to stop thinking of Irish as a Leprechaun language, stop putting leprechauns on things with the word Eire underneath them. This however, I would strongly recommend against as it seems to be a sure fire way of getting Americans to part with their cash.