Everything about Irish County totally explained
Since the late 16th century, the
island of
Ireland has been divided into 32
counties (
Irish language contae or
condae, pronounced ). Two historical counties,
County Desmond and
County Coleraine, no longer exist, while several county names have changed.
After the
partition of Ireland in 1921, what eventually became the state of
Ireland comprised 26 of these, with
Northern Ireland comprising the
remaining six. The counties of Northern Ireland are no longer used for local government, and two former counties in the Republic have been subdivided, giving a modern total of 29
counties for administrative purposes rather than 26. The newer counties, such as
Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown and
Fingal, are often ignored as much as possible (outside administrative matters) as being non-traditional. In addition, the larger
cities are administratively equivalent to counties.
The traditional 32 counties had previously been adopted by sporting and cultural organisations such as the
Gaelic Athletic Association, which organises its activities on
GAA county lines, and today they still attract strong loyalties, particularly in the sporting field.
In Irish usage, the word
county nearly always comes before rather than after the county name; thus "
County Clare" in Ireland as opposed to "
Clare County" in
Michigan. The former "King's County" and "Queen's County" were exceptions; these are now
County Offaly and
County Laois.
Map of traditional counties
These don't correspond exactly to the counties used as political units.
1. Often called Derry: see Derry-Londonderry name dispute
Historical evolution
The political
geography of Ireland can be traced with some accuracy from the
seventh century. At that time Ireland was divided into about 150 different units of government, each one called a
tuath (pl.
tuatha). A
tuath was an autonomous group of people of independent political jurisdiction under a chief called
sub-rege (
Rí Tuaithe, tribal king. often the chief of a clan).
Cúigí (Provinces)
In the sixth century, Ireland was divided into
cúigí or fifths (sing.
cúige). The four current
provinces of Ireland were named after four of these
cúigí,
Ulaidh (
Ulster),
Laighin (
Leinster),
Connachta (
Connacht) and
An Mhumha(ain) (
Munster). The fifth
cúige,
Mídhe (
Meath), corresponded to the present-day counties of
Meath,
Westmeath,
Longford,
Offaly and south
County Louth in present-day Leinster. North
County Louth was considered to be part of Ulster. In
bardic lore, the "fifths of Ireland" corresponded to the five provinces: learning was in the west, war in the north, wealth in the east, music or art in the south and kingship in the centre (Meath).
Shiring and Counties
In 1172,
Henry II arrived in Dublin, commencing English royal involvement in Ireland (commonly referred to in Ireland as the
Norman Invasion). The English governed Ireland in a like structure as they did themselves, by dividing the country into shires or counties in the late 12th and early 13th centuries.
The counties were made up, in general, from an amalgamation of various smaller Irish territories which suited the colonial administration at the time and had little basis in older tribal boundaries. In many cases this involved dividing an Irish territory in two. For example, the kingdom of
Uí Mhaine was split to form south
County Roscommon and most of east
County Galway. Many of the counties of Ulster roughly correspond to the territories controlled by the principal clan in that particular area such as the O Donnells of Tír Conaill whose political power was concentrated in what would become the County of Donegal.
The counties evolved over time, with the earliest defined being set out by King John, including a then much larger County Dublin. By 1200 there were also shires of Connacht, Cork, Kerry, Limerick, Louth, Tipperary and Waterford. Kilkenny and Wexford apparently date from this time, too. The County of Roscommon was separated from Connacht before 1292, and the parliament of 1297 created the new shires of Kildare, Meath and Ulster. Carlow probably dates from around 1306.
The Tudor administrations finalised the division of Ireland into counties. Westmeath was separated from Meath in 1543, and in 1556 King’s County and Queen’s County were created as part of the policy of plantation. The old shire of Connacht was broken up into the Counties of Galway, Mayo and Sligo, while Leitrim was separated from Roscommon in 1565. At the same time County Clare was created and moved from Munster to Connacht. It returned there in 1602. In 1583 County Longford was formed from part of Westmeath and transferred to the Province of Connacht.
The Province of Ulster was the last to be shired. The counties of Antrim and Down originated early in the sixteenth century. These were joined in 1584/5 by the Counties of Armagh, Coleraine (later Londonderry), Donegal, Fermanagh, Monaghan and Tyrone. County Cavan was also formed in 1584 and transferred from Connacht to Ulster. The possibility of a similar action with regard to
Waterford City has been raised in recent years, though opposition from Kilkenny has been strong.
Republic of Ireland
The "traditional" 26 counties are today only part of the basis for local government, planning and community development purposes, although unlike the
counties in Great Britain, the Republic's traditional county boundaries are still generally respected for other purposes (counties on occasion being sub-divided). The administrative borders have subsequently been altered to include various towns originally split between two counties wholly within one.
In the Republic of Ireland, six of the original 26 counties have more than one local authority area, producing a total of 34 "county-level" authorities. The two ridings of
County Tipperary were renamed
North Tipperary and
South Tipperary in 2002. In 1994
County Dublin was split into
Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown,
Fingal, and
South Dublin. By 2002 however, upon the establishment of County Development Boards, the definition of "local government" expanded to include the need for a proper identity in each of the new counties; the development of which is ongoing. Of the administrative structures established under the 1898 Local Government Act, the only type to have been completely abolished was the
Rural District, which was rendered void in the early years of the
Irish Free State amidst widespread allegations of corruption. On the other hand, administrative structures such as Town Councils and Regional Authorities (created to comply with requirements of the EU) exist in parallel with the county system.
Administration
Administration follows the 34 "county-level" counties and cities of Ireland. Of these twenty-nine are counties, governed by
county councils while the five cities of
Dublin,
Cork,
Limerick,
Galway and
Waterford have
city councils, (previously known as
corporations), and are administered separately from the counties bearing those names. The
City of Kilkenny is the only city in the republic which doesn't have a "city council"; it's still a
borough but not a
county borough and is administered as part of
County Kilkenny. The most recent local government legislation states that Kilkenny may retain the title of "city" for ornament only.
Education
The
Vocational Education Committee system was created in 1930. Originally, VECs were formed for each administrative county and county borough, and also in a number of larger towns. In 1997 the majority of town VECs were absorbed by the surrounding county. With the exception of the Dublin area, VEC areas are identical to the local government counties and cities. The separate committees for County Dublin and the former borough of
Dún Laoghaire continue to exist.
The
Institute of Technology system was organised on the committee areas or "functional areas", these still remain legal but are not as important as originally envisioned as the institutes are now more national in character and are only really applied today when selecting governing councils, similarly
Dublin Institute of Technology was originally a group of several colleges of the
City of Dublin committee.
Elections
Where possible,
parliamentary constituencies in the Republic of Ireland follow county boundaries. Under the Electoral Act 1997 a Constituency Commission is established following the publication of
census figures every five years. The Commission is charged with defining constituency boundaries, and the 1997 Act provides that
the breaching of county boundaries shall be avoided as far as practicable. This provision doesn't apply to the boundaries between cities and counties, or between the three counties in the Dublin area.
This system usually results in more populated counties having several constituencies: Dublin city and county is subdivided into twelve constituencies, Cork into five. On the other hand, smaller counties such as Carlow and Kilkenny or Laois and Offaly may be paired to form constituencies. An extreme case is the splitting of Ireland's least populated county of Leitrim between the constituencies of
Sligo-North Leitrim and
Roscommon-South Leitrim.
Each county or city is divided into
Local Electoral Areas for the election of councillors. The boundaries of the areas and the number of councillors assigned are fixed from time to time by order of the
Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, following a report by the Local Government Commission, and based on population changes recorded in the census.
Northern Ireland
In Northern Ireland, a major re-organisation of local government in 1973 replaced the six traditional counties and two
county boroughs (
Belfast and
Derry) by 26 "single-tier"
districts for local government purposes, and these cross the traditional county boundaries. The six counties and two county-boroughs remain in use for some purposes, including
Lords Lieutenant,
vehicle number plates, and the
Royal Mail Postcode Address File.
Alphabetical list
Further Information
Get more info on 'Irish County'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://counties_of_ireland.totallyexplained.com">Counties of Ireland Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
