Names of the Irish state
[9] The spelling "Eire", with an E rather than an É, is not correct Irish orthography despite being preferred for many years by British government and media and others.
According to Roderick O'Flaherty, Joseph Justus Scaliger "reckons up eleven of twelve matricular languages yet remaining in Europe ; viz.
Latin, Greek, Teutonic, Sclavonian, Epirotic, Tartarian, Hungarian, Finnonian, Hibernian (which he by a barbarism calls Hirlandian), the Cantabrian, and the British.".
[20][21] (For an explanation continuing usage of the term Irish Republic in the United Kingdom, see Name dispute with the UK (below).
Southern Ireland (Irish: Deisceart Éireann) was the official name given to an autonomous Home Rule region (or constituent country) of the United Kingdom.
[30] When de Valera subsequently tabled an amendment to give effect to this concession, he proposed Article 4's current wording: "The name of the State is Éire, or, in the English language, Ireland."
Nevertheless, this only fuelled more criticism of the name, as once free in the English language, it evolved – leading to what opposition politicians stated were "sneering titles such as Eirish".
The Taoiseach of the day, John A. Costello said "that tremendous confusion ha[d] been caused by the use of that word Éire in Article 4.
By a misuse by malicious people of that word, Éire, they have identified it with the Twenty-Six Counties and not with the State that was set up under this Constitution of 1937.
The Constitution review group's 1967 report discusses Article 4:[42] Throughout the years since 1937 the term "Éire" has been widely misused in English as the name of the State.
[46] Under the Convention on International Civil Aviation Irish registered aircraft carry the nationality mark "EI",[47] although this abbreviation has nothing to do with the state's name.
This is a conscious response to the partitionist view, prevalent for so long and still sadly widespread, that Ireland stops at the Border.
Although following the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 the dispute was supposed to end as each government now accepts the official name of the other state, the Irish Ministry of Foreign Affairs still refers to the UK as "Great Britain".
[58] In the run up to the adoption of the new Irish Constitution which took effect on 29 December 1937, the British Cabinet considered how to respond as regards the new name.
In the communiqué, the British government recognised that the new constitution gave the Irish state two names Ireland or Éire.
[64] Under Section 1 of that Act, it was declared that (for the purposes of United Kingdom legislation) the territory "which was ... known as Irish Free State shall be styled as ...
A parliamentary secretary for the Government, Ivor Thomas, explained the position as follows: The practice in other Commonwealth countries varied: At the outset at least, it appears the Union of South Africa and Canada used the name Ireland while New Zealand favoured Eire.
[72] This has meant that the Republic of Ireland is the only name for the Irish state officially provided for in domestic UK law.
[74] The UK government had been centrally involved in preparing the treaty which was signed in London and established the Council of Europe.
The following month the Minister for External Affairs clarified at the Council of Europe that Ireland was how the state should be described.
[72] Similarly, the United Kingdom protested when the Irish state was admitted to the European Economic Community in 1973 as Ireland.
In 1950, following the declaration of a republic the Irish and Canadian High Commissioners were replaced by Ambassadors / Ministers Plenipotentiary, accredited on the basis of the sovereign's title in Canada still encompassing the whole of Ireland.
[82] For its part, the Irish government also disputed the right of the British state to call itself the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
A copy was sent to Bord Fáilte (the Irish tourist board) in 1959, reminding them not to use the title "the Republic of Ireland" on their promotional literature.
This was, according to Daly, despite the fact that the Australian Royal Style and Titles Act did not mention Northern Ireland, referring only to "the United Kingdom, Australia" etc.
[86] When the Republic of Ireland Act was enacted, the United Kingdom cabinet debated whether it should use the new name in preference to "Eire".
Having said that it was minded to do so and invited comment, the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland (Sir Basil Brooke, Ulster Unionist) objected in the strongest possible terms, saying that the new description "was intended to repeat Eire's claim to jurisdiction over the whole island.
"[89] Attlee partly accepted this argument, saying that the [UK] bill should formally recognise the title 'Republic of Ireland' but that the description "The Irish Republic" would be employed in all official usage.
[90] The following is an extract from Walsh's judgement: The dispute between the UK and Irish governments over the names of their respective states has not yet been finally resolved.
The style guides of British news sources adopt differing policies for referring to the state (though notably all deprecate 'Eire' even though it was often used even in the late 20th century): I wonder if the Taoiseach has given any consideration to the extraordinarily bad effect the insertion of the word "Éire" has had.
