IrelandEssay Preview: IrelandReport this essayTraditionally, Ireland is subdivided into four provinces: Connacht, Leinster, Munster and Ulster; and, in a system developed between the 13th and 17th centuries, 32 counties. Twenty-six of the counties are in the Republic of Ireland, and the remaining six (all in Ulster) are in Northern Ireland. Notably, based on boundaries established in the Early Modern period, Ulster and Northern Ireland are neither synonymous nor co-extensive, as three counties of Ulster (Cavan, Donegal and Monaghan) are part of the Republic. Nonetheless, Ulster is often used colloquially as a synonym for Northern Ireland. Counties Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Galway, Waterford and Tipperary have been broken up into smaller administrative areas, but are still considered by Ordnance Survey Ireland to be official counties. The counties in Northern Ireland are no longer used for local government, although their traditional boundaries are still used in sports and in some other cultural and ceremonial areas.
All-island institutionsDespite the constitutional division of Ireland, the island does operate as a single entity in a number of areas. With a few notable exceptions, the island operates as a single unit in all major religious denominations and in many economic fields despite using two different currencies. There are also significant all-island dimensions to sports such as rugby, cricket and hockey.
For example most of the popular sports on the island operate on an all-Ireland basis, such as Gaelic games, rugby union and golf. The notable exception to this is Association football (where the previously all-island Irish Football Association following partition retained control of soccer only in Northern Ireland, with a separate Football Association of Ireland being formed for the remainder of the island) although an all-Ireland club cup competition, the Setanta Cup, was created in 2005. The creation of an all-island Association football league and a single international team (which is the case for rugby union) has been publicly touted by various prominent figures on the island in recent years, such as Irish government minister Dermot Ahern.[9] More recently, FAI chief executive John Delaney believes there will be an all-Ireland league, but not before 2012, as a contract involving the Eircom League and the FAI runs to 2011.[10] There is currently at least one player from Northern Ireland regularly appearing in the Republic of Irelands squad, a practice that the latters governing institution and the Irish government claim is permitted by the Belfast Agreement – although in reality there was apparently nothing to prevent the FAI from selecting players from Northern Ireland before the Agreement, since the Republic of Irelands citizenship laws already extended north of the border. Nonetheless, Northern Irelands governing body, the IFA, has raised the matter with the world governing body, FIFA, which appears to have ruled in favour of the Republic (although the matter remains unclear and therefore unresolved).
All major religious bodies are organised on an all-Ireland basis, such as the Roman Catholic Church, the Methodist Church in Ireland, the Church of Ireland/Anglican Church and the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. Some trade unions are also organised on an all-island basis and associated with the Irish Congress of Trades Unions (ICTU) in Dublin, while others in Northern Ireland are affiliated with the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in the United Kingdom, and some affiliate to both — although such unions may organise in both parts of the island as well as in Great Britain. The Union of Students in Ireland (USI) organises jointly in Northern Ireland with the National Union of Students of the
Eurist Worker and the Workers’ Party in the United States.[2]
Although the unions are federated from within the Union, they are not directly representative of all members of the general union and thus are of primary control.[3] The Irish Labor Committee (ILC) formed around 1979 in Dublin to deal with problems of unionisation, is in effect a direct representative of the Irish union and represents representatives of all Irish workers, including members of the Irish Parliament.[4] Its chairperson, Gerry Adams, who is also the Union Minister for Justice and Equality in Ireland (BJA) was originally appointed as a member of the ILC two years later. He became a Member of the ILC and thus had no direct representation (although he is also the BJA’s Director of Legal Services). The ILC was also dissolved in 1987 after the Irish Democratic Union. The Irish Labour Organisation (LFO), which was formed in the Soweto period to deal with workplace and welfare issues and was an independent organisation during a period of social unrest between Northern Ireland and the United States, also became an extension of the ILC. The ILC was not dissolved until 2002 when the first-year ILC member, Tánaiste Joan Burton, became a member. She chaired her party for ten years and continued to serve in its shadow for eight years while her party was defeated in Northern Ireland, as well as to a second election in 1997. The present ILC member, Brendan Donnelly, from Ulster, joined the party in 1992 by being the first ILC member (to the right of Brendan T’Anga) and to make an appointment to the ILC for that party.[5] Although Sinn Fein and the United Irish Democrats were not directly affiliated with the Labour Party at the time, Sinn Fein’s membership there was significant, as it has now since been consolidated into the ILC.[6]
It was in Ireland during the post-imperial occupation of Britain in 1941 that the ILC took control of the first union in Ireland.[7] It is believed that it began as a branch of the ILC later as early as 1941.[9] In this period, however, the union was still largely dominated by the National Union and the Irish National Labor Union, however, and with the introduction of the National Union of Labour (NLU), which had no direct role in organising the union during this period, the union continued to be involved in trade union relations until 1965.[10] The only union union in all parts of Ireland which is directly part of the ILC, despite its current membership, was the Northern Irish Lumber Workers’ Federation, founded in 1985.[11] It was also not limited