The Irish Free State/Éire/Republic of Ireland/Ireland: “A Country by Any Other Name”?

Abstract

I is the name of an island in the North Atlantic. Ireland is also the name of a state, comprising roughly three-quarters of that island, which secured independence from Britain in 1922. This article will explore the different names for the Irish state and their political implications. Article 4 of the Irish Constitution, adopted in 1937, says that the name of the state is “Eire, or in the English language Ireland.” This was regarded in Britain and Northern Ireland (the part of the island that remained within the United Kingdom) as exercising a claim over the entire island. This interpretation was supported by Article 2 of the Irish Constitution, adopted in 1937, which stated that “the national territory consists of the whole island of Ireland, its islands and the territorial seas.” Article 3, however, qualified this claim: “Pending the re-integration of the national territory, and without prejudice to the right of the Parliament and Government established by this Constitution to exercise jurisdiction over the whole of that territory, the laws enacted by that parliament shall have the like area and extent of applications as the laws of Saorstat Eireann and the like extra-territorial effect.” Britain did not use the term “Ireland” in any official document until the 1998 Belfast/Good Friday Agreement, which included an undertaking by the Irish government to delete Articles 2 and 3 of the Irish Constitution. The dispute over nomenclature was by no means a one-sided matter. The Irish government had similar qualms about referring to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland because this title was seen as conferring official recognition on