Traditional Irish Communities

Traditional Irish communities were based around one of the two major agricultural professions of Ireland: fishing and farming. Cities and towns were either built near a port or in the middle of sprawling fields that were used for raising livestock and farming the land. The five biggest cities in Ireland all have become such do to their location having the perfect conditions for both. Dublin, Dun Laoghaire, and Galway are all right on the ocean. Cork and Limerick, although not on the coast, are built on major waterways that run right into the ocean. The fertile soil of these two cities gave the perfect conditions for growing crops.

These days the old traditions of Ireland are slowly fading away. There are many different beliefs as to why this is happening, but the main one is technology. With the far reaching capabilities of the internet, the Irish youth have a very different childhood than their parents did. Traditions such as daily blessings, holiday traditions and special event customs have all slowly deteriorated over the last few decades.

Blessings were a very common thing in Ireland just one generation ago. With the rough history filled with misery and hardship, the Irish have learned to make light of nearly everything. Because of this, they have blessings for nearly everything.

Holiday traditions that have went dormant during the technology age are quite significant. However, it isn't so much that the people of Ireland really stopped what they were doing, instead they went along with the rest of the world and started celebrating like everyone else (most notably the U.S.). St. Patrick's Day use to be a day spent in church and with your family. However, after cities in America began having large, lavish parades in honor of the holiday, Ireland eventually followed suit. The St. Patrick's Day festival is a five day event in Dublin, and the reason it was created wasn't for celebratory purposes, but instead to boost tourism. This "tradition" didn't actually start until 1995.

Easter is another holiday that has drastically changed over the past 20 years. A very sacred day in most of Ireland, Easter brought on many traditions. "Spring Cleaning" use to be something that started with the beginning of lent 40 days before Easter. This was done so that your house would be in top shape for it to be blessed by your priest. The week before Easter would be one of fasting until Easter Sunday. These traditions were practiced by a strong majority of Irishmen, but now is much less frequent.

Irish weddings have an extensive history, preceding even Christianity in Ireland."Tying the knot" originates from the ceremony where a ribbon or cord would be wrapped around the couples' wrists to signify infinity. "Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue" use to have another line that said "And an Irish penny in her shoe." Over time this has been lost.

Northern Ireland vs the Irish Republic

The island that Ireland resides on is split between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. The Republic of Ireland is what is commonly referred to as Ireland. Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom. Below, the counties in gray belong to the United Kingdom and the counties in green are that of the Irish republic.

In London, on December 6, 1921, the Anglo-Irish Treaty was signed marking the end of the Irish War of Independence. Where as Northern Ireland still has a great deal of loyalty to the U.K., the Republic has now created its very own culture that has began to separate from its neighbors to the North. The best example of this would be what Ireland has given to the world of Literature.

James Joyce (Dublin), Flann O'Brien (Strabane), Jonathan Swift (Dublin), Oscar Wilde (Dublin), Bram Stoker (Dublin), as well as Nobel Prize winners for Literature William Butler Yeats (Dublin), George Bernard Shaw (Dublin), Samuel Beckett (Dublin) and Seamus Heaney (Mossbawn) all are of Irish origin. The majority of them hail from Dublin making it the unofficial Literature capital of the world.

Jonathan Swift

James Joyce

Impact of Media Conglomeration

With the ever expanding multinational media conglomeration encompassing nearly every part of media in the world, it is somewhat surprising to find out that Ireland is only minimally affected. The main provider of television and radio media is Raidio Teilefis Eireann which has a substantial lead in both markets over all of its competitors. This could be due largely to the fact that Raidio Teilefis Eireann is a semi-state company. It broadcasts in both English and Irish.

According to the RTE website, the company has a board that is appointed by the Irish government. The head of that board is the director-general, currently Noel Curran. While RTE does have much control over the media market in Ireland, it still does have to occasionally deal with conglomeration due to showing certain television shows from America. Desperate Housewives, the Simpsons, and Grey's Anatomy are just a few of the shows that RTE shows regularly.