Talk:Ireland

This page needs a lot of work. I'll see what I can do about beating it into a decent shape and making it fit with the rest of the site. Kgaughan 09:11, 24 Aug 2005 (PDT)

Two questions

Is the ríúl a unit of account? E.g., could one refer to a price of 6d as "1 ríúl", or a price of 1/6 as "three ríúile"?

Yes. In fact, it's imprinted on the coins.

But is it actually used? US dimes say "One Dime", but no one ever uses dime as a unit, for example Nik 12:32, 25 Aug 2005 (PDT)

It is in the AÉ, particularly outside of Laighean. For instance, the half-crown coin is referred to as cúig ríúile. The ríúl is used for counting when not dealing with round number of Soilt. Kgaughan 14:13, 25 Aug 2005 (PDT)

What is the origin of the flag? Nik 21:54, 24 Aug 2005 (PDT)

It's reputedly the flag of the Fianna. Kgaughan 08:52, 25 Aug 2005 (PDT)

Interesting. It's a rather nice-looking flag, and a fascinating origin.  :) Nik 12:32, 25 Aug 2005 (PDT)

Provinces and Territories

How much power do they have? Nik 12:27, 6 Sep 2005 (PDT)

Interesting question! Mind you, provinces have no powers as they're simply the historical divisions of the country. The powers the territories have I haven't decided. The AÉ started as a regular centralised state, but since federalisation it's been bit-by-bit devolving power wherever it's made sense to. The origins of AÉ federalism lie in the latter half of the civil war where the Kemrese population in Laighean attempted to take advantage of the situation to secede from the country. --Kgaughan 14:32, 9 Sep 2005 (PDT)

they could simply be administrative divisions with apointed civil servants taking care of the application of government policies within them.--Marc Pasquin 18:18, 9 Sep 2005 (PDT)

Nope, that wouldn't work. Before federalisation, that's quite similar to what the situation is here, with each area controlled by county councils. The civil war was only resolved when the government agreed to devolve power to Laighean to give it a greater degree of autonomy. The other territories were similarly devolved powers. --Kgaughan 11:40, 11 Sep 2005 (PDT)

Plantation of Ulster

How did that go about *there*? Judging from the presence of Breathnach speakers in Uladh, it must have happened at least in part... Juanmartinvelezlinares 11:06, 3 October 2016 (PDT)

I think the populations of that Brithenig spinoff are older than the 16th Century. I was just perusing Ireland's associated pages and I think one of them mentioned that Latin speakers started to move to Ireland after Rome fell, and another one seemed to imply that they came in the early medieval era. Off the top of my head, I can't remember if the Normans of England invaded Ireland and were assimilated into it; if they didn't, perhaps Kemr filled the role in IB? Misterxeight 15:14, 8 October 2016 (PDT)

They did. Ireland was a possession of Kemr from the late Middle Ages up to 1917. The area around Dublin was pretty Cambrified. The north speaks Breathanach, but I agree with you, I had the impression that that population was older than the Plantations *here*. But now I can't find any evidence for that. Benkarnell 06:55, 9 October 2016 (PDT)

Found it! On Breathanach's page, it says "Breathanach is the 'Q' to Brithenig's 'P' - an attempt to discover what might have happened if Latin had displaced primitive Irish in Ireland (and later, of course, Scotland). In other words, it's a Romance language which looks and sounds rather like Gaelic. Many words in Breathanach come from a form of Latin closer to Classical Latin rather than to Vulgar Latin, for example the word for 'white' is albh from the Latin albus, rather than something like *blag which is cognate with modern-day Romance."

So there we have it. Primitive Irish began to fade into Old Irish during the 600's and Classical Latin was replaced by late stage Latin in the 300's. So that means that sometime before the 300's AD, Romance speakers, the high class kind who wouldn't be speaking Vulgar Latin, moved to Ireland and imparted their eloquent speech to the people around them before being lost to time and after laying the seeds of a new and distinct people. I always figured that Breathanach was just an offshoot of Brithenig because the names sound similar, but they're each from Latin plus two totally separate Celtic groupings.

I just had a long conversation with some people about the formation of the Anglo-Irish and the Plantations, and the reason that the Normans were subsumed into the native culture so fast whereas the English and the Ulster-Scots did not was because the former were Catholics while the latter two were firm Protestants. The trajectory for the Kemrese administration of Ireland might be like a long extension of the Hiberno-Norman period of our world and less like the post Henry VIII occupation, for mostly better I'd say. Because the Normans adopted Irish so quickly in our world, I imagine that most Brithenig speakers in the Dublin area would still speak Irish as a first language, or at least in the public sphere. I doubt it'd subsume the Irish language like English did here. At the very least, we now know that the Brithenig speakers of Leinster/Laighin wouldn't be able able much to understand the Breathanach speakers of coastal Ulster. The more you know! Misterxeight 15:00, 9 October 2016 (PDT)

Pretty sure the Brithenig speakers in that area come from the Pale. Judging from the continued existence of Yola, there must have been some form of Anglo-Norman invasion. According to the Angli page, the Normans *there* did manage to worm their way into at least Dûnein. In addition, some would-be Brithenig speakers seem to be speaking Cornish (Kerno) instead; there's mention of a Kerno community in Osraighe. As for the Breathnach community, it does make more sense for it to date back to before the Cambrians started taking control (applying QAA to QSS, that should be in about the... 14th century?), but I get the feeling that M. Ó'Gacháin was going for a plantation (especially since he specifically mentions Breathnach as being the language of western Uladh--most of the Scots colonists *here* came from the area where Breathnach would be spoken). However, there was some Lowland Scots colonisation in the 1500s and 1600s even before there was a formal plantation--perhaps that's why there's a Breathnach-speaking population in the area. (Indeed, said Lowland Scots colonies were primarily from Western Scotland--i.e. the Breathnach-speaking area!)

Breathnach and Brithenig are very different--there's really no chance of one understanding the other beyond the usual intelligibility shared by all Romance languages. It seems like the Northern Marches of Kemr developed a rather separate culture to the homeland. And no, Brithenig never subsumed Irish *there*. From what I understand, it remained restricted to lla Pall (or whatever The Pale is in Brithenig), though it seems to have a substantial number of speakers in that area. It also helps that there was a very different response to the potato famine *there* (i.e. no discrimination against the native Irish). Juanmartinvelezlinares 16:27, 9 October 2016 (PDT)