United By Our Divisions
One century after partial Irish independence from Patrick Ryan examines one vestige of Perfidious Albion destined to last forever, carved into Irish hearts.
We can change statues or statutes and rename bridges or buildings but long after Dublin’s latest skyroute for flying cars is opened by President Barron Trump on a state visit we’ll still define ourselves by something brought to us by the Brits.
Yes, it’s the c-word. No, not curry – the county. It was all very sneaky.
“Irish counties did not come into existence all at once, but over a period beginning with King John’s establishment of Dublin in the 12th century and ending with the creation of Wicklow in 1606,” explained Siobhán Doyle on RTÉ’s Brainstorm webpage in 2021.
Before the Anglo-Norman invasion a system of “king of over-kings” – rí ruirech – controlled of these Ulster (Ulaidh), Leinster (Laighin), Connacht (Connachta), Munster (An Mhumhan) and Mide (An Mhídhe), later dubbed provinces in an attempt to copy Roman history, and which would eventually evolve into the invaders’ earldoms and lordships, subdivided into smaller “liberties”. Dublin, Kildare, Meath, Uriel (or Louth), Carlow, Kilkenny, Wexford, Waterford, Cork, Kerry, Limerick, and Tipperary were formed in 1210 under King John, with King’s County and Queen’s County (Offaly and Laois) established 300 years later.
In the 1560s Sir Henry Sidney formed Longford (a lot of effort for not a lot of reward, in fairness) and divided Connaught into Galway, Sligo, Mayo, Roscommon, Leitrim, and Clare (which soon returned to Munster). The remainder soon followed. Someone with clearly too much time on his hands found a compass and used it to divide Meath, and someone else remembered the north, and sorted it out. Wicklow, originally part of Dublin, was Padddylast.
England’s original counties or “shires” were similarly constituted between the 7th and 11th centuries, and for the same reason: to govern, but mostly to tax the bejaypers out of the local population. However boundary changes and other tomfoolery mean that once-proud county allegiances are meaningless to many today, as people tend to identify with the town or city close by.
“Do you know which county you live in? Are you sure?” asked the BBC magazine online in 2014.
“Is that a historic or a ceremonial council or a county council or some combination thereof?”
The writer pointed out that for example readers in Birkenhead were in the historic county of Cheshire, the ceremonial county of Merseyside, and the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral.
Merseyside County Council? Sorry mate – abolished in the mid-80s…
Eh? God knows how the Scousers cope. The average Dub still reaches for several grains of Valium trying to grasp the concept of Fingal .
The Irish can thank the GAA for much of our identity, even if we aren’t from a particularly strong sporting background. Ironically this too is partly due another British institution run by men in white coats.
“It was the biggest game in Ireland in the 1870s and the 1880s without question. You read newspapers, whether it was the local press or the national press, there were reports of cricket matches all across the countryside,” explained UCD History Professor Paul Rouse on Newstalk’s Off The Ball sports show in 2019, explaining the surge in support for the game, which worried Irish nationalists and helped drive the establishment of the GAA.
“The Gaelic Athletic Association developed a strong, popular, visceral county loyalty, akin to the parallel growth of political and cultural nationalism, which percolated down to all levels of society and saturated sporting, social and public life with an identity that transcended all others, including town, village and parish,” notes Matthew Potter on the History Ireland website.
“This local ‘nationalism’ is typified by the invention of county flags utilising the local GAA colours, the evolution of ‘county anthems’ sung on match days and the growth of county associations in the Irish diaspora.”
Allegiances can be complex creatures though. You know about the Anglo-Irish, but how about the Kerry-Corkish? We’re not being mawkish. It’s a thing. Take John Egan, professional footballer and self-declared “Kerryman born and raised in Cork”, the son of the other John Egan, one of the Kingdom’s most famous players of the 1970s and 1980s.
Win lose or draw the youngster would wear a green-and-gold shirt to school after every Munster Final.
“So it was a bit weird: I was supporting Kerry in football and Cork in hurling,” the Ireland international told the Irish Examiner in 2019.
Again, county was everything. Egan doubtless discovered while playing for Sheffield United, bitter rivals of Sheffield Wednesday, that in the Steel City, like most other places across the water, locals are divided by football rather than united by it, even in Yorkshire famous for it’s pride of place
Or should we say “Yorkshires”. It’s divided into four, now. Yes, four. Even their beer is bitter.
Traditionally cricket, a sport organised in a similar way to the GAA, is also very popular there, so why didn’t cricket unite our neighbours?
Class played a large part in the history of a sport where men, and women, wield willow and bat, but stop to eat cucumber sandwiches. Lets face it lads, that’s not exactly a great rallying call.
Indeed the distinction between “gentlemen” and “players” only disappeared in the 1960s, generations after Oscar Wilde’s wry observation that “It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman hate or despise him”.
It’s also impossible to imagine any Irishman or Irishwoman caring about whether a hurler was privately schooled, or to consider abandoning the place of their upbringing to throw in their lot with the neighbouring football team. Here a healthy hatred is fostered from childhood at club level, along with a deep rivalry for the neighbouring county at about the same time you begin Senior Infants
“The people of Waterford are my life, ye know…and I love me county,” declared a tearful John Mullane in the wake of the 2004 Munster Hurling Final. He spoke for all of us, even those in the Black and Amber of Kilkenny who hated his guts.
13 years later the proposal by the Waterford Boundary Committee that 5,500 people and 20,000 acres of land in south Kilkenny be transferred to Waterford went down quicker than the deckchairs on the Titantic. The local population can’t even agree what colour to paint “Mount Misery”, a large rock overlooking Plunkett Station in Waterford City (but situated with feet to spare in Kilkenny). In the lead up to the 2008 All-Ireland Final between the sides both sets of fans took turns to plaster it in their respective colours, only for the other side to change it back, with the colours ping-ponging several times. Mount Misery remains if not the hill to die on then certainly the one to paint on for devotees of the Cats, or the Déisi.
Disputes between Ireland and the UK over Rockall have feckall on such local considerations but what do culchies’ clashes have to do with the mighty Dubs I hear you ask? Lots, lads.
Precedents are dangerous divils. Look at the suggestion Dublin be split into two for the All-Ireland because they were too strong and it would make the senior championship competitive.
Admittedly the way the Boys In Blue played recently they would probably have drawn each other and still managed to lose, but nevertheless Try selling that suggestion in any pub in the Liberties next summer and you’re the one who will end up split. Definitely Meath propaganda. Resist to the last man!
The other boys (and girls) in blue are also organised along county lines and it’s not just An Garda Síochána; our judicial system, the local and district courts, and politics are also heavily reliant on county models.
Two decades before the Easter RIsing Westminster’s Local Government Act for Ireland created the councils as we know them today, along with other bodies which were already up and running in Britain for a decade.
The Act brought an end to the power of the Grand Juries which were dominated by the Anglo-Irish landlord class and established independent county boroughs, linked to a two-tier system of county, urban, and rural district councils while granting all adult male householders the right to vote. These structures and systems were retained after independence and in more recent years the Local Government Act of 2001 marked a clear departure from the inherited system.
From the start the importance of your county, and location, when it came to applying for a grant or paying a fee, was clear and even though constituencies in general elections can encompass two counties realpolitik dictates that candidates focus more on the home turf.
Here sports are club and county based, but so are cultural activities, such as Comhaltas-organized Fleadh Cheoil, and the Oireachtas Rince. The Community Games start at the parish and county level, as well and offered future sports stars like Eamonn Coghlan, Sonia O’Sullivan, and Niall Quinn – who would soon play in a Leinster Hurling Final for Dublin – an early opportunity to showcase their talents.
Denis Irwin was an outstanding young hurler who marked Quinn when Cork played the Dubs, and another notable participant in Community Games, though he spent his time frowning across a chequered board in the chess competition. A few years later a Carlow girl named Saoirse Ronan, competed in everything from basketball to athletics, and the arts, suggesting to an interviewer that “it could be your career in 20 years time.” A belated gold to Saorise in the Fortune Telling competition.
In Ireland even Rock and Roll takes the backseat to your county, and national allegiances, reinforcing barriers before breaking them. Any interviewer who described Phil Lynott as English, or British was quickly and firmly corrected by the Thin Lizzy frontman. Born in West Bromwich, close to Birmingham to his Irish mother Philomena and father Cecil “The Duke” Parris from (then British) Guyana, Phillo was sent back to his granny in Ireland as a tot and became an avid Manchester United supporter. This Dub understood nuance.
“When I’m in Dublin, I say, I’m from Crumlin. When I’m in Crumlin, I say, Leighlin Road. When I’m in Leighlin Road, I say, I’m a Lynott,” he explained.
County affiliations gave us one of the great TV ads a few years ago, with the camera focusing in on a man, taking time out to carefully carve the sand with a stick, as his other half smiles benevolently from an upstairs window. The message appears to be clear: “I love you”. Then the camera zooms out and you realise his dedication reads: “I love Louth”.
At the risk of sounding like another commercial – the sort for a bank they run during the hurling and football championships – Irishness is rooted in locality, it’s about your gang, your clan, your family, then and now. United in joy, shoulder-to-shoulder in misery you stand by your own.
Louth And Proud! Mayo For Sam! Up Down!
Oh, and Liam McCarthy is coming back home in 2026. To Kilkenny – and you can take that to the bank. C’mon The Cats!
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