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The 32 Counties of Ireland
The 32 Counties
In the late twelfth century Ireland was divided in over a hundred tuatha, kingdoms or tribes. Contrary to popular belief, and to some dissatisfaction of Irish nationalists propagating an absolute historical unity of Ireland, these tuatha were loosely glued together by a elaborated and time-tested legal system of lower and higher nobility. Consequently each tuath was a rather independent community with a noticeable degree of self-government. Furthermore it's a romantic misconception that peace reigned in ancient Ireland. With that much communities sharing an island with limited resources conflicts are bound to happen. Territorial wars and marauding expeditions to make up shortages in cattle or food were the rule rather than the exception.
King Henry II dealt with the time-honoured tuath system and imposed a system of administrative units similar to the English system with shires and counties from 1172 onwards. In general the county boundaries were drawn with only little respect to the existing tuatha due to which neighbouring, and occasionally hostile, tuatha merged while other tuatha were divided. County Donegal is a rare exception as the county coincides with the ancient territory of Tír Conaill, or Land of Conaill.
In the course of the centuries the county system underwent only a few minor changes. In the early seventeenth century for example County Coleraine was divided between the counties Antrim, Derry, Donegal and Tyrone. County Desmond also seized to exist when divided between the counties Cork and Kerry in 1906. Furthermore two counties underwent a change of name. In the 1920's, after the War of Independence, Queen's County, named after Queen Mary I in 1556, and King's County, named after her husband and first cousin King Phillips II of Spain, were renamed as County Leix and County Offaly. The Irish apparently didn't go much on the name Leix, as the name of the county has changed twice. First the county was renamed County Laoighis in 1961, until it was given it's present name County Laois in 2007. A nice piece of subordinate information is that Queen's County and King's County were the only Irish counties by which the word county came after the name as usual practised in England.
In all Ireland is divided in 32 counties or, more accurate, traditional counties from which 26 in the Republic of Ireland and six in Northern Ireland.
By moving the cursor over the map or the county names on the sides the name of the county will appear. Clicking will take you to the page with more detailed information.
Luckily the song Ireland's Thirty-Two provides a memory aid if you are overwhelmed by the number and names of the counties.
By the Local Government (Ireland) Act of 1898 a system of local government based on the division of Ireland in counties was established. The outlines of this Act still forms a sturdy foundation of the administrative system of the Republic of Ireland, by which the general electoral districts correspond the county boundaries. On a local level however some larger or densely populated counties are subdivided. County Dublin for example was split in 1992 in three parts (Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown, Fingal and South Dublin). Furthermore the five cities Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Galway and Waterford have their own administration. All in all there are 29 county councils, thus 29 administrative counties as opposed to 26 traditional counties, and five city councils in the Republic of Ireland.
Northern Ireland the county system was abolished in 1972 by the Local Government (Northern Ireland) Act. From October 1973 onwards the six counties are redivided in no less than 26 districts and two boroughs for Belfast and Derry.
The traditional counties are still an important concept in spite of the recent changes. In general one might say that the Irish attach a huge emotional value to their native soil. The county system fits perfectly in the perception of the Irish that your native soil, and therefore your ancestry and the hurling team which is wearing the county colours, is an important fact of life. As a matter of fact the native or ancestral county has taken the place of the ancient tuath.
The popularity of the division in traditional counties is reflected by the table of content of many travel guides, which take the visitors by the hand to guide them county-by-county over Ireland. We do not want to spoil this practise.
The downside of 32 chapters in a travel guide is the description of each county. County Clare in not really that different from County Galway: the cliffs are both rough and the inland is also green. As a consequence you will find fanciful, supreme characterisations, such as a lush multi-hued landscape. We life in the Netherlands, we have been about all over Ireland, we have been in the rain forest of Indonesia and in the deserts of Northern Africa and we have never ever seen a mono-hued landscape.
At Triskelle we offer the best of two worlds: we will describe the four provinces and limit the description of the counties, without making concessions in the ability to pin-point your position, or the position of an attraction.
North and South
Especially British publishers tend to base travel guides and web sites on the constitutional boundary. Of course you can launch a high-flown plea, arguing that the division of Ireland in North and South is passing over the cultural, environmental and historical similarities of the two parts of the island.
From the publishers point of view the principle is however justifiable. After all, Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom and belongs to their homeland, while the Republic of Ireland is a foreign country.
It is a matter of taste, but we find those travel guides and web site overall not particular useful. The geography, the history and the people of the two parts of the island are interwoven to an extend which makes it impossible to consider them as two strict separated entities.
Specially for our British visitors we have included the following map and county listing.
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Northern Ireland |
Republic of Ireland |
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Antrim Armagh Derry |
Down
Fermanagh Tyrone |
Carlow Cavan Clare Cork Donegal Dublin Galway Kerry Kildare Kilkenny Laois Leitrim Limerick |
Longford Louth Mayo Meath Monaghan Offaly Roscommon Sligo Tipperary Waterford Westmeath Wexford Wicklow |
Both the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom, and therewith Northern Ireland, are members of the European Community (EC). This means that you can easily travel across the border, when you respect the import restrictions for excisable goods.
In real terms however the United Kingdom is a bit of an outsider in the European Community (EC) because they still use their own Pound Sterling (GPB) as currency and did not switch to the Euro as currency. This means you have to change money when crossing the border or settle for unfavourable exchange rates.
An other disadvantage applied to car rentals. Strangely most companies in the Republic of Ireland still add a surcharge, as in additional assurance, if you've planned to drive the vehicle across the border. In addition there will be a surcharge if the pick-up location of the car is in the other country than the drop-off location. In that case all companies we know of will charge extra costs (somewhere around the 125 Euro), instead of a 25 Euro surcharge if the locations are within the same country.