I have seen this bumber sticker: ** 26 + 6 = 1** then a picture of Ireland after it. I’ve seen it quite often.
What the heck does that mean?
I’m not Irish, but if believe there are 26 counties that are part of Ireland proper, and there are 6 counties under British rule. I’m guessing that they are saying it is 1 country when the 6 added to the other 26.
Good guess, Lost, that is exactly the point.
My guess is that it would be a symbol for those who want a united Ireland. I’m guessing that 26 is the 26 counties of Eire (The republic of Ireland), and 6 is the 6 counties of northern Ireland, whilst the one is the one Ireland. I don’t know if there are that many counties on each side of the border, but I think my explanation is at least plausible.
All these answers are correct - 26 counties in Republic of Ireland + 6 in Northern Ireland = 1 Ireland.
I’m pretty sure I’ve seen similar grafitti about Basque unity along the lines of 4 + 3 = 1 (four Basque provinces in Spain + three in France = 1 Basque country).
Correct, except that once again (pet peeve time) Éire is the Irish word for “Ireland” (the entire country/ island) and not just for “The Republic of Ireland”.
Maybe it means that in Ireland, they prefer all numeric calculations to be expressed (mod 31).
26+4=30 (mod 31)
26+5=0 (mod 31)
26+6=1 (mod 31)
32 counties? Christ, I think Virginia might have that many.
Small place.
Virginia has quite a few more.
More than anything, it means the driver is a dipstick.
Care to explain in another thread?
Definitely another thread. ** manwithaplan**, you will keep that crap out of General Questions.
This is not a request.
Another way of referring to the wish of Irish republicans to join the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland together as one country. The six counties of the north is one way they refer to NI as well as the occupied territories.
Northern Ireland, the “six” referred to in the OP and my place of birth, is ridiculously overqualified as a country. The amount of local goverment and tax money spent on the place is ludicrious. But then I think the only part of the UK earning its keep is southern England.
As a very pedantic quibble, 26+6 is technically inaccurate anyway. One of the 26 counties, Dublin, got so big it was split into 3, so the Republic currently has 28 counties.
It’s still a small place by American standards.
Ah, to be sure! Thank you very much, you all have answered my question. I always knew there was a large population of first generation Irishmen or women as it were, in this part of Connecticut. There are at least 2 to 3 dozen different cars whith this bumper sticker around my town. Thanks everyone.
Ireland is tiny compared to the US. However, I think the counties are generally bigger in area than the mean US county size.
Another one along the same lines is 32 or War (I reserve comment based on Manhattan’s admonition of manwithaplan).
I think you’ll find that Co. Dublin is still officially one county. It’s split into three administrative Boroughs. That doesn’t make them counties.
Actually it’s split into four administrative areas - Fingal, South Dublin, Dun-Laoghaire Rathdown and Dublin City (formerly Dublin Corporation). And even those divisions aren’t absolute - neither the Land Registry nor the GAA, to give two examples, makes any use of them.
I think you’ll find that Dun Laoghaire, Fingal and South Dublin are in fact officially counties.
The relevant act is the Local Government (Dublin) Act 1993, which iis available online here.
http://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/markup.cgi?doc=/ie/legis/num_act/lga1993238/longtitle.html&query=Fingal%20Dun%20Laoghaire
The long title of the act referenced here says the purpose of the Act “is to provice for the divison of the Administrative County of Dublin into 3 Administrative Counties” [known as Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown, Fingal and South Dublin]. If Dublin was a county, which it obviously was, then so are the 3 new ones, since they’re given identical descriptions to Dublin in the legislation.
Also the fact that the official web sites of the 3 areas all headline themselves as COUNTY councils is pretty convincing anyway.
http://www.fingalcoco.ie/
http://www.dlrcoco.ie/
http://www.sdcc.ie
Not to mention that the coco or cc in the domain names stands for County Council.
It’s unlikely all three are fundamentally mistaken about the nature of their existence
“Officially” or not, there is nobody in this country who actually considers the three to be counties in the sense that the word “county” is used here. Ask 100 people from Swords what county they’re from, and all 100 will say Dublin, not Fingal.
By the same token the six counties have no official status as such within the political entity known as “Northern Ireland”, but nobody would say there are 0 counties there.