Saying there’s “nobody” who considers them counties is a bit of an overstatement, don’t you think ?
The list of people who presumably do consider them counties includes the designers of their web sites, the majority of the Dail that passed the Bill establishing them as counties, at least some of those elected as county councillors for the three areas, and the planning authorities, which treats them exactly the same as all the other counties. And I live in Ireland, and I consider them counties…and I just asked my sister, who lives in Dun Laoghaire, what county she lives in,and she said, unprompted, Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown.
In any event, even if the “nobody” claim was true, it would just be another case where a universal popular perception was wrong …the Dail has decided they’re counties, absent constitutional challenge they are therefore counties.
Anyway it’s all a long way from the original post, and verging into great debate territory anyway.
Back when they divided Dublin into three there was a sign on the M1 saying “Welcome to Co. Fingal” but it was changed to just
“Welcome to Fingal” shortly thereafter.
Another stupid pedantic point Northern Ireland is no longer officially divided into six counties. It now comprises 20+ districts but i think Ruadh was referring to that.
anyway…
Mogiaw
Apologies for my earlier post - it wasn’t appropriate for GQ. FWIW, it wasn’t meant to put forward a view on the national question - my posting history makes that quite clear. It was more a point to express my uneasiness at hearing that something like that appears on bumper stickers. Nonetheless, even that wasn’t appropriate to the forum and it was very open to interpretation so it’s a lesson learned.
I have a close association with the legislation which split the former Dublin County Council in three. williambaskerville is correct in stating that the new authorities have precisely the same administrative status as all other county authorities. However, the significance of the county has long outgrown its administrative roots. Like Ruadh, I am very skeptical about whether anyone identifies with the new counties on anything more than a functional level. The then Minister for the Environment was at pains to stress that the creation of the new authorities would not affect sporting organisations etc. - as far as I can recall, he stated that in his second stage speeches in both Dail and Seanad. It’s clear that Irish peoples’ identification with the county is not determined by who collects their bins, rather it’s down to the adoption of those administrative districts by sporting and cultural organisations. DL/R, Fingal et al have quite a way to go on that count.
Also, as Kerrienensis points out, Tipp has two county councils and no-one refers to them as separate counties. Also, nobody would suggest that residents of former county boroughs, now cities (Dublin, Cork, Galway, Limerick and Waterford), are not from the relevant ‘county’.
This is a poor site (with several mistakes on it including Ruadhs favoutite - using Eire for the Republic) but it has a picture of the NI district councils and the original counties too. So I thought I’d link it anyway. Here it is.
