EIRE
(AIR-uh)
The
Irish name of the island called Ireland in the English
language Common
clues: Emerald Isle; Dublin's land; Land
of the leprechauns; Cork's place; Hibernia; The Auld Sod; Green
land; Ireland; Joyce's land Related crosswordese:
ERIN Crossword
puzzle frequency:
once a month Frequency
in English language:
22407 / 86800 Video: Eire
Éire
is the nominative form in modern Irish of the name for the
goddess called Ériu in Old Irish, a mythical figure who
helped the Gaels conquer Ireland as described in the Book of
Invasions. It is still used in the Irish language today to refer
to the whole island of Ireland.
Éire
is also the official name of the Republic of Ireland, which has
sovereignty over most of the island of Ireland.
True-colour
satellite image of Ireland, known in Irish as Éire.
Difference
between Éire and Erin
While
Éire is simply the name for Ireland in the Irish language,
and sometimes used in the English, Erin is a common poetic name
for Ireland in English. The distinction between the two is one of
the differences between cases of nouns in Irish. Éire is
the nominative case, the case that is used for nouns that are the
subject of a sentence i.e. the noun that is doing something. Erin
is a Hiberno-English derivative of Éirinn, the Irish
dative case of Éire i.e. a noun to which something is
given, as in the phrase Éirinn Go Brách ((To)
Ireland for Ever). It is very common to also see Éireann
used in the titles of companies and institutions in Ireland e.g.
Iarnród Éireann (Irish Rail), Dáil Éireann
(Irish Parliament) or Poblacht na hÉireann (The Irish
Republic). This is Éire in its genitive case, when it
marks possession of another noun or being the most important noun
in a multi-noun combination.
This
article is licensed under the GNU
Free Documentation License.
It uses material from the Wikipedia
article "Éire".
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