James Baquet

The name “Ireland” signifies a couple of things. It is an island, located to the west of the island of Great Britain (on which are found England, Scotland and Wales). Ireland the island is divided into two portions: the northern sixth is always called “Northern Ireland” and is part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

But when most people refer to “Ireland,” they are probably talking about the country that occupies the other five-sixths of the island of Ireland, which is more properly called the Republic of Ireland, and has its capital in Dublin.

From time immemorial, Ireland (or “Eire”) was an independent land, with its own language (Irish, sometimes called Irish Gaelic), culture and subcultures and religion. Christianized in the fifth century, it nevertheless retained its own brand of that religion, though it became increasingly dominated by Rome over the centuries. You may have heard of Patrick, the quintessential Irish saint, whose day is celebrated on March 17.

With the Norman invasions of the late 12th century, Ireland came under the English yoke, and remained there to a greater or lesser extent until independence in the 20th century.

After a rebellion, Ireland was merged with Great Britain in 1800, forming the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. That union was dissolved in 1912, and independence was achieved in 1922. (Northern Ireland is composed of the six counties which chose to remain unified with the United Kingdom.)

But I cannot think of Ireland without thinking of its writers. James Joyce is one of my all-time favorite prose writers. Other well-known classics include “Gulliver’s Travels” and others by Jonathan Swift, and “Dracula” by Bram Stoker, which kicked off a vampire craze that has lasted well over a century. The poetry of William Butler Yeats leaves me breathless; he won a Nobel Prize in literature, as did George Bernard Shaw, Samuel Beckett and Seamus Heaney (who was born in Northern Ireland but lived in Dublin when he won the prize). And let’s not forget the inimitable Oscar Wilde.

Vocabulary:

Which word above means:

1. converted to Christianity

2. oppression, servitude

3. one-of-a-kind

4. popular movement, fad

5. in the most perfect form

6. the distant past

7. kind, variety

8. literature that is neither poetry nor drama — so, novels, short stories, etc.

9. makes known, shows

10. amount, limit