Just had a quick look at a Euro and it says Eire on it too. I remember when I was a very small child that the Irish pound was pegged to Sterling, and you could spend punts in Northern Ireland. Even after the currency was unpegged you could still use Irish copper coins in Northern Ireland until well into the 1980s.
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Irish Rover Tickets
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Just had a quick look at a Euro and it says Eire on it too. I remember when I was a very small child that the Irish pound was pegged to Sterling, and you could spend punts in Northern Ireland. Even after the currency was unpegged you could still use Irish copper coins in Northern Ireland until well into the 1980s.
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Flying Snail
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The only people I have ever heard using Éire in regular conversation are British people. It would not be used here at all and certainly not as a reference to the state as opposed to the island.
It would be like using Deutschland in an English language conversation as meaning the former West Germany.
What I mean is it persists officially in some ways. Interestingly some of the most enthusiastic users of the term Eire I've heard are fairly hardline Loyalists in Northern Ireland, who seem to enjoy saying it for some reason.
The term is very frequently used (and pronounced 'Air') by people in the transport and retail industries in this country, when talking about their operations in Ireland. I'm not sure why this should be. The same people often refer to Northern Ireland as 'Ireland', so I guess it's just a question of ignorance.
Flying Snail
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It'll be where the fenian bar stewards live I imagine.
I imagine to them it is a damning insullt, doesn't bother me at all but if it keeps them occupied...
I have no idea either how it came to be shorthand for RoI but I suppose it is relatively harmless. Using the term "The Mainland" to refer to Britain while standing on Irish soil is a different matter and I have started a barfight over that one. (bar-argument may be a more accurate description but it doesn't sound as good)
Bringing the thread back on topic I had no idea that they had cut the range of rover tickets, seemingly the only remaining one covering all of Ireland is the bus only ticket. Why they dropped the rail only one and the Emerald Card which covered all CIE and Translink bus and rail I don't know but in recent years the price of them seemed to go pretty high so I would guess what little demand there was dropped off.
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No terminology referring to geography in Ireland is neutral when used by people in Ireland, or by British people who know something about it. I studiedly only ever use the terms 'Northern Ireland' and 'Republic of Ireland', and never terms like 'The North', 'The South', 'Ulster', 'The Six Counties', 'Eire' etc. To do so is to give away your views on partition, even if only inadvertantly. I have sometimes bizarre conversations with my in laws (in Dublin) who always refer to NI as 'The North', and I always say 'Northern Ireland'. This has been going on for years and everyone tacitly accepts it and never comments or attempts to correct. For the problematic city in the North West I have evolved the strategy of always saying 'Derry' and always writing 'Londonderry', as the latter seems more formal (and is in fact formally correct in the sense I most often have to use it in, that is Royal Mail addresses), and written language lends itself to greater formality. I had the reverse experience with my [protestant] grandparents in NI on this, where I would in conversation always say 'Derry', while they would equally studiedly say 'Londonderry', again without anyone commenting or attempting to correct or justify. What a peculiar place!
Thewanderer
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Well this topic has well and truly gone off topic! 
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