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103-549: Merrion Square ( Irish : Cearnóg Mhuirfean ) is a Georgian garden square on the southside of Dublin city centre. The square was laid out in 1762 to a plan by John Smyth and Jonathan Barker for the estate of Viscount FitzWilliam . Samuel Sproule later laid out the East side around 1780 and the gardens were created through a competition won by Benjamin Simpson in 1792 thanks to drawings created by John James Barralet . All of

206-473: A rotunda (1720–21) designed by Vanbrugh. In the 1730s, William Kent and James Gibbs were appointed to work with Bridgeman, who died in 1738. Kent remade the lake in a more natural shape, and created a new kind of garden, which took visitors on a tour of picturesque landscapes. It eventually included a Palladian bridge (1738); a Temple of Venus (1731) in the form of a Palladian villa; a Temple of Ancient Virtues (1737), with statues of famous Greeks and Romans;

309-547: A unique dialect of Irish developed before falling out of use in the early 20th century. With a writing system , Ogham , dating back to at least the 4th century AD, which was gradually replaced by Latin script since the 5th century AD, Irish has one of the oldest vernacular literatures in Western Europe . On the island, the language has three major dialects: Connacht , Munster and Ulster Irish . All three have distinctions in their speech and orthography . There

412-639: A Temple of British Worthies (1734–1735), with statues of British heroes; and a Temple of Modern Virtues, which was deliberately left in ruins, which contained a headless statue of Robert Walpole , Cobham's political rival. The garden attracted visitors from all over Europe, including Jean-Jacques Rousseau . It became the inspiration for landscape gardens in Britain and on the Continent. Stourhead , in Wiltshire (1741–1780), created by banker Henry Hoare ,

515-717: A bargaining chip during government formation in Northern Ireland, prompting protests from organisations and groups such as An Dream Dearg . Irish became an official language of the EU on 1 January 2007, meaning that MEPs with Irish fluency can now speak the language in the European Parliament and at committees, although in the case of the latter they have to give prior notice to a simultaneous interpreter in order to ensure that what they say can be interpreted into other languages. While an official language of

618-575: A better future for Ireland and all her citizens." The Strategy was produced on 21 December 2010 and will stay in action until 2030; it aims to target language vitality and revitalization of the Irish language. The 30-page document published by the Government of Ireland details the objectives it plans to work towards in an attempt to preserve and promote both the Irish language and the Gaeltacht. It

721-478: A cultural and social force. Irish speakers often insisted on using the language in law courts (even when they knew English), and Irish was also common in commercial transactions. The language was heavily implicated in the "devotional revolution" which marked the standardisation of Catholic religious practice and was also widely used in a political context. Down to the time of the Great Famine and even afterwards,

824-553: A degree course in the NUI federal system to pass the subject of Irish in the Leaving Certificate or GCE / GCSE examinations. Exemptions are made from this requirement for students who were born or completed primary education outside of Ireland, and students diagnosed with dyslexia . NUI Galway is required to appoint people who are competent in the Irish language, as long as they are also competent in all other aspects of

927-567: A distant view from above of the impressive ruins of Fountains Abbey . At Stowe, Capability Brown followed the new fashion between 1740 and 1753 by adding a new section to the park, called Hawkwelle Hill or the Gothic promenade, with a Gothic revival building. Walpole had decided in 1751 "to go Gothic", as he put it in a letter, and thereafter was a leading propagandist for the style, with his own house, Strawberry Hill in Twickenham , still

1030-460: A fully recognised EU language for the first time in the state's history. Before Irish became an official language it was afforded the status of treaty language and only the highest-level documents of the EU were made available in Irish. The Irish language was carried abroad in the modern period by a vast diaspora , chiefly to Great Britain and North America, but also to Australia , New Zealand and Argentina . The first large movements began in

1133-514: A garden à la française , including alleys forming a patte d'oie and canals, but they also featured a folly , a picturesque recreation of an Ionic temple set in a theatre of trees. Between 1733 and 1736, he redesigned the garden, adding lawns sloping down to the edge of the river and a small cascade. For the first time the form of a garden was inspired not by architecture, but by an idealized version of nature. Rousham House in Oxfordshire

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1236-506: A gently turning stream, used the natural landscape features and slopes, and created a series of views and tableaux decorated with allegorical statues of Apollo, a wounded gladiator, a lion attacking a horse, and other subjects. He placed eyecatchers , pieces of classical architecture, to decorate the landscape, and made use of the ha-ha , a concealed ditch that kept grazing animals out of the garden while giving an uninterrupted vista from within. Finally, he added cascades modelled on those of

1339-615: A lake, sweeps of gently rolling lawns set against groves of trees, and recreations of classical temples, Gothic ruins , bridges, and other picturesque architecture, designed to recreate an idyllic pastoral landscape. The work of Lancelot "Capability" Brown was particularly influential. By the end of the 18th century the English garden was being imitated by the French landscape garden , and as far away as St. Petersburg, Russia, in Pavlovsk ,

1442-483: A number of Romantic elements. Always present is a pond or small lake with a pier or bridge. Overlooking the pond is a round or hexagonal pavilion , often in the shape of a monopteros , a Roman temple. Sometimes the park also has a "Chinese" pavilion . Other elements include a grotto and imitation ruins . A second style of English garden, which became popular during the 20th century in France and northern Europe,

1545-530: A paper suggested that within a generation, non-Gaeltacht habitual users of Irish might typically be members of an urban, middle class, and highly educated minority. Parliamentary legislation is supposed to be available in both Irish and English but is frequently only available in English. This is notwithstanding that Article 25.4 of the Constitution of Ireland requires that an "official translation" of any law in one official language be provided immediately in

1648-476: A parenthesis; there I end it with a period and start on another theme." Brown designed 170 gardens. The most important were: Humphry Repton (21 April 1752 – 24 March 1818) was the last great English landscape designer of the eighteenth century, often regarded as the successor to Capability Brown. Repton hit upon the idea of becoming a "landscape gardener" (a term he himself coined) after failing at various ventures and, sensing an opportunity after Brown's death,

1751-575: A pass in Leaving Certificate Irish or English, and receive lessons in Irish during their two years of training. Official documents of the Irish government must be published in both Irish and English or Irish alone (in accordance with the Official Languages Act 2003, enforced by An Coimisinéir Teanga , the Irish language ombudsman). The National University of Ireland requires all students wishing to embark on

1854-628: A private key. Now managed by Dublin City Council , the park contains a statue of Oscar Wilde , who resided in No. 1, Merrion Square from 1855 to 1876, many other sculptures and a collection of old Dublin lamp standards . Irish-American sculptor Jerome Connor , best known for his work " Nuns of the Battlefield " in Washington D.C. , designed the public art piece, "Eire". The park also contains

1957-625: A religious context. An Irish translation of the Old Testament by Leinsterman Muircheartach Ó Cíonga , commissioned by Bishop Bedell , was published after 1685 along with a translation of the New Testament. Otherwise, Anglicisation was seen as synonymous with 'civilising' the native Irish. Currently, modern day Irish speakers in the church are pushing for language revival. It has been estimated that there were around 800,000 monoglot Irish speakers in 1800, which dropped to 320,000 by

2060-640: A sculpture of a Joker's Chair in memory of Father Ted star Dermot Morgan . The park in the square was called "Archbishop Ryan Park", after Dermot Ryan , the Catholic archbishop who transferred ownership to the city. In 2009, Dermot Ryan was criticised in the Murphy Report ; in January 2010, Dublin City Council sought public views on renaming the Park. In September 2010, the City Council voted to rename

2163-576: A sloping "Alpine Valley" of conifers , as one of the best of the new style of "forest or savage gardens". This was a style of woodland aiming at the sublime , a newly-fashionable concept in literature and the arts, or at the least to be picturesque , another new term. It really required steep slopes, even if not very high, along which paths could be made revealing dramatic views, by which contemporary viewers who had read Gothic novels like Walpole's The Castle of Otranto (1764) were very ready to be impressed. The appropriate style of garden buildings

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2266-545: A wider meaning, including the Gaelic of Scotland and the Isle of Man , as well as of Ireland. When required by the context, these are distinguished as Gaeilge na hAlban , Gaeilge Mhanann and Gaeilge na hÉireann respectively. In English (including Hiberno-English ), the language is usually referred to as Irish , as well as Gaelic and Irish Gaelic . The term Irish Gaelic may be seen when English speakers discuss

2369-523: Is a member of the Goidelic language group of the Insular Celtic sub branch of the family and is indigenous to the island of Ireland . It was the majority of the population's first language until the 19th century, when English gradually became dominant, particularly in the last decades of the century, in what is sometimes characterised as a result of linguistic imperialism . Today, Irish

2472-452: Is also An Caighdeán Oifigiúil , a standardised written form devised by a parliamentary commission in the 1950s. The traditional Irish alphabet , a variant of the Latin alphabet with 18 letters , has been succeeded by the standard Latin alphabet (albeit with 7–8 letters used primarily in loanwords ). Irish has constitutional status as the national and first official language of

2575-463: Is annexed, a Description of their Temples, Houses, Gardens, &c. published in 1757. In 1761 he built the Great Pagoda , London, as part of Kew Gardens , a park with gardens and architecture symbolizing all parts of the world and all architectural styles. Thereafter Chinese pagodas began to appear in other English gardens, then in France and elsewhere on the continent. French observers coined

2678-579: Is characteristically on a smaller scale; many are in or on the edge of cities, rather than in the middle of the countryside. Such gardens usually lack the sweeping vistas of gently rolling ground and water, which in England tend to be set against a woodland background with clumps of trees and outlier groves. Instead, they are often more densely studded with "eye-catchers", such as grottoes , temples , tea-houses , belvederes , pavilions , sham ruins , bridges, and statues. The name English garden – not used in

2781-541: Is considered by some as the most accomplished and significant of William Kent's work. The patron was General James Dormer , who commissioned Bridgeman to begin the garden in 1727, then brought in Kent to recreate it in 1737. Bridgeman had built a series of garden features including a grotto of Venus on the slope along the River Cherwell , connected by straight alleys. Kent turned the alleys into winding paths, built

2884-511: Is divided into four separate phases with the intention of improving 9 main areas of action including: The general goal for this strategy was to increase the number of daily speakers from 83,000 to 250,000 by the end of its run. By 2022, the number of such speakers had fallen to 71,968. Before the partition of Ireland in 1921, Irish was recognised as a school subject and as "Celtic" in some third level institutions. Between 1921 and 1972, Northern Ireland had devolved government. During those years

2987-587: Is only in Gaeltacht areas that Irish continues to be spoken as a community vernacular to some extent. According to data compiled by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht , Sport and Media , only 1/4 of households in Gaeltacht areas are fluent in Irish. The author of a detailed analysis of the survey, Donncha Ó hÉallaithe of the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology , described

3090-588: Is still commonly spoken as a first language in Ireland's Gaeltacht regions, in which 2% of Ireland's population lived in 2022. The total number of people (aged 3 and over) in Ireland who declared they could speak Irish in April 2022 was 1,873,997, representing 40% of respondents, but of these, 472,887 said they never spoke it and a further 551,993 said they only spoke it within the education system. Linguistic analyses of Irish speakers are therefore based primarily on

3193-412: Is still spoken daily to some extent as a first language . These regions are known individually and collectively as the Gaeltacht (plural Gaeltachtaí ). While the fluent Irish speakers of these areas, whose numbers have been estimated at 20–30,000, are a minority of the total number of fluent Irish speakers, they represent a higher concentration of Irish speakers than other parts of the country and it

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3296-666: The Fíor-Ghaeltacht (true Gaeltacht ), a term originally officially applied to areas where over 50% of the population spoke Irish. There are Gaeltacht regions in the following counties: Gweedore ( Gaoth Dobhair ), County Donegal, is the largest Gaeltacht parish in Ireland. Irish language summer colleges in the Gaeltacht are attended by tens of thousands of teenagers annually. Students live with Gaeltacht families, attend classes, participate in sports, go to céilithe and are obliged to speak Irish. All aspects of Irish culture and tradition are encouraged. The Act

3399-702: The British Embassy was based at No 39. However, following the Bloody Sunday shootings in Northern Ireland , a crowd of over 20,000 people converged on the site in protest and the building was burnt to the ground . Currently, the Embassies of France, Korea and Slovakia are based on the south side of the square and the Church of Scientology's National Affairs Office has been housed at No 4 on

3502-556: The Claremont Landscape Garden at Claremont House (1715–1727). These parks featured vast lawns, woods, and pieces of architecture, such as the classical mausoleum designed by Hawksmoor at Castle Howard. At the centre of the composition was the house, behind which were formal and symmetrical gardens in the style of the garden à la française , with ornate carpets of floral designs and walls of hedges, decorated with statues and fountains. These gardens, modelled after

3605-634: The Essonne department, (1784–1786). Even at Versailles, the home of the most classical of all French gardens, a small English landscape park with a Roman temple was built and a mock village, the Hameau de la Reine (1783–1789), was created for Marie Antoinette . The new style also spread to Germany. The central English Grounds of Wörlitz , in the Principality of Anhalt , was laid out between 1769 and 1773 by Leopold III, Duke of Anhalt-Dessau , based on

3708-740: The Oireachtas ), Government Buildings , the Natural History Museum and the National Gallery . The central railed-off garden is now a public park. The Wellington Testimonial to commemorate the victories of Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington , was originally planned to be located in Merrion Square. However, it was built in the Phoenix Park after opposition from the square's residents. Until about

3811-631: The Republic of Ireland , and is also an official language of Northern Ireland and among the official languages of the European Union . The public body Foras na Gaeilge is responsible for the promotion of the language throughout the island. Irish has no regulatory body but An Caighdeán Oifigiúil , the standard written form, is guided by a parliamentary service and new vocabulary by a voluntary committee with university input. In An Caighdeán Oifigiúil ("The Official [Written] Standard ")

3914-679: The United Kingdom , where "landscape garden" serves – differentiates it from the formal Baroque design of the garden à la française . One of the best-known English gardens in Europe is the Englischer Garten in Munich . The dominant style was revised in the early 19th century to include more " gardenesque " features, including shrubberies with gravelled walks, tree plantations to satisfy botanical curiosity, and, most notably,

4017-692: The Veneto and the landscapes and ruins around Rome – he lived in Italy from 1709 to 1719, and brought back many drawings of antique architecture and landscapes. His gardens were designed to complement the Palladian architecture of the houses he built. Charles Bridgeman (1690–1738) was the son of a gardener and an experienced horticulturist, who became the Royal Gardener for Queen Anne and Prince George of Denmark , responsible for tending and redesigning

4120-423: The gardens of Versailles , were designed to impress visitors with their size and grandeur. The new style that became known as the English garden was invented by landscape designers William Kent and Charles Bridgeman , working for wealthy patrons, including Richard Temple, 1st Viscount Cobham ; Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington ; and banker Henry Hoare . These men had large country estates, were members of

4223-495: The 'meagre genius of the bare and bald', criticizing Brown's smooth, serpentine curves as bland and unnatural and championing rugged and intricate designs, composed according to ' picturesque theory' that designed landscapes should be composed like landscape paintings, with a foreground, a middle ground and a background. Early in his career, Repton defended Brown's reputation during the 'picturesque controversy'. However, as his career progressed Repton came to apply picturesque theory to

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4326-634: The 17th century, largely as a result of the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland , which saw many Irish sent to the West Indies . Irish emigration to the United States was well established by the 18th century, and was reinforced in the 1840s by thousands fleeing from the Famine . This flight also affected Britain. Up until that time most emigrants spoke Irish as their first language, though English

4429-709: The 1950s, the houses in the square were largely residential, but today most of them are used for office accommodation. The Irish Red Cross , the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland and the Irish Georgian Society have their headquarters on the square. The National Maternity Hospital is on the North terrace. The poet, novelist, and satirist Oscar Wilde lived at No. 1, poet W. B. Yeats lived at No. 82, and Daniel O'Connell at No. 58,

4532-789: The 1998 Good Friday Agreement , the language gradually received a degree of formal recognition in Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom, and then, in 2003, by the British government's ratification in respect of the language of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages . In the 2006 St Andrews Agreement the British government promised to enact legislation to promote the language and in 2022 it approved legislation to recognise Irish as an official language alongside English. The bill received royal assent on 6 December 2022. The Irish language has often been used as

4635-403: The 6th century, used the Latin alphabet and is attested primarily in marginalia to Latin manuscripts. During this time, the Irish language absorbed some Latin words, some via Old Welsh , including ecclesiastical terms : examples are easpag (bishop) from episcopus , and Domhnach (Sunday, from dominica ). By the 10th century, Old Irish had evolved into Middle Irish , which

4738-571: The Act all detailing different aspects of the use of Irish in official documentation and communication. Included in these sections are subjects such as Irish language use in official courts, official publications, and placenames. The Act was recently amended in December 2019 in order to strengthen the already preexisting legislation. All changes made took into account data collected from online surveys and written submissions. The Official Languages Scheme

4841-631: The British Red Cross Society worked together in a joint effort as part of the war effort. This ensured services did not overlap with each other. Both organisations were a familiar sight among Irish people, particularly at Merrion Square where St. John Ambulance operated for almost 50 years. The headquarters of St. John Ambulance was situated at 40 Merrion Square during WWI later moving to 14 Merrion Square. Today they are located at Lumsden House, 29 Upper Leeson Street, Dublin 4 (see St John Ambulance archive for further info). Merrion Square

4944-471: The European Union , only co-decision regulations were available until 2022, due to a five-year derogation, requested by the Irish Government when negotiating the language's new official status. The Irish government had committed itself to train the necessary number of translators and interpreters and to bear the related costs. This derogation ultimately came to an end on 1 January 2022, making Irish

5047-583: The Great adapted the new style in the park of her palace at Tsarskoe Selo , complete with a mock Chinese village and a Palladian bridge , modeled after that at Wilton House . A much larger park was created for her son Paul in the neighbouring estate of Pavlovsk . The Monrepos Park is sited on the rocky island of Linnasaari in the Vyborg Bay and is noted for its glacially deposited boulders and granite rocks. The continental European "English garden"

5150-549: The Irish language policy followed by Irish governments as a "complete and absolute disaster". The Irish Times , referring to his analysis published in the Irish language newspaper Foinse , quoted him as follows: "It is an absolute indictment of successive Irish Governments that at the foundation of the Irish State there were 250,000 fluent Irish speakers living in Irish-speaking or semi Irish-speaking areas, but

5253-620: The Republic of Ireland ), new appointees to the Civil Service of the Republic of Ireland , including postal workers , tax collectors , agricultural inspectors, Garda Síochána (police), etc., were required to have some proficiency in Irish. By law, a Garda who was addressed in Irish had to respond in Irish as well. In 1974, in part through the actions of protest organisations like the Language Freedom Movement ,

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5356-516: The anti-royalist Whig Party, had classical educations, were patrons of the arts, and had taken the Grand Tour to Italy, where they had seen the Roman ruins and Italian landscapes they reproduced in their gardens. William Kent (1685–1748) was an architect, painter and furniture designer who introduced Palladian -style architecture to England. Kent's inspiration came from Palladio 's buildings in

5459-746: The beginning of the following academic year. For a number of years there has been vigorous debate in political, academic and other circles about the failure of most students in English-medium schools to achieve competence in Irish, even after fourteen years of teaching as one of the three main subjects. The concomitant decline in the number of traditional native speakers has also been a cause of great concern. In 2007, filmmaker Manchán Magan found few Irish speakers in Dublin , and faced incredulity when trying to get by speaking only Irish in Dublin. He

5562-419: The construction of the first Chinese-style building in an English garden, in the garden of Stowe House , at a time when chinoiserie was popular in most forms of the decorative arts across Europe. The style became even more popular thanks to William Chambers (1723–1796), who lived in China from 1745 to 1747, and wrote a book, Designs of Chinese Buildings, Furniture, Dresses, Machines, and Utensils. To which

5665-457: The end of the Seven Years' War in 1763, French noblemen were able to voyage to England and see the gardens for themselves, and the style began to be adapted in French gardens. The new style also had the advantage of requiring fewer gardeners, and was easier to maintain, than the French garden. One of the first English gardens on the continent was at Ermenonville , in France, built by marquis René Louis de Girardin from 1763 to 1776 and based on

5768-414: The end of the famine, and under 17,000 by 1911. Irish is recognised by the Constitution of Ireland as the national and first official language of Republic of Ireland (English being the other official language). Despite this, almost all government business and legislative debate is conducted in English. In 1938, the founder of Conradh na Gaeilge (Gaelic League), Douglas Hyde , was inaugurated as

5871-524: The eye and create beautiful compositions, with an understatement criticizing the formal compositions of the gardens at the Palace of Versailles of Louis XIV of France . His observations on the Chinese garden were cited by the essayist Joseph Addison in an essay in 1712, who used them to attack the English gardeners who, instead of imitating nature, tried to make their gardens in the French style, as far from nature as possible. The novelty and exoticism of Chinese art and architecture in Europe led in 1738 to

5974-430: The first President of Ireland . The record of his delivering his inaugural Declaration of Office in Roscommon Irish is one of only a few recordings of that dialect. In the 2016 census, 10.5% of respondents stated that they spoke Irish, either daily or weekly, while over 70,000 people (4.2%) speak it as a habitual daily means of communication. From the foundation of the Irish Free State in 1922 (see History of

6077-446: The garden of Villa Aldobrandini and Villa di Pratolino in Italy, to add movement and drama. Stowe Gardens , in Buckinghamshire , (1730–1738), was an even more radical departure from the formal French garden. In the early 18th century, Richard Temple, 1st Viscount Cobham , had commissioned Charles Bridgeman to design a formal garden, with architectural decorations by John Vanbrugh . Bridgeman's design included an octagonal lake and

6180-540: The gardens of the future Emperor Paul . It also had a major influence on the forms of public parks and gardens which appeared around the world in the 19th century. The English landscape garden was usually centred on the English country house , and many examples in the United Kingdom are popular visitor attractions today. The predecessors of the landscape garden in England were the great parks created by Sir John Vanbrugh (1664–1726) and Nicholas Hawksmoor at Castle Howard (1699–1712), Blenheim Palace (1705–1722), and

6283-406: The ideals of Jean Jacques Rousseau , who was buried within the park. Rousseau and the garden's founder had visited Stowe a few years earlier. Other early examples were the Désert de Retz , Yvelines (1774–1782); the Gardens of the Château de Bagatelle in the Bois de Boulogne , west of Paris (1777–1784); The Folie Saint James , in Neuilly-sur-Seine , (1777–1780); and the Château de Méréville , in

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6386-400: The landscape seem even larger. "He sought to create an ideal landscape out of the English countryside." He created artificial lakes and used dams and canals to transform streams or springs into the illusion that a river flowed through the garden. He compared his own role as a garden designer to that of a poet or composer. "Here I put a comma, there, when it's necessary to cut the view, I put

6489-498: The language family, is derived from the Old Irish term. Endonyms of the language in the various modern Irish dialects include: Gaeilge [ˈɡeːlʲɟə] in Galway, Gaeilg / Gaeilic / Gaeilig [ˈɡeːlʲəc] in Mayo and Ulster , Gaelainn / Gaoluinn [ˈɡeːl̪ˠən̠ʲ] in West/Cork, Kerry Munster , as well as Gaedhealaing in mid and East Kerry/Cork and Waterford Munster to reflect local pronunciation. Gaeilge also has

6592-410: The language was in use by all classes, Irish being an urban as well as a rural language. This linguistic dynamism was reflected in the efforts of certain public intellectuals to counter the decline of the language. At the end of the 19th century, they launched the Gaelic revival in an attempt to encourage the learning and use of Irish, although few adult learners mastered the language. The vehicle of

6695-425: The language. For most of recorded Irish history , Irish was the dominant language of the Irish people , who took it with them to other regions , such as Scotland and the Isle of Man , where Middle Irish gave rise to Scottish Gaelic and Manx . It was also, for a period, spoken widely across Canada , with an estimated 200,000–250,000 daily Canadian speakers of Irish in 1890. On the island of Newfoundland ,

6798-450: The later development of the English landscape garden was Lancelot "Capability" Brown (1716–1783), who began his career in 1740 as a gardener at Stowe Gardens under Charles Bridgeman , then succeeded William Kent in 1748. Brown's contribution was to simplify the garden by eliminating geometric structures, alleys, and parterres near the house and replacing them with rolling lawns and extensive views out to isolated groups of trees, making

6901-575: The latter of which is now known as the O'Connell House, home to the Keough Naughton Centre of the University of Notre Dame , an American college. The fashion and interior designer Sybil Connolly lived at No. 71. A number of houses in the square have plaques with historical information on former notable residents, including A.E. ( George William Russell ) and Sheridan Le Fanu . Despite the square being largely occupied by commercial entities, there are still several residents, including fashion designer Louise Kennedy and tycoon Dermot Desmond . Until 1972

7004-461: The main example of this style is Łazienki Park in Warsaw . The garden scheme owes its shape and appearance mainly to the last king of the country Stanisław August Poniatowski . In another part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth the Sofiyivka Park (Zofiówka), now Ukraine , was designed by Count Stanisław Szczęsny Potocki so as to illustrate the Odyssey and the Iliad . The style also spread rapidly to Russia , where in 1774 Catherine

7107-399: The mid-18th century, English was becoming a language of the Catholic middle class, the Catholic Church and public intellectuals, especially in the east of the country. Increasingly, as the value of English became apparent, parents sanctioned the prohibition of Irish in schools. Increasing interest in emigrating to the United States and Canada was also a driver, as fluency in English allowed

7210-408: The models of Claremont , Stourhead and Stowe Landscape Gardens . Another notable example was The Englischer Garten in Munich , Germany , created in 1789 by Sir Benjamin Thompson (1753–1814). In the Netherlands the landscape-architect Lucas Pieters Roodbaard (1782–1851) designed several gardens and parks in this style. The style was introduced to Sweden by Fredrik Magnus Piper . In Poland

7313-504: The most extreme example of 18th-century "Gothick" style. According to some writers, especially French ones, the Far East inspired the origins of the English landscape garden, via Holland. In 1685, the English writer, formerly a diplomat at The Hague , Sir William Temple wrote an essay Upon the garden of Epicurus (published in 1690), including a passage which contrasted European symmetrical and formal gardens with asymmetrical compositions from China, for which he introduced (as Chinese)

7416-804: The name of the language is Gaeilge , from the South Connacht form, spelled Gaedhilge prior the spelling reform of 1948, which was originally the genitive of Gaedhealg , the form used in Classical Gaelic . The modern spelling results from the deletion of the silent ⟨dh⟩ in Gaedhilge . Older spellings include Gaoidhealg [ˈɡeːʝəlˠəɡ] in Classical Gaelic and Goídelc [ˈɡoiðʲelɡ] in Old Irish . Goidelic , used to refer to

7519-469: The new immigrants to get jobs in areas other than farming. An estimated one quarter to one third of US immigrants during the Great Famine were Irish speakers. Irish was not marginal to Ireland's modernisation in the 19th century, as is often assumed. In the first half of the century there were still around three million people for whom Irish was the primary language, and their numbers alone made them

7622-454: The new style was making woodland more interesting and ornamental, leading to the establishment of the woodland garden as a distinct type. This took several forms, one of which was helped by the developing Gothic revival . Horace Walpole , a great promoter of the English landscape garden style, praised Painshill in Surrey, whose varied features included a shrubbery with American plants, and

7725-867: The nineteenth century. Repton published four major books on garden design: Sketches and Hints on Landscape Gardening (1795), Observations on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening (1803), An Inquiry into the Changes of Taste in Landscape Gardening (1806) and Fragments on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening (1816). These drew on material and techniques used in the Red Books. These works greatly influenced other landscape-designers including John Claudius Loudon , John Nash , Jean-Charles Adolphe Alphand , Hermann Ludwig Heinrich Pückler-Muskau and Frederick Law Olmsted . One aspect of

7828-481: The north side since October 2016. The earliest plan of the park shows a double line of trees around the perimeter which was later enclosed by railings in the early years of the 19th century. A Jardin Anglaise approach was adopted for the layout of the park with contoured grass areas, informal tree clumps, sunken curved paths and perimeter planting. Up until 1974, the park was only open to residents in possession of

7931-655: The number now is between 20,000 and 30,000." In the 1920s, when the Irish Free State was founded, Irish was still a vernacular in some western coastal areas. In the 1930s, areas where more than 25% of the population spoke Irish were classified as Gaeltacht . Today, the strongest Gaeltacht areas, numerically and socially, are those of South Connemara , the west of the Dingle Peninsula , and northwest Donegal, where many residents still use Irish as their primary language. These areas are often referred to as

8034-624: The number of daily users in Ireland outside the education system, which in 2022 was 20,261 in the Gaeltacht and 51,707 outside it, totalling 71,968. In response to the 2021 census of Northern Ireland , 43,557 individuals stated they spoke Irish on a daily basis, 26,286 spoke it on a weekly basis, 47,153 spoke it less often than weekly, and 9,758 said they could speak Irish, but never spoke it. From 2006 to 2008, over 22,000 Irish Americans reported speaking Irish as their first language at home, with several times that number claiming "some knowledge" of

8137-503: The other official language, if not already passed in both official languages. In November 2016, RTÉ reported that over 2.3 million people worldwide were learning Irish through the Duolingo app. Irish president Michael D. Higgins officially honoured several volunteer translators for developing the Irish edition, and said the push for Irish language rights remains an "unfinished project". There are rural areas of Ireland where Irish

8240-651: The park as Merrion Square Park. The park was also used by the St John Ambulance Brigade for annual events such as reviews and first aid competitions. The organisation was founded in 1903 by Sir John Lumsden KBE MD. During this time Dr Lumsden was living nearby at 4 Fitzwilliam Place. He was the chief medical officer at the Guinness Brewery and practised at Mercer's Hospital. During the First World War, both St. John Ambulance and

8343-557: The political party holding power in the Stormont Parliament , the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), was hostile to the language. The context of this hostility was the use of the language by nationalists. In broadcasting, there was an exclusion on the reporting of minority cultural issues, and Irish was excluded from radio and television for almost the first fifty years of the previous devolved government. After

8446-435: The practice of landscape design. He believed that the foreground should be the realm of art (with formal geometry and ornamental planting), that the middle ground should have a parkland character of the type created by Brown and that the background should have a wild and 'natural' character. Repton re-introduced formal terraces, balustrades , trellis work and flower gardens around the house in a way that became common practice in

8549-492: The relationship between the three Goidelic languages (Irish, Scottish Gaelic and Manx). Gaelic is a collective term for the Goidelic languages, and when the context is clear it may be used without qualification to refer to each language individually. When the context is specific but unclear, the term may be qualified, as Irish Gaelic, Scottish Gaelic or Manx Gaelic. Historically the name "Erse" ( / ɜːr s / URS )

8652-432: The requirement for entrance to the public service was changed to proficiency in just one official language. Nevertheless, Irish remains a required subject of study in all schools in the Republic of Ireland that receive public money (see Education in the Republic of Ireland ). Teachers in primary schools must also pass a compulsory examination called Scrúdú Cáilíochta sa Ghaeilge . As of 2005, Garda Síochána recruits need

8755-406: The return of flowers, in skirts of sweeping planted beds. This is the version of the landscape garden most imitated in Europe in the 19th century. The outer areas of the "home park" of English country houses retain their naturalistic shaping. English gardening since the 1840s has been on a more restricted scale, closer and more allied to the residence. The canonical European English park contains

8858-712: The revival was the Gaelic League ( Conradh na Gaeilge ), and particular emphasis was placed on the folk tradition, which in Irish is particularly rich. Efforts were also made to develop journalism and a modern literature. Although it has been noted that the Catholic Church played a role in the decline of the Irish language before the Gaelic Revival, the Protestant Church of Ireland also made only minor efforts to encourage use of Irish in

8961-462: The royal gardens at Windsor , Kensington Palace , Hampton Court , St. James's Park and Hyde Park . He collaborated with Kent on several major gardens, providing the botanical expertise which allowed Kent to realize his architectural visions. Kent created one of the first true English landscape gardens at Chiswick House for Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington . The first gardens that he laid out between 1724 and 1733 had many formal elements of

9064-621: The surrounding houses were largely complete by the beginning of the 19th century. The demand for such Georgian townhouse residences south of the River Liffey had been fuelled by the decision of the then Earl of Kildare (later the Duke of Leinster ) to build his Dublin home on the then undeveloped southside . He constructed the largest aristocratic residence in Dublin, Leinster House , second only to Dublin Castle . Aristocrats, bishops and

9167-606: The term sharawadgi , in fact probably a mangled Japanese word for "irregularity". Temple had never visited the Far East, but he was in contact with the Dutch and their discourse on irregularity in design, had spoken to a merchant who had been in the Far East for a long time, and read the works of European travellers there. He noted that Chinese gardens avoided formal rows of trees and flower beds, and instead placed trees, plants, and other garden features in irregular ways to strike

9270-551: The term Jardin Anglo-Chinois (Anglo-Chinese garden) for this style of garden. Descriptions of English gardens were first brought to France by Jean-Bernard, abbé Le Blanc , who published accounts of his voyage in 1745 and 1751. A treatise, and tour guide, on the English garden, Observations on Modern Gardening , written by Thomas Whately and published in London in 1770, was translated into French and German in 1771. After

9373-671: The vacancy to which they are appointed. This requirement is laid down by the University College Galway Act, 1929 (Section 3). In 2016, the university faced controversy when it announced the planned appointment of a president who did not speak Irish. Misneach staged protests against this decision. The following year the university announced that Ciarán Ó hÓgartaigh , a fluent Irish speaker, would be its 13th president. He assumed office in January 2018; in June 2024, he announced he would be stepping down as president at

9476-544: The wealthy sold their northside townhouses and migrated to the new southside developments. All the original 18th century properties in Merrion Square have survived to the present day except for Antrim House which was demolished to make way for the National Maternity Hospital in the 1930s. Three sides are lined with Georgian redbrick townhouses ; the West side abuts the grounds of Leinster House (seat of

9579-594: The work of such writers as Geoffrey Keating , is said to date from the 17th century, and was the medium of popular literature from that time on. From the 18th century on, the language lost ground in the east of the country. The reasons behind this shift were complex but came down to a number of factors: The change was characterised by diglossia (two languages being used by the same community in different social and economic situations) and transitional bilingualism (monoglot Irish-speaking grandparents with bilingual children and monoglot English-speaking grandchildren). By

9682-470: Was Gothic rather than Neoclassical , and exotic planting was more likely to be evergreen conifers rather than flowering plants, replacing "the charm of bright, pleasant scenery in favour of the dark and rugged, gloomy and dramatic". A leading example of the style was Studley Royal in North Yorkshire , which had the great advantage, at what was known as "The Surprise View", of suddenly revealing

9785-500: Was a fashionable address for politicians, lawyers, doctors and writers. Notable residents include; Citations Sources [REDACTED] Media related to Merrion Square at Wikimedia Commons Irish language Irish ( Standard Irish : Gaeilge ), also known as Irish Gaelic or simply Gaelic ( / ˈ ɡ eɪ l ɪ k / GAY -lik ), is a Celtic language of the Indo-European language family . It

9888-531: Was also sometimes used in Scots and then in English to refer to Irish; as well as Scottish Gaelic. Written Irish is first attested in Ogham inscriptions from the 4th century AD, a stage of the language known as Primitive Irish . These writings have been found throughout Ireland and the west coast of Great Britain. Primitive Irish underwent a change into Old Irish through the 5th century. Old Irish, dating from

9991-410: Was ambitious to fill the gap and sent circulars round his contacts in the upper classes advertising his services. To help clients visualize his designs, Repton produced 'Red Books' (so called for their binding) with explanatory text and watercolors with a system of overlays to show 'before' and 'after' views. In 1794 Richard Payne Knight and Uvedale Price simultaneously published vicious attacks on

10094-668: Was enacted 1 July 2019 and is an 18-page document that adheres to the guidelines of the Official Languages Act 2003 . The purpose of the Scheme is to provide services through the mediums of Irish and/or English. According to the Department of the Taoiseach, it is meant to "develop a sustainable economy and a successful society, to pursue Ireland's interests abroad, to implement the Government's Programme and to build

10197-534: Was establishing itself as the primary language. Irish speakers had first arrived in Australia in the late 18th century as convicts and soldiers, and many Irish-speaking settlers followed, particularly in the 1860s. New Zealand also received some of this influx. Argentina was the only non-English-speaking country to receive large numbers of Irish emigrants, and there were few Irish speakers among them. English landscape garden The English garden usually included

10300-499: Was one of the first 'picturesque' gardens, inspired to resemble the paintings of Claude Lorrain . Hoare had travelled to Italy on the Grand Tour and had returned with a painting by Claude Lorrain. Hoare dammed a stream on his estate, created a lake, and surrounded the lake with landscapes and architectural constructions representing the different steps of the journey of Aeneas in the Aeneid by Virgil . The most influential figure in

10403-474: Was passed 14 July 2003 with the main purpose of improving the number and quality of public services delivered in Irish by the government and other public bodies. Compliance with the Act is monitored by the An Coimisinéir Teanga (Irish Language Commissioner) which was established in 2004 and any complaints or concerns pertaining to the Act are brought to them. There are 35 sections included in

10506-693: Was spoken throughout Ireland, Isle of Man and parts of Scotland . It is the language of a large corpus of literature, including the Ulster Cycle . From the 12th century, Middle Irish began to evolve into modern Irish in Ireland, into Scottish Gaelic in Scotland, and into the Manx language in the Isle of Man . Early Modern Irish , dating from the 13th century, was the basis of the literary language of both Ireland and Gaelic-speaking Scotland. Modern Irish, sometimes called Late Modern Irish, as attested in

10609-442: Was unable to accomplish some everyday tasks, as portrayed in his documentary No Béarla . There is, however, a growing body of Irish speakers in urban areas, particularly in Dublin. Many have been educated in schools in which Irish is the language of instruction. Such schools are known as Gaelscoileanna at primary level. These Irish-medium schools report some better outcomes for students than English-medium schools. In 2009,

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