‘Irish Republic’, ‘Eire’ or ‘Ireland’? The Contested Name of John Bull's Other Island

One of the less visible consequences of the Good Friday (Belfast) Agreement of 1998 was that it finally put to rest a fifty year dispute between Ireland and the United Kingdom about the names of the respective states. This article begins by outlining the constitutional background to this complex terminological dispute, and then examines it from three perspectives. The first is that of the Irish state itself, which in recent decades has opted unambiguously for 'Ireland'. The second is the British government, which until the end of the twentieth century preferred the labels 'Eire' or 'Irish Republic'. The third is the militant nationalist republican movement, whose terminology was designed to deny the legitimacy of the existing state. The article concludes by examining the political significance of this issue, arguing that while its most obvious importance is symbolic, it has also had real meaning for the identity and for the geographical definition of the state, as well as for the British-Irish relationship.     

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SELF‐CONTROL AND LANGUAGE: EVIDENCE OF A SHARED ETIOLOGICAL PATHWAY*

Converging lines of research suggest that self‐control and language may be inextricably linked. No empirical research has ever examined this proposition, however. We address this gap in the literature by analyzing a sample of twin pairs from a nationally representative data set of children. The results revealed three broad findings. First, diminished language skills were predictive of low self‐control both cross‐sectionally and longitudinally. Second, the covariation between language and self‐control was linked to both genetic and environmental factors. Third, after controlling for genetic influences on self‐control, language skills were predictive of variation in individual levels of self‐control. The theoretical implications of these findings are discussed.