Just curious why we only have 4 provinces today, where did Meath go?

Originally Posted by Blue Sun

Just curious why we only have 4 provinces today, where did Meath go?

I was wondering the same thing when I drove from Dublin to Athlone recently.

Meath was never a province as we understand them today - there's a fair amount of historical revisionism at work here again.

It was a Kingdom.

Part went to Ulster and the rest went to Leinster.

I just checked Google earth and Meath is still there, which I have to say I am not sure if thats good or bad.

Perhaps we should nuke it to make the commute to work shorter?

Originally Posted by mhagain

Meath was never a province as we understand them today - there's a fair amount of historical revisionism at work here again.

It was a Kingdom.

So why is the Irish for province cúige?

Originally Posted by Cruimh

So why is the Irish for province cúige?

What does cuige mean?

Originally Posted by Niall996

What does cuige mean?

Five

Originally Posted by Cruimh

So why is the Irish for province cúige?

Well, it's not the Irish for province, it's the Irish for a fifth part

Province is a later naming of the four that remained after Meath became untenable.

Originally Posted by Cruimh

So why is the Irish for province cúige?

I suspect that you probably already know the answer to this but you're just being deliberately obtuse. In case I'm wrong about that: today's provinces were based on the original old kingdoms, of which there were 5. The key part in my post was "as we understand them today" of course; that shouldn't have gone unnoticed.