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A boy who is late for any division or other appointment may be required to sign "Tardy Book", a register kept in the School Office, between 7.35am and 7.45am, every morning for the duration of his sentence (typically three days). Tardy Book may also be issued for late work. For more serious misdeeds, a boy is summoned from his lessons to the Head Master, or Lower Master if the boy is in the lower two years, to talk personally about his misdeeds. This is known as the "Bill". The most serious misdeeds may result in expulsion, or rustication (suspension). Conversely, should a master be more than 15 minutes late for a class, traditionally the pupils might claim it as a "run" and absent themselves for the rest of its duration.
John Keate, Head Master from 1809 to 1834, took over at a time when discipline was poor. Anthony Chenevix-Trench, Head Master from 1964 to 1970, abolished the birch and replaced it with caning, also applied to the bare posterior, which he administered privately in his office. Chenevix-Trench also abolished corporal punishment administered by senior boys. Previously, House Captains were permitted to cane miscreants over the seat of the trousers. This was a routine occurrence, carried out privately with the boy bending over with his head under the edge of a table. Less common but more severe were the canings administered by Pop (see Eton Society below) in the form of a "Pop-Tanning", in which a large number of hard strokes were inflicted by the President of Pop in the presence of all Pop members (or, in earlier times, each member of Pop took it in turns to inflict a stroke). The culprit was summoned to appear in a pair of old trousers, as the caning would cut the cloth to shreds. This was the most severe form of physical punishment at Eton.
The current "Precentor" (Head of Music) is Tim Johnson, and the School boasts eight organs and an entire building for music (performance spaces include the School Hall, the Farrer Theatre and two halls dedicated to music, the Parry Hall and the Concert Hall). Many instruments are taught, including obscure ones such as the didgeridoo. The School participates in many national competitions; many pupils are part of the National Youth Orchestra, and the School gives scholarships for dedicated and talented musicians. A former Precentor of the college, Ralph Allwood set up and organised Eton Choral Courses, which run at the School every summer.
Numerous plays are put on every year at Eton College; there is one main theatre, called the Farrer (seating 400) and 2 Studio theatres, called the Caccia Studio and Empty Space (seating 90 and 80 respectively). There are about 8 or 9 house productions each year, around 3 or 4 "independent" plays (not confined solely to one house, produced, directed and funded by Etonians) and three school plays, one specifically for boys in the first two years, and two open to all years. The School Plays have such good reputations that they are normally fully booked every night. Productions also take place in varying locations around the School, varying from the sports fields to more historic buildings such as Upper School and College Chapel.
In recent years, the School has put on a musical version of The Bacchae (October 2009) as well as productions of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (May 2010), The Cherry Orchard (February 2011), Joseph K (October 2011), Cyrano de Bergerac (May 2012), Macbeth (October 2012), London Assurance (May 2013) and Jerusalem (October 2013). Upcoming in May 2014 was a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream . Often girls from surrounding schools, such as St George's, Ascot, St Mary's School Ascot, Windsor Girls' School and Heathfield St Mary's School, are cast in female roles. Boys from the School are also responsible for the lighting, sound and stage management of all the productions, under the guidance of several professional full-time theatre staff.
Eton's best-known holiday takes place on the so-called "Fourth of June", a celebration of the birthday of King George III, Eton's greatest patron. This day is celebrated with the Procession of Boats, in which the top rowing crews from the top four years row past in vintage wooden rowing boats. Similar to the Queen's Official Birthday, the "Fourth of June" is no longer celebrated on 4 June, but on the Wednesday before the first weekend of June. Eton also observes St. Andrew's Day, on which the Eton wall game is played.[citation needed]
Until 18 December 2010, Eton College was an exempt charity under English law (Charities Act 1993, Schedule 2). Under the provisions of the Charities Act 2006, it is now an excepted charity, and fully registered with the Charities Commission, and is now one of the 100 largest charities in the UK. As a charity, it benefits from substantial tax breaks. It was calculated by the late David Jewell, former Master of Haileybury, that in 1992 such tax breaks saved the School about £1,945 per pupil per year, although he had no direct connection with the School. This subsidy has declined since the 2001 abolition by the Labour Government of state-funded scholarships (formerly known as "assisted places") to independent schools. However, no child attended Eton on this scheme, meaning that the actual level of state assistance to the School has always been lower. Eton's retiring Head Master, Tony Little, has claimed that the benefits that Eton provides to the local community free of charge (use of its facilities, etc.) have a higher value than the tax breaks it receives as a result of its charitable status. The fee for the academic year 2010–2011 was £29,862 (approximately US$48,600 or €35,100 as of March 2011), although the sum is considerably lower for those pupils on bursaries and scholarships.
In 1995 the National Lottery granted money for a £4.6m sports complex, to add to Eton's existing facilities of two swimming pools, 30 cricket squares, 24 football, rugby and hockey pitches and a gym. The College paid £200,000 and contributed 4.5 hectares of land in return for exclusive use of the facilities during the daytime only. The UK Sports Council defended the deal on the grounds that the whole community would benefit, while the bursar claimed that Windsor, Slough and Eton Athletic Club was "deprived" because local people (who were not pupils at the College) did not have a world-class running track and facilities to train with. Steve Osborn, director of the Safe Neighbourhoods Unit, described the decision as "staggering" given the background of a substantial reduction in youth services by councils across the country, a matter over which, however, neither the College nor the UK Sports Council, had any control. The facility, which became the Thames Valley Athletics Centre, opened in April 1999.
In October 2004, Sarah Forsyth claimed that she had been dismissed unfairly by Eton College and had been bullied by senior staff. She also claimed she was instructed to do some of Prince Harry's coursework to enable him to pass AS Art. As evidence, Forsyth provided secretly recorded conversations with both Prince Harry and her Head of Department, Ian Burke. An employment tribunal in July 2005 found that she had been unfairly dismissed and criticised Burke for bullying her and for repeatedly changing his story. It also criticised the school for failing to produce its capability procedures and criticised the Head Master for not reviewing the case independently.
It criticised Forsyth's decision to record a conversation with Harry as an abuse of teacher–student confidentiality and said "It is clear whichever version of the evidence is accepted that Mr Burke did ask the claimant to assist Prince Harry with text for his expressive art project ... It is not part of this tribunal's function to determine whether or not it was legitimate." In response to the tribunal's ruling concerning the allegations about Prince Harry, the School issued a statement, saying Forsyth's claims "were dismissed for what they always have been - unfounded and irrelevant." A spokesperson from Clarence House said, "We are delighted that Harry has been totally cleared of cheating."
In 2005, the Office of Fair Trading found fifty independent schools, including Eton, to have breached the Competition Act by "regularly and systematically" exchanging information about planned increases in school fees, which was collated and distributed among the schools by the bursar at Sevenoaks School. Following the investigation by the OFT, each school was required to pay around £70,000, totalling around £3.5 million, significantly less than the maximum possible fine. In addition, the schools together agreed to contribute another £3m to a new charitable educational fund. The incident raised concerns over whether the charitable status of independent schools such as Eton should be reconsidered, and perhaps revoked. However, Jean Scott, the head of the Independent Schools Council, said that independent schools had always been exempt from anti-cartel rules applied to business, were following a long-established procedure in sharing the information with each other, and that they were unaware of the change to the law (on which they had not been consulted). She wrote to John Vickers, the OFT director-general, saying, "They are not a group of businessmen meeting behind closed doors to fix the price of their products to the disadvantage of the consumer. They are schools that have quite openly continued to follow a long-established practice because they were unaware that the law had changed."
A Freedom of Information request in 2005 revealed that Eton had received £2,652 in farming subsidies in 2004 under the Common Agricultural Policy. Asked to explain under what grounds it was eligible to receive farming subsidies, Eton admitted that it was 'a bit of a mystery'. The TaxPayers' Alliance also stated that Eton had received a total of £5,300 in CAP subsidies between 2002 and 2007. Panorama revealed in March 2012 that farming subsidies were granted to Eton for 'environmental improvements', in effect 'being paid without having to do any farming at all'.
Figures obtained by The Daily Telegraph had revealed that, in 2010, 37 applicants from Eton were accepted by Oxford whilst state schools had difficulty obtaining entry even for pupils with the country's most impressive exam results. According to The Economist, Oxford and Cambridge admit more Etonians each year than applicants from the whole country who qualify for free school meals. In April 2011 the Labour MP David Lammy described as unfair and 'indefensible' the fact that Oxford University had organised nine 'outreach events' at Eton in 2010, although he admitted that it had, in fact, held fewer such events for Eton than for another independent school, Wellington College.
In July 2015, Eton accidentally sent emails to 400 prospective students, offering them conditional entrance to the school in September 2017. The email was intended for nine students, but an IT glitch caused the email to be sent to 400 additional families, who didn't necessarily have a place. In response, the school issued the following statement: "This error was discovered within minutes and each family was immediately contacted to notify them that it should be disregarded and to apologise. We take this type of incident very seriously indeed and so a thorough investigation, overseen by the headmaster Tony Little and led by the tutor for admissions, is being carried out to find out exactly what went wrong and ensure it cannot happen again. Eton College offers its sincere apologies to those boys concerned and their families. We deeply regret the confusion and upset this must have caused."
In January 2016, the Eton College beagling club was accused by the League Against Cruel Sports of undertaking an illegal hare hunt. The allegations were accompanied by a video of the Eton Beagles chasing a hare, as 'the hunt staff urge the beagles on and make no efforts to call the dogs off.' A spokesman representing Eton College released the following statement: "Eton College takes its legal responsibilities extremely seriously and expects all school activities to comply with the law. We are investigating this allegation as a matter of urgency and will be co-operating fully with the relevant authorities."
Eton College has links with some private schools in India today, maintained from the days of the British Raj, such as The Doon School and Mayo College. Eton College is also a member of the G20 Schools Group, a collection of college preparatory boarding schools from around the world, including Turkey's Robert College, the United States' Phillips Academy and Phillips Exeter Academy, Australia's Scotch College, Melbourne Grammar School and Launceston Church Grammar School, Singapore's Raffles Institution, and Switzerland's International School of Geneva. Eton has recently fostered[when?] a relationship with the Roxbury Latin School, a traditional all-boys private school in Boston, USA. Former Eton headmaster and provost Sir Eric Anderson shares a close friendship with Roxbury Latin Headmaster emeritus F. Washington Jarvis; Anderson has visited Roxbury Latin on numerous occasions, while Jarvis briefly taught theology at Eton after retiring from his headmaster post at Roxbury Latin. The headmasters' close friendship spawned the Hennessy Scholarship, an annual prize established in 2005 and awarded to a graduating RL senior for a year of study at Eton. Hennessy Scholars generally reside in Wotton house.
Besides Prince William and Prince Harry, members of the extended British Royal Family who have attended Eton include Prince Richard, Duke of Gloucester and his son Alexander Windsor, Earl of Ulster; Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, his eldest son George Windsor, Earl of St Andrews and grandson Edward Windsor, Lord Downpatrick and his youngest son Lord Nicholas Windsor; Prince Michael of Kent and his son Lord Frederick Windsor; James Ogilvy, son of Princess Alexandra and the Right Honourable Angus Ogilvy, himself an Eton alumnus. Prince William of Gloucester (1942-1972) also attended Eton, as did George Lascelles, 7th Earl of Harewood, son of Princess Mary, Princess Royal.
Other notable Old Etonians include scientists Robert Boyle, John Maynard Smith, J. B. S. Haldane, Stephen Wolfram and the 2012 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine winner, John Gurdon; Beau Brummell; economists John Maynard Keynes and Richard Layard; Antarctic explorer Lawrence Oates; politician Alan Clark; entrepreneur, charity organiser and partner of Adele, Simon Konecki; cricket commentator Henry Blofeld; explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes; adventurer Bear Grylls; composers Thomas Arne, George Butterworth, Roger Quilter, Frederick Septimus Kelly, Donald Tovey, Thomas Dunhill, Lord Berners, Victor Hely-Hutchinson, and Peter Warlock (Philip Heseltine); Hubert Parry, who wrote the song Jerusalem and the coronation anthem I was glad; and musicians Frank Turner and Humphrey Lyttelton.
Notable Old Etonians in the media include the former Political Editor of both ITN and The Times, Julian Haviland; the current BBC Deputy Political Editor, James Landale, and the BBC Science Editor, David Shukman; the current President of Conde Nast International and Managing Director of Conde Nast UK, Nicholas Coleridge; the former ITN newscaster and BBC Panorama presenter, Ludovic Kennedy; current BBC World News and BBC Rough Justice current affairs presenter David Jessel; former chief ITV and Channel 4 racing commentator John Oaksey; 1950s BBC newsreader and 1960s ITN newscaster Timothy Brinton; 1960s BBC newsreader Corbet Woodall; the former Editor of The Daily Telegraph, Charles Moore; the former Editor of The Spectator, Ferdinand Mount; and the current Editor of The Mail on Sunday, Geordie Greig.
Actor Dominic West has been unenthusiastic about the career benefits of being an Old Etonian, saying it "is a stigma that is slightly above 'paedophile' in the media in a gallery of infamy", but asked whether he would consider sending his own children there, said "Yes, I would. It’s an extraordinary place... It has the facilities and the excellence of teaching and it will find what you’re good at and nurture it", while the actor Tom Hiddleston says there are widespread misconceptions about Eton, and that "People think it's just full of braying toffs... It isn’t true... It's actually one of the most broadminded places I’ve ever been. The reason it’s a good school is that it encourages people to find the thing they love and to go for it. They champion the talent of the individual and that’s what’s special about it".
Cork was originally a monastic settlement, reputedly founded by Saint Finbarr in the 6th century. Cork achieved an urban character at some point between 915 and 922 when Norseman (Viking) settlers founded a trading port. It has been proposed that, like Dublin, Cork was an important trading centre in the global Scandinavian trade network. The ecclesiastical settlement continued alongside the Viking longphort, with the two developing a type of symbiotic relationship; the Norsemen providing otherwise unobtainable trade goods for the monastery, and perhaps also military aid.
The city's charter was granted by Prince John, as Lord of Ireland, in 1185. The city was once fully walled, and some wall sections and gates remain today. For much of the Middle Ages, Cork city was an outpost of Old English culture in the midst of a predominantly hostile Gaelic countryside and cut off from the English government in the Pale around Dublin. Neighbouring Gaelic and Hiberno-Norman lords extorted "Black Rent" from the citizens to keep them from attacking the city. The present extent of the city has exceeded the medieval boundaries of the Barony of Cork City; it now takes in much of the neighbouring Barony of Cork. Together, these baronies are located between the Barony of Barrymore to the east, Muskerry East to the west and Kerrycurrihy to the south.
The city's municipal government was dominated by about 12–15 merchant families, whose wealth came from overseas trade with continental Europe — in particular the export of wool and hides and the import of salt, iron and wine. The medieval population of Cork was about 2,100 people. It suffered a severe blow in 1349 when almost half the townspeople died of plague when the Black Death arrived in the town. In 1491, Cork played a part in the English Wars of the Roses when Perkin Warbeck a pretender to the English throne, landed in the city and tried to recruit support for a plot to overthrow Henry VII of England. The then mayor of Cork and several important citizens went with Warbeck to England but when the rebellion collapsed they were all captured and executed. The title of Mayor of Cork was established by royal charter in 1318, and the title was changed to Lord Mayor in 1900 following the knighthood of the incumbent Mayor by Queen Victoria on her Royal visit to the city.
The climate of Cork, like the rest of Ireland, is mild and changeable with abundant rainfall and a lack of temperature extremes. Cork lies in plant Hardiness zone 9b. Met Éireann maintains a climatological weather station at Cork Airport, a few kilometres south of the city. It should be noted that the airport is at an altitude of 151 metres (495 ft) and temperatures can often differ by a few degrees between the airport and the city itself. There are also smaller synoptic weather stations at UCC and Clover Hill.
Temperatures below 0 °C (32 °F) or above 25 °C (77 °F) are rare. Cork Airport records an average of 1,227.9 millimetres (4.029 ft) of precipitation annually, most of which is rain. The airport records an average of 7 days of hail and 11 days of snow or sleet a year; though it only records lying snow for 2 days of the year. The low altitude of the city, and moderating influences of the harbour, mean that lying snow very rarely occurs in the city itself. There are on average 204 "rainy" days a year (over 0.2 millimetres (0.0079 in) of rainfall), of which there are 73 days with "heavy rain" (over 5 millimetres (0.20 in)). Cork is also a generally foggy city, with an average of 97 days of fog a year, most common during mornings and during winter. Despite this, however, Cork is also one of Ireland's sunniest cities, with an average of 3.9 hours of sunshine every day and only having 67 days where there is no "recordable sunshine", mostly during and around winter.
The Cork School of Music and the Crawford College of Art and Design provide a throughput of new blood, as do the active theatre components of several courses at University College Cork (UCC). Highlights include: Corcadorca Theatre Company, of which Cillian Murphy was a troupe member prior to Hollywood fame; the Institute for Choreography and Dance, a national contemporary dance resource;[citation needed] the Triskel Arts Centre (capacity c.90), which includes the Triskel Christchurch independent cinema; dance venue the Firkin Crane (capacity c.240); the Cork Academy of Dramatic Art (CADA) and Graffiti Theatre Company; and the Cork Jazz Festival, Cork Film Festival, and Live at the Marquee events. The Everyman Palace Theatre (capacity c.650) and the Granary Theatre (capacity c.150) both play host to dramatic plays throughout the year.
Cork is home to the RTÉ Vanbrugh Quartet, and to many musical acts, including John Spillane, The Frank And Walters, Sultans of Ping, Simple Kid, Microdisney, Fred, Mick Flannery and the late Rory Gallagher. Singer songwriter Cathal Coughlan and Sean O'Hagan of The High Llamas also hail from Cork. The opera singers Cara O'Sullivan, Mary Hegarty, Brendan Collins, and Sam McElroy are also Cork born. Ranging in capacity from 50 to 1,000, the main music venues in the city are the Cork Opera House (capacity c.1000), Cyprus Avenue, Triskel Christchurch, the Roundy, the Savoy and Coughlan's.[citation needed] Cork's underground scene is supported by Plugd Records.[citation needed]
Cork has been culturally diverse for many years, from Huguenot communities in the 17th century, through to Eastern European communities and a smaller numbers from African and Asian nations in the 20th and 21st centuries. This is reflected in the multi-cultural restaurants and shops, including specialist shops for East-European or Middle-Eastern food, Chinese and Thai restaurants, French patisseries, Indian buffets, and Middle Eastern kebab houses. Cork saw some Jewish immigration from Lithuania and Russia in the late 19th century. Jewish citizens such as Gerald Goldberg (several times Lord Mayor), David Marcus (novelist) and Louis Marcus (documentary maker) played notable roles in 20th century Cork. Today, the Jewish community is relatively small in population, although the city still has a Jewish quarter and synagogue. Cork also features various Christian churches, as well as a mosque. Some Catholic masses around the city are said in Polish, Filipino, Lithuanian, Romanian and other languages, in addition to the traditional Latin and local Irish and English language services.
The Cork accent, part of the Southwest dialect of Hiberno-English, displays various features which set it apart from other accents in Ireland. Patterns of tone and intonation often rise and fall, with the overall tone tending to be more high-pitched than other Irish accents. English spoken in Cork has a number of dialect words that are peculiar to the city and environs. Like standard Hiberno-English, some of these words originate from the Irish language, but others through other languages Cork's inhabitants encountered at home and abroad. The Cork accent displays varying degrees of rhoticity, usually depending on the social-class of the speaker.
The city's FM radio band features RTÉ Radio 1, RTÉ 2fm, RTÉ lyric fm, RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta, Today FM, 4fm, Newstalk and the religious station Spirit Radio. There are also local stations such as Cork's 96FM, Cork's Red FM, C103, CUH 102.0FM, UCC 98.3FM (formerly Cork Campus Radio 97.4fm) and Christian radio station Life 93.1FM. Cork also has a temporary licensed city-wide community station 'Cork FM Community Radio' on 100.5FM, which is currently on-air on Saturdays and Sundays only. Cork has also been home to pirate radio stations, including South Coast Radio and ERI in the 1980s. Today some small pirates stations remain. A number of neighbouring counties radio stations can be heard in parts of Cork City including Radio Kerry at 97.0 and WLR FM on 95.1.
Cork is home to one of Ireland's main national newspapers, the Irish Examiner (formerly the Cork Examiner). It also prints the Evening Echo, which for decades has been connected to the Echo Boys, who were poor and often homeless children who sold the newspaper. Today, the shouts of the vendors selling the Echo can still be heard in various parts of the city centre. One of the biggest free newspapers in the city is the Cork Independent. The city's University publishes the UCC Express and Motley magazine.
Cork features architecturally notable buildings originating from the Medieval to Modern periods. The only notable remnant of the Medieval era is the Red Abbey. There are two cathedrals in the city; St. Mary's Cathedral and Saint Fin Barre's Cathedral. St Mary's Cathedral, often referred to as the North Cathedral, is the Catholic cathedral of the city and was begun in 1808. Its distinctive tower was added in the 1860s. St Fin Barre's Cathedral serves the Protestant faith and is possibly the more famous of the two. It is built on the foundations of an earlier cathedral. Work began in 1862 and ended in 1879 under the direction of architect William Burges.
St. Patrick's Street, the main street of the city which was remodelled in the mid-2000s, is known for the architecture of the buildings along its pedestrian-friendly route and is the main shopping thoroughfare. The reason for its curved shape is that it originally was a channel of the River Lee that was built over on arches. The General Post Office, with its limestone façade, is on Oliver Plunkett Street, on the site of the Theatre Royal which was built in 1760 and burned down in 1840. The English circus proprietor Pablo Fanque rebuilt an amphitheatre on the spot in 1850, which was subsequently transformed into a theatre and then into the present General Post Office in 1877. The Grand Parade is a tree-lined avenue, home to offices, shops and financial institutions. The old financial centre is the South Mall, with several banks whose interior derive from the 19th century, such as the Allied Irish Bank's which was once an exchange.
Many of the city's buildings are in the Georgian style, although there are a number of examples of modern landmark structures, such as County Hall tower, which was, at one time the tallest building in Ireland until being superseded by another Cork City building: The Elysian. Across the river from County Hall is Ireland's longest building; built in Victorian times, Our Lady's Psychiatric Hospital has now been renovated and converted into a residential housing complex called Atkins Hall, after its architect William Atkins.
Other notable places include Elizabeth Fort, the Cork Opera House, Christ Church on South Main Street (now the Triskel Arts Centre and original site of early Hiberno-Norse church), St Mary's Dominican Church on Popes Quay and Fitzgerald's Park to the west of the city, which contains the Cork Public Museum. Other popular tourist attractions include the grounds of University College Cork, through which the River Lee flows, the Women's Gaol at Sundays Well (now a heritage centre) and the English Market. This covered market traces its origins back to 1610, and the present building dates from 1786.
While local government in Ireland has limited powers in comparison with other countries, the council has responsibility for planning, roads, sanitation, libraries, street lighting, parks, and a number of other important functions. Cork City Council has 31 elected members representing six electoral wards. The members are affiliated to the following political parties: Fine Gael (5 members), Fianna Fáil (10 members), Sinn Féin (8 members), Anti-Austerity Alliance (3 members), Workers' Party (1 member), Independents (4 members). Certain councillors are co-opted to represent the city at the South-West Regional Authority. A new Lord Mayor of Cork is chosen in a vote by the elected members of the council under a D'Hondt system count.
The retail trade in Cork city includes a mix of both modern, state of the art shopping centres and family owned local shops. Department stores cater for all budgets, with expensive boutiques for one end of the market and high street stores also available. Shopping centres can be found in many of Cork's suburbs, including Blackpool, Ballincollig, Douglas, Ballyvolane, Wilton and Mahon Point. Others are available in the city centre. These include the recently[when?] completed development of two large malls The Cornmarket Centre on Cornmarket Street, and new the retail street called "Opera Lane" off St. Patrick's Street/Academy Street. The Grand Parade scheme, on the site of the former Capitol Cineplex, was planning-approved for 60,000 square feet (5,600 m2) of retail space, with work commencing in 2016. Cork's main shopping street is St. Patrick's Street and is the most expensive street in the country per sq. metre after Dublin's Grafton Street. As of 2015[update] this area has been impacted by the post-2008 downturn, with many retail spaces available for let.[citation needed] Other shopping areas in the city centre include Oliver Plunkett St. and Grand Parade. Cork is also home to some of the country's leading department stores with the foundations of shops such as Dunnes Stores and the former Roches Stores being laid in the city. Outside the city centre is Mahon Point Shopping Centre.
Cork City is at the heart of industry in the south of Ireland. Its main area of industry is pharmaceuticals, with Pfizer Inc. and Swiss company Novartis being big employers in the region. The most famous product of the Cork pharmaceutical industry is Viagra. Cork is also the European headquarters of Apple Inc. where over 3,000 staff are involved in manufacturing, R&D and customer support. Logitech and EMC Corporation are also important IT employers in the area. Three hospitals are also among the top ten employers in the city (see table below).
The city is also home to the Heineken Brewery that brews Murphy's Irish Stout and the nearby Beamish and Crawford brewery (taken over by Heineken in 2008) which have been in the city for generations. 45% of the world's Tic Tac sweets are manufactured at the city's Ferrero factory. For many years, Cork was the home to Ford Motor Company, which manufactured cars in the docklands area before the plant was closed in 1984. Henry Ford's grandfather was from West Cork, which was one of the main reasons for opening up the manufacturing facility in Cork. But technology has replaced the old manufacturing businesses of the 1970s and 1980s, with people now working in the many I.T. centres of the city – such as Amazon.com, the online retailer, which has set up in Cork Airport Business Park.
Public bus services within the city are provided by the national bus operator Bus Éireann. City routes are numbered from 201 through to 219 and connect the city centre to the principal suburbs, colleges, shopping centres and places of interest. Two of these bus routes provide orbital services across the Northern and Southern districts of the city respectively. Buses to the outer suburbs, such as Ballincollig, Glanmire, Midleton and Carrigaline are provided from the city's bus terminal at Parnell Place in the city centre. Suburban services also include shuttles to Cork Airport, and a park and ride facility in the south suburbs only.
The Cork area has seen improvements in road infrastructure in recent years. For example, the Cork South Link dual carriageway was built in the early 1980s, to link the Kinsale Road roundabout with the city centre. Shortly afterwards, the first sections of the South Ring dual carriageway were opened. Work continued through the 1990s on extending the N25 South Ring Road, with the opening of the Jack Lynch Tunnel under the River Lee being a significant addition. The Kinsale Road flyover opened in August 2006 to remove a bottleneck for traffic heading to Cork Airport or Killarney. Other projects completed at this time include the N20 Blackpool bypass and the N20 Cork to Mallow road projects. The N22 Ballincollig dual carriageway bypass, which links to the Western end of the Cork Southern Ring road was opened in September 2004. City Centre road improvements include the Patrick Street project - which reconstructed the street with a pedestrian focus. The M8 motorway links Cork with Dublin.
Cork was one of the most rail-oriented cities in Ireland, featuring eight stations at various times. The main route, still much the same today, is from Dublin Heuston. Originally terminating on the city's outskirts at Blackpool, the route now reaches the city centre terminus of Kent Station via Glanmire tunnel. Now a through station, the line through Kent connects the towns of Cobh and Midleton east of the city. This also connected to the seaside town of Youghal, until the 1980s.[citation needed]
Within the city there have been two tram networks in operation. A proposal to develop a horse-drawn tram (linking the city's railway termini) was made by American George Francis Train in the 1860s, and implemented in 1872 by the Cork Tramway Company. However, the company ceased trading in 1875 after Cork Corporation refused permission to extend the line, mainly because of objections from cab operators to the type of tracks which – although they were laid to the Irish national railway gauge of 5 ft 3in – protruded from the road surface.[citation needed]
The Cork Suburban Rail system also departs from Kent Station and provides connections to parts of Metropolitan Cork. Stations include Little Island, Mallow, Midleton, Fota and Cobh. In July 2009 the Glounthaune to Midleton line was reopened, with new stations at Carrigtwohill and Midleton (with future stations planned for Kilbarry, Monard, Carrigtwohill West and Blarney). Little Island Railway Station serves Cork's Eastern Suburbs, while Kilbarry Railway Station is planned to serve the Northern Suburbs.
The National Maritime College of Ireland is also located in Cork and is the only college in Ireland in which Nautical Studies and Marine Engineering can be undertaken. CIT also incorporates the Cork School of Music and Crawford College of Art and Design as constituent schools. The Cork College of Commerce is the largest post-Leaving Certificate college in Ireland and is also the biggest provider of Vocational Preparation and Training courses in the country.[citation needed] Other 3rd level institutions include Griffith College Cork, a private institution, and various other colleges.
Research institutes linked to the third level colleges in the city support the research and innovation capacity of the city and region. Examples include the Tyndall National Institute (ICT hardware research), IMERC (Marine Energy), Environmental Research Institute, NIMBUS (Network Embedded Systems); and CREATE (Advanced Therapeutic Engineering). UCC and CIT also have start-up company incubation centres. In UCC, the IGNITE Graduate Business Innovation Centre aims to foster and support entrepreneurship. In CIT, The Rubicon Centre is a business innovation hub that is home to 57 knowledge based start-up companies.
Hurling and football are the most popular spectator sports in the city. Hurling has a strong identity with city and county – with Cork winning 30 All-Ireland Championships. Gaelic football is also popular, and Cork has won 7 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship titles. There are many Gaelic Athletic Association clubs in Cork City, including Blackrock National Hurling Club, St. Finbarr's, Glen Rovers, Na Piarsaigh and Nemo Rangers. The main public venues are Páirc Uí Chaoimh and Páirc Uí Rinn (named after the noted Glen Rovers player Christy Ring). Camogie (hurling for ladies) and women's gaelic football are increasing in popularity.
There are a variety of watersports in Cork, including rowing and sailing. There are five rowing clubs training on the river Lee, including Shandon BC, UCC RC, Pres RC, Lee RC, and Cork BC. Naomhóga Chorcaí is a rowing club whose members row traditional naomhóga on the Lee in occasional competitions. The "Ocean to City" race has been held annually since 2005, and attracts teams and boats from local and visiting clubs who row the 24 kilometres (15 mi) from Crosshaven into Cork city centre. The decision to move the National Rowing Center to Inniscarra has boosted numbers involved in the sport.[citation needed] Cork's maritime sailing heritage is maintained through its sailing clubs. The Royal Cork Yacht Club located in Crosshaven (outside the city) is the world's oldest yacht club, and "Cork Week" is a notable sailing event.
The most notable cricket club in Cork is Cork County Cricket Club, which was formed in 1874. Although located within the Munster jurisdiction, the club plays in the Leinster Senior League. The club plays at the Mardyke, a ground which has hosted three first-class matches in 1947, 1961 and 1973. All three involved Ireland playing Scotland. The Cork Cricket Academy operates within the city, with the stated aim of introducing the sport to schools in the city and county. Cork's other main cricket club, Harlequins Cricket Club, play close to Cork Airport.
The city is also the home of road bowling, which is played in the north-side and south-west suburbs. There are also boxing and martial arts clubs (including Brazilian jiu-jitsu, Karate, Muay Thai and Taekwondo) within the city. Cork Racing, a motorsport team based in Cork, has raced in the Irish Formula Ford Championship since 2005. Cork also hosts one of Ireland's most successful Australian Rules Football teams, the Leeside Lions, who have won the Australian Rules Football League of Ireland Premiership four times (in 2002, 2003, 2005 and 2007). There are also inline roller sports, such as hockey and figure skating, which transfer to the ice over the winter season.[citation needed]
Galicia (English i/ɡəˈlɪsiə/, /ɡəˈlɪʃə/; Galician: [ɡaˈliθja] ( listen), [ħaˈliθja], or [ħaˈlisja]; Spanish: [ɡaˈliθja]; Galician and Portuguese: Galiza, [ɡaˈliθa] ( listen), [ħaˈliθa] or [ħaˈlisa]) is an autonomous community of Spain and historic nationality under Spanish law. Located in the North-West of the Iberian Peninsula, it comprises the provinces of A Coruña, Lugo, Ourense and Pontevedra, being bordered by Portugal to the south, the Spanish autonomous communities of Castile and León and Asturias to the east, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west and the north. It had a population of 2,765,940 in 2013 and has a total area of 29,574 km2 (11,419 sq mi). Galicia has over 1,660 km (1,030 mi) of coastline, including its offshore islands and islets, among them Cíes Islands, Ons, Sálvora, Cortegada, and—the largest and most populated—A Illa de Arousa.
The area now called Galicia was first inhabited by humans during the Middle Paleolithic period, and it takes its name from the Gallaeci, the Celtic peoples living north of the Douro river during the last millennium BC, in a region largely coincidental with that of the Iron Age local Castro culture. Galicia was incorporated into the Roman Empire at the end of the Cantabrian Wars in 19 BC, being turned into a Roman province in the 3rd century AD. In 410, the Germanic Suebi established a kingdom with its capital in Braga (Portugal) which was incorporated into that of the Visigoths in 585. In 711, the Arabs invaded the Iberian Peninsula, taking the Visigoth kingdom, but soon in 740 Galicia was incorporated into the Christian kingdom of Asturias. During the Middle Ages, the kingdom of Galicia was occasionally ruled by its own kings, but most of the time it was leagued to the kingdom of Leon and later to that of Castile, while maintaining its own legal and customary practices and personality. From the 13th century on, the kings of Castile, as kings of Galicia, appointed an Adiantado-mór, whose attributions passed to the Governor and Captain General of the Kingdom of Galiza from the last years of the 15th century. The Governor also presided the Real Audiencia do Reino de Galicia, a royal tribunal and government body. From the 16th century, the representation and voice of the kingdom was held by an assembly of deputies and representatives of the cities of the kingdom, the Cortes or Junta of the Kingdom of Galicia, an institution which was forcibly discontinued in 1833 when the kingdom was divided into four administrative provinces with no legal mutual links. During the 19th and 20th centuries, demand grew for self-government and for the recognition of the personality of Galicia, a demand which led to the frustrated Statute of Autonomy of 1936, and to the Statute of Autonomy of 1981, currently in force.
The interior of Galicia is characterized by its hilly landscape, although mountain ranges rise to 2,000 m (6,600 ft) in the east and south. The coastal areas are mostly an alternate series of rías (submerged valleys where the sea penetrates tens of kilometres inland) and cliffs. The climate of Galicia is temperate and rainy, but it is also markedly drier in the summer, being usually classified as Oceanic in the west and north, and Mediterranean in the southeast. Its topographic and climatic conditions have made animal husbandry and farming the primary source of Galicia's wealth for most of its history. With the exception of shipbuilding and food processing, Galicia was largely a semi-subsistence farming and fishing economy and did not experience significant industrialization until after the mid-20th century. In 2012, the gross domestic product at purchasing power parity was €56,000 million, with a nominal GDP per capita of €20,700. The population is largely concentrated in two coastal areas: from Ferrol to A Coruña in the northwest and from Pontevedra to Vigo in the southwest. To a lesser extent, there are smaller populations around the interior cities of Lugo, Ourense and Santiago de Compostela. The political capital is Santiago de Compostela, in the province of A Coruña. Vigo, in the province of Pontevedra, is the most populous municipality with 294,997 (2014), while A Coruña is the most populous city with 215.227 (2014).
The name evolved during the Middle Ages from Gallaecia, sometimes written Galletia, to Gallicia. In the 13th century, with the written emergence of the Galician language, Galiza became the most usual written form of the name of the country, being replaced during the 15th and 16th centuries by the current form, Galicia, which coincides with the Castilian Spanish name. The historical denomination Galiza became popular again during the end of the 19th and the first three-quarters of the 20th century, being still used with some frequency today, although not by the Xunta de Galicia, the local devolved government. The Royal Galician Academy, the institution responsible for regulating the Galician language, whilst recognizing it as a legitimate current denomination, has stated that the only official name of the country is Galicia.
Although the etymology of the name has been studied since the 7th century by authors like Isidore of Seville —who wrote that "Galicians are called so, because of their fair skin, as the Gauls", relating the name to the Greek word for milk—, currently scholars derive the name of the ancient Callaeci either from Proto-Indo-European kal-n-eH2 'hill', through a local relational suffix -aik-, so meaning 'the hill (people)'; or either from Proto-Celtic kallī- 'forest', so meaning 'the forest (people)'. In any case, Galicia, being per se a derivation of the ethnic name Kallaikói, would mean 'the land of the Galicians'.
The oldest attestation of human presence in Galicia has been found in the Eirós Cave, in the municipality of Triacastela, which has preserved animal remains and Neanderthal stone objects from the Middle Paleolithic. The earliest culture to have left significant architectural traces is the Megalithic culture which expanded along the western European coasts during the Neolithic and Calcolithic eras. Thousands of Megalithic tumuli are distributed throughout the country, but mostly along the coastal areas. Within each tumulus is a stone burial chamber known locally as anta (dolmen), frequently preceded by a corridor. Galicia was later fully affected by the Bell Beaker culture. While its rich mineral deposits - tin and gold - led to the development of Bronze Age metallurgy, and to the commerce of bronze and gold items all along the Atlantic façade of Western Europe, where a common elite's culture evolved during the Atlantic Bronze Age.
The Castro culture ('Culture of the Castles') developed during the Iron Age, and flourished during the second half of the first millennium BC. It is usually considered a local evolution of the Atlantic Bronze Age, with later developments and influences and overlapping into the Roman era. Geographically, it corresponds to the people Roman called Gallaeci, which were composed by a large series of nations or tribes, among them the Artabri, Bracari, Limici, Celtici, Albiones and Lemavi. They were capable fighters: Strabo described them as the most difficult foes the Romans encountered in conquering Lusitania, while Appian mentions their warlike spirit, noting that the women bore their weapons side by side with their men, frequently preferring death to captivity. According to Pomponius Mela all the inhabitants of the coastal areas were Celtic people.
Gallaeci lived in castros. These were usually annular forts, with one or more concentric earthen or stony walls, with a trench in front of each one. They were frequently located at hills, or in seashore cliffs and peninsulas. Some well known castros can be found, in the seashore, at Fazouro, Santa Tegra, Baroña and O Neixón, and inland at San Cibrao de Lás, Borneiro, Castromao, and Viladonga. Some other distinctive features, such as temples, baths, reservoirs, warrior statues and decorative carvings have been found associated to this culture, together with rich gold and metalworking traditions.
Later the Muslims invaded Spain (711), but the Arabs and Moors never managed to have any real control over Galicia, which was later incorporated into the expanding Christian Kingdom of Asturias, usually known as Gallaecia or Galicia (Yillīqiya and Galīsiya) by Muslim Chroniclers, as well as by many European contemporaries. This era consolidated Galicia as a Christian society which spoke a Romance language. During the next century Galician noblemen took northern Portugal, conquering Coimbra in 871, thus freeing what were considered the southernmost city of ancient Galicia.
The Roman legions first entered the area under Decimus Junius Brutus in 137–136 BC, but the country was only incorporated into the Roman Empire by the time of Augustus (29 BC – 19 BC). The Romans were interested in Galicia mainly for its mineral resources, most notably gold. Under Roman rule, most Galician hillforts began to be – sometimes forcibly – abandoned, and Gallaeci served frequently in the Roman army as auxiliary troops. Romans brought new technologies, new travel routes, new forms of organizing property, and a new language; latin. The Roman Empire established its control over Galicia through camps (castra) as Aquis Querquennis, Ciadella camp or Lucus Augusti (Lugo), roads (viae) and monuments as the lighthouse known as Tower of Hercules, in Corunna, but the remoteness and lesser interest of the country since the 2nd century of our era, when the gold mines stopped being productive, led to a lesser degree of Romanization. In the 3rd century it was made a province, under the name Gallaecia, which included also northern Portugal, Asturias, and a large section of what today is known as Castile and León.
In the early 5th century, the deep crisis suffered by the Roman Empire allowed different tribes of Central Europe (Suebi, Vandals and Alani) to cross the Rhine and penetrate into the rule on 31 December 406. Its progress towards the Iberian Peninsula forced the Roman authorities to establish a treaty (foedus) by which the Suebi would settle peacefully and govern Galicia as imperial allies. So, from 409 Galicia was taken by the Suebi, forming the first medieval kingdom to be created in Europe, in 411, even before the fall of the Roman Empire, being also the first Germanic kingdom to mint coinage in Roman lands. During this period a Briton colony and bishopric (see Mailoc) was established in Northern Galicia (Britonia), probably as foederati and allies of the Suebi. In 585, the Visigothic King Leovigild invaded the Suebic kingdom of Galicia and defeated it, bringing it under Visigoth control.
In the 9th century, the rise of the cult of the Apostle James in Santiago de Compostela gave Galicia a particular symbolic importance among Christians, an importance it would hold throughout the Reconquista. As the Middle Ages went on, Santiago became a major pilgrim destination and the Way of Saint James (Camiño de Santiago) a major pilgrim road, a route for the propagation of Romanesque art and the words and music of the troubadors. During the 10th and 11th centuries, a period during which Galician nobility become related to the royal family, Galicia was at times headed by its own native kings, while Vikings (locally known as Leodemanes or Lordomanes) occasionally raided the coasts. The Towers of Catoira (Pontevedra) were built as a system of fortifications to prevent and stop the Viking raids on Santiago de Compostela.
In 1063, Ferdinand I of Castile divided his realm among his sons, and the Kingdom of Galicia was granted to Garcia II of Galicia. In 1072, it was forcibly annexed by Garcia's brother Alfonso VI of León; from that time Galicia was united with the Kingdom of León under the same monarchs. In the 13th century Alfonso X of Castile standardized the Castilian language and made it the language of court and government. Nevertheless, in his Kingdom of Galicia the Galician language was the only language spoken, and the most used in government and legal uses, as well as in literature.
On the other hand, the lack of an effective royal justice system in the Kingdom led to the social conflict known as the Guerras Irmandiñas ('Wars of the brotherhoods'), when leagues of peasants and burghers, with the support of a number of knights, noblemen, and under legal protection offered by the remote king, toppled many of the castles of the Kingdom and briefly drove the noblemen into Portugal and Castile. Soon after, in the late 15th century, in the dynastic conflict between Isabella I of Castile and Joanna La Beltraneja, part of the Galician aristocracy supported Joanna. After Isabella's victory, she initiated an administrative and political reform which the chronicler Jeronimo Zurita defined as "doma del Reino de Galicia": 'It was then when the taming of Galicia began, because not just the local lords and knights, but all the people of that nation were the ones against the others very bold and warlike'. These reforms, while establishing a local government and tribunal (the Real Audiencia del Reino de Galicia) and bringing the nobleman under submission, also brought most Galician monasteries and institutions under Castilian control, in what has been criticized as a process of centralisation. At the same time the kings began to call the Xunta or Cortes of the Kingdom of Galicia, an assembly of deputies or representatives of the cities of the Kingdom, to ask for monetary and military contributions. This assembly soon developed into the voice and legal representation of the Kingdom, and the depositary of its will and laws.
The modern period of the kingdom of Galicia began with the murder or defeat of some of the most powerful Galician lords, such as Pedro Álvarez de Sotomayor, called Pedro Madruga, and Rodrigo Henriquez Osorio, at the hands of the Castilian armies sent to Galicia between the years 1480 and 1486. Isabella I of Castile, considered a usurper by many Galician nobles, eradicated all armed resistance and definitively established the royal power of the Castilian monarchy. Fearing a general revolt, the monarchs ordered the banishing of the rest of the great lords like Pedro de Bolaño, Diego de Andrade or Lope Sánchez de Moscoso, among others.
The establishment of the Santa Hermandad in 1480, and of the Real Audiencia del Reino de Galicia in 1500—a tribunal and executive body directed by the Governor-Captain General as a direct representative of the King—implied initially the submission of the Kingdom to the Crown, after a century of unrest and fiscal insubordination. As a result, from 1480 to 1520 the Kingdom of Galicia contributed more than 10% of the total earnings of the Crown of Castille, including the Americas, well over its economic relevance. Like the rest of Spain, the 16th century was marked by population growth up to 1580, when the simultaneous wars with the Netherlands, France and England hampered Galicia's Atlantic commerce, which consisted mostly in the exportation of sardines, wood, and some cattle and wine.
From that moment Galicia, which participated to a minor extent in the American expansion of the Spanish Empire, found itself at the center of the Atlantic wars fought by Spain against the French and the Protestant powers of England and the Netherlands, whose privateers attacked the coastal areas, but major assaults were not common as the coastline was difficult and the harbors easily defended. The most famous assaults were upon the city of Vigo by Sir Francis Drake in 1585 and 1589, and the siege of A Coruña in 1589 by the English Armada. Galicia also suffered occasional slave raids by Barbary pirates, but not as frequently as the Mediterranean coastal areas. The most famous Barbary attack was the bloody sack of the town of Cangas in 1617. At the time, the king's petitions for money and troops became more frequent, due to the human and economic exhaustion of Castile; the Junta of the Kingdom of Galicia (the local Cortes or representative assembly) was initially receptive to these petitions, raising large sums, accepting the conscription of the men of the kingdom, and even commissioning a new naval squadron which was sustained with the incomes of the Kingdom.
After the rupture of the wars with Portugal and Catalonia, the Junta changed its attitude, this time due to the exhaustion of Galicia, now involved not just in naval or oversea operations, but also in an exhausting war with the Portuguese, war which produced thousands of casualties and refugees and was heavily disturbing to the local economy and commerce. So, in the second half of the 17th century the Junta frequently denied or considerably reduced the initial petitions of the monarch, and though the tension didn't rise to the levels experienced in Portugal or Catalonia, there were frequent urban mutinies and some voices even asked for the secession of the Kingdom of Galicia.
In the early 20th century came another turn toward nationalist politics with Solidaridad Gallega (1907–1912) modeled on Solidaritat Catalana in Catalonia. Solidaridad Gallega failed, but in 1916 Irmandades da Fala (Brotherhood of the Language) developed first as a cultural association but soon as a full-blown nationalist movement. Vicente Risco and Ramón Otero Pedrayo were outstanding cultural figures of this movement, and the magazine Nós ('Us'), founded 1920, its most notable cultural institution, Lois Peña Novo the outstanding political figure.
Galicia was spared the worst of the fighting in that war: it was one of the areas where the initial coup attempt at the outset of the war was successful, and it remained in Nationalist (Franco's army's) hands throughout the war. While there were no pitched battles, there was repression and death: all political parties were abolished, as were all labor unions and Galician nationalist organizations as the Seminario de Estudos Galegos. Galicia's statute of autonomy was annulled (as were those of Catalonia and the Basque provinces once those were conquered). According to Carlos Fernández Santander, at least 4,200 people were killed either extrajudicially or after summary trials, among them republicans, communists, Galician nationalists, socialists and anarchists. Victims included the civil governors of all four Galician provinces; Juana Capdevielle, the wife of the governor of A Coruña; mayors such as Ánxel Casal of Santiago de Compostela, of the Partido Galeguista; prominent socialists such as Jaime Quintanilla in Ferrol and Emilio Martínez Garrido in Vigo; Popular Front deputies Antonio Bilbatúa, José Miñones, Díaz Villamil, Ignacio Seoane, and former deputy Heraclio Botana); soldiers who had not joined the rebellion, such as Generals Rogelio Caridad Pita and Enrique Salcedo Molinuevo and Admiral Antonio Azarola; and the founders of the PG, Alexandre Bóveda and Víctor Casas, as well as other professionals akin to republicans and nationalists, as the journalist Manuel Lustres Rivas or physician Luis Poza Pastrana. Many others were forced to escape into exile, or were victims of other reprisals and removed from their jobs and positions.
General Francisco Franco — himself a Galician from Ferrol — ruled as dictator from the civil war until his death in 1975. Franco's centralizing regime suppressed any official use of the Galician language, including the use of Galician names for newborns, although its everyday oral use was not forbidden. Among the attempts at resistance were small leftist guerrilla groups such as those led by José Castro Veiga ("El Piloto") and Benigno Andrade ("Foucellas"), both of whom were ultimately captured and executed. In the 1960s, ministers such as Manuel Fraga Iribarne introduced some reforms allowing technocrats affiliated with Opus Dei to modernize administration in a way that facilitated capitalist economic development. However, for decades Galicia was largely confined to the role of a supplier of raw materials and energy to the rest of Spain, causing environmental havoc and leading to a wave of migration to Venezuela and to various parts of Europe. Fenosa, the monopolistic supplier of electricity, built hydroelectric dams, flooding many Galician river valleys.
As part of the transition to democracy upon the death of Franco in 1975, Galicia regained its status as an autonomous region within Spain with the Statute of Autonomy of 1981, which begins, "Galicia, historical nationality, is constituted as an Autonomous Community to access to its self-government, in agreement with the Spanish Constitution and with the present Statute (...)". Varying degrees of nationalist or independentist sentiment are evident at the political level. The Bloque Nacionalista Galego or BNG, is a conglomerate of left-wing parties and individuals that claims Galician political status as a nation.
From 1990 to 2005, Manuel Fraga, former minister and ambassador in the Franco dictature, presided over the Galician autonomous government, the Xunta de Galicia. Fraga was associated with the Partido Popular ('People's Party', Spain's main national conservative party) since its founding. In 2002, when the oil tanker Prestige sank and covered the Galician coast in oil, Fraga was accused by the grassroots movement Nunca Mais ("Never again") of having been unwilling to react. In the 2005 Galician elections, the 'People's Party' lost its absolute majority, though remaining (barely) the largest party in the parliament, with 43% of the total votes. As a result, power passed to a coalition of the Partido dos Socialistas de Galicia (PSdeG) ('Galician Socialists' Party'), a federal sister-party of Spain's main social-democratic party, the Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE, 'Spanish Socialist Workers Party') and the nationalist Bloque Nacionalista Galego (BNG). As the senior partner in the new coalition, the PSdeG nominated its leader, Emilio Perez Touriño, to serve as Galicia's new president, with Anxo Quintana, the leader of BNG, as its vice president.
Galicia has a surface area of 29,574 square kilometres (11,419 sq mi). Its northernmost point, at 43°47′N, is Estaca de Bares (also the northernmost point of Spain); its southernmost, at 41°49′N, is on the Portuguese border in the Baixa Limia-Serra do Xurés Natural Park. The easternmost longitude is at 6°42′W on the border between the province of Ourense and the Castilian-Leonese province of Zamora) its westernmost at 9°18′W, reached in two places: the A Nave Cape in Fisterra (also known as Finisterre), and Cape Touriñán, both in the province of A Coruña.
Topographically, a remarkable feature of Galicia is the presence of many firth-like inlets along the coast, estuaries that were drowned with rising sea levels after the ice age. These are called rías and are divided into the smaller Rías Altas ("High Rías"), and the larger Rías Baixas ("Low Rías"). The Rías Altas include Ribadeo, Foz, Viveiro, Barqueiro, Ortigueira, Cedeira, Ferrol, Betanzos, A Coruña, Corme e Laxe and Camariñas. The Rías Baixas, found south of Fisterra, include Corcubión, Muros e Noia, Arousa, Pontevedra and Vigo. The Rías Altas can sometimes refer only to those east of Estaca de Bares, with the others being called Rías Medias ("Intermediate Rías").
All along the Galician coast are various archipelagos near the mouths of the rías. These archipelagos provide protected deepwater harbors and also provide habitat for seagoing birds. A 2007 inventory estimates that the Galician coast has 316 archipelagos, islets, and freestanding rocks. Among the most important of these are the archipelagos of Cíes, Ons, and Sálvora. Together with Cortegada Island, these make up the Atlantic Islands of Galicia National Park. Other significant islands are Islas Malveiras, Islas Sisargas, and, the largest and holding the largest population, Arousa Island.
Galicia is quite mountainous, a fact which has contributed to isolate the rural areas, hampering communications, most notably in the inland. The main mountain range is the Macizo Galaico (Serra do Eixe, Serra da Lastra, Serra do Courel), also known as Macizo Galaico-Leonés, located in the eastern parts, bordering with Castile and León. Noteworthy mountain ranges are O Xistral (northern Lugo), the Serra dos Ancares (on the border with León and Asturias), O Courel (on the border with León), O Eixe (the border between Ourense and Zamora), Serra de Queixa (in the center of Ourense province), O Faro (the border between Lugo and Pontevedra), Cova da Serpe (border of Lugo and A Coruña), Montemaior (A Coruña), Montes do Testeiro, Serra do Suído, and Faro de Avión (between Pontevedra and Ourense); and, to the south, A Peneda, O Xurés and O Larouco, all on the border of Ourense and Portugal.
Galicia is poetically known as the "country of the thousand rivers" ("o país dos mil ríos"). The largest and most important of these rivers is the Minho, known as O Pai Miño (Father Minho), 307.5 km (191.1 mi) long and discharging 419 m3 (548 cu yd) per second, with its affluent the Sil, which has created a spectacular canyon. Most of the rivers in the inland are tributaries of this fluvial system, which drains some 17,027 km2 (6,574 sq mi). Other rivers run directly into the Atlantic Ocean as Lérez or the Cantabrian Sea, most of them having short courses. Only the Navia, Ulla, Tambre, and Limia have courses longer than 100 km (62 mi).
Deforestation and forest fires are a problem in many areas, as is the continual spread of the eucalyptus tree, a species imported from Australia, actively promoted by the paper industry since the mid-20th century. Galicia is one of the more forested areas of Spain, but the majority of Galicia's plantations, usually growing eucalyptus or pine, lack any formal management. Massive eucalyptus, especially Eucalyptus globulus plantation, began in the Francisco Franco era, largely on behalf of the paper company Empresa Nacional de Celulosas de España (ENCE) in Pontevedra, which wanted it for its pulp. Wood products figure significantly in Galicia's economy. Apart from tree plantations Galicia is also notable for the extensive surface occupied by meadows used for animal husbandry, especially cattle , an important activity. Hydroelectric development in most rivers has been a serious concern for local conservationists during the last decades.
The animals most often thought of as being "typical" of Galicia are the livestock raised there. The Galician horse is native to the region, as is the Galician Blond cow and the domestic fowl known as the galiña de Mos. The latter is an endangered species, although it is showing signs of a comeback since 2001. Galicia's woodlands and mountains are home to rabbits, hares, wild boars, and roe deer, all of which are popular with hunters. Several important bird migration routes pass through Galicia, and some of the community's relatively few environmentally protected areas are Special Protection Areas (such as on the Ría de Ribadeo) for these birds. From a domestic point of view, Galicia has been credited for author Manuel Rivas as the "land of one million cows". Galician Blond and Holstein cattle coexist on meadows and farms.
Being located on the Atlantic coastline, Galicia has a very mild climate for the latitude and the marine influence affects most of the province to various degrees. In comparison to similar latitudes on the other side of the Atlantic, winters are exceptionally mild, with consistently heavy rainfall. Snow is rare due to temperatures rarely dropping below freezing. The warmest coastal station of Pontevedra has a yearly mean temperature of 14.8 °C (58.6 °F). Ourense located somewhat inland is only slightly warmer with 14.9 °C (58.8 °F). Due to its exposed north-westerly location, the climate is still very cool by Spanish standards. In coastal areas summers are temperered, averaging around 25 °C (77 °F) in Vigo. Temperatures are further cooler in A Coruña, with a subdued 22.8 °C (73.0 °F) normal. Temperatures do however soar in inland areas such as Ourense, where days above 30 °C (86 °F) are very regular.
The lands of Galicia are ascribed to two different areas in the Köppen climate classification: a south area (roughly, the province of Ourense and Pontevedra) with tendencies to have some summer drought, classified as a warm-summer Mediterranean climate (Csb), with mild temperatures and rainfall usual throughout the year; and the western and northern coastal regions, the provinces of Lugo and A Coruña, which are characterized by their Oceanic climate (Cfb), with a more uniform precipitation distribution along the year, and milder summers. However, precipitation in southern coastal areas are often classified as oceanic since the averages remain significantly higher than a typical mediterranean climate.
As an example, Santiago de Compostela, the political capital city, has an average of 129 rainy days and 1,362 millimetres (53.6 in) per year (with just 17 rainy days in the three summer months) and 2,101 sunlight hours per year, with just 6 days with frosts per year. But the colder city of Lugo, to the east, has an average of 1,759 sunlight hours per year, 117 days with precipitations (> 1 mm) totalling 901.54 millimetres (35.5 in), and 40 days with frosts per year. The more mountainous parts of the provinces of Ourense and Lugo receive significant snowfall during the winter months. The sunniest city is Pontevedra with 2,223 sunny hours per year.
Galicia is further divided into 53 comarcas, 315 municipalities (93 in A Coruña, 67 in Lugo, 92 in Ourense, 62 in Pontevedra) and 3,778 parishes. Municipalities are divided into parishes, which may be further divided into aldeas ("hamlets") or lugares ("places"). This traditional breakdown into such small areas is unusual when compared to the rest of Spain. Roughly half of the named population entities of Spain are in Galicia, which occupies only 5.8 percent of the country's area. It is estimated that Galicia has over a million named places, over 40,000 of them being communities.
In comparison to the other regions of Spain, the major economic benefit of Galicia is its fishing Industry. Galicia is a land of economic contrast. While the western coast, with its major population centers and its fishing and manufacturing industries, is prosperous and increasing in population, the rural hinterland — the provinces of Ourense and Lugo — is economically dependent on traditional agriculture, based on small landholdings called minifundios. However, the rise of tourism, sustainable forestry and organic and traditional agriculture are bringing other possibilities to the Galician economy without compromising the preservation of the natural resources and the local culture.
Galicia was late to catch the tourism boom that has swept Spain in recent decades, but the coastal regions (especially the Rías Baixas and Santiago de Compostela) are now significant tourist destinations and are especially popular with visitors from other regions in Spain, where the majority of tourists come from. In 2007, 5.7 million tourists visited Galicia, an 8% growth over the previous year, and part of a continual pattern of growth in this sector. 85% of tourists who visit Galicia visit Santiago de Compostela. Tourism constitutes 12% of Galician GDP and employs about 12% of the regional workforce.
The most important Galician fishing port is the Port of Vigo; It is one of the world's leading fishing ports, second only to Tokyo, with an annual catch worth 1,500 million euros. In 2007 the port took in 732,951 metric tons (721,375 long tons; 807,940 short tons) of fish and seafood, and about 4,000,000 metric tons (3,900,000 long tons; 4,400,000 short tons) of other cargoes. Other important ports are Ferrol, A Coruña, and the smaller ports of Marín and Vilagarcía de Arousa, as well as important recreational ports in Pontevedra and Burela. Beyond these, Galicia has 120 other organized ports.
Within Galicia are the Autopista AP-9 from Ferrol to Vigo and the Autopista AP-53 (also known as AG-53, because it was initially built by the Xunta de Galicia) from Santiago to Ourense. Additional roads under construction include Autovía A-54 from Santiago de Compostela to Lugo, and Autovía A-56 from Lugo to Ourense. The Xunta de Galicia has built roads connecting comarcal capitals, such as the aforementioned AG-53, Autovía AG-55 connecting A Coruña to Carballo or AG-41 connecting Pontevedra to Sanxenxo.
The first railway line in Galicia was inaugurated 15 September 1873. It ran from O Carril, Vilagarcía de Arousa to Cornes, Conxo, Santiago de Compostela. A second line was inaugurated in 1875, connecting A Coruña and Lugo. In 1883, Galicia was first connected by rail to the rest of Spain, by way of O Barco de Valdeorras. Galicia today has roughly 1,100 kilometres (680 mi) of rail lines. Several 1,668 mm (5 ft 5 21⁄32 in) Iberian gauge lines operated by Adif and Renfe Operadora connect all the important Galician cities. A 1,000 mm (3 ft 3 3⁄8 in) metre gauge line operated by FEVE connects Ferrol to Ribadeo and Oviedo. The only electrified line is the Ponferrada-Monforte de Lemos-Ourense-Vigo line. Several high-speed rail lines are under construction. Among these are the Olmedo-Zamora-Galicia high-speed rail line that opened partly in 2011, and the AVE Atlantic Axis route, which will connect all of the major Galician Atlantic coast cities A Coruña, Santiago de Compostela, Pontevedra and Vigo to Portugal. Another projected AVE line will connect Ourense to Pontevedra and Vigo.
The rapid increase of population of A Coruña, Vigo and to a lesser degree other major Galician cities, like Ourense, Pontevedra or Santiago de Compostela during the years that followed the Spanish Civil War during the mid-20th century occurred as the rural population declined: many villages and hamlets of the four provinces of Galicia disappeared or nearly disappeared during the same period. Economic development and mechanization of agriculture resulted in the fields being abandoned, and most of the population has moving to find jobs in the main cities. The number of people working in the Tertiary and Quaternary sectors of the economy has increased significantly.
Spanish was nonetheless the only official language in Galicia for more than four centuries. Over the many centuries of Castilian domination, Galician faded from day-to-day use in urban areas. The period since the re-establishment of democracy in Spain—in particular since the Lei de Normalización Lingüística ("Law of Linguistic Normalization", Ley 3/1983, 15 June 1983)—represents the first time since the introduction of mass education that a generation has attended school in Galician (Spanish is also still taught in Galician schools).
Nowadays, Galician is resurgent, though in the cities it remains a "second language" for most. According to a 2001 census, 99.16 percent of the populace of Galicia understand the language, 91.04 percent speak it, 68.65 percent read it and 57.64 percent write it. The first two numbers (understanding and speaking) remain roughly the same as a decade earlier; the latter two (reading and writing) both show enormous gains: a decade earlier, only 49.3 percent of the population could read Galician, and only 34.85 percent could write it. This fact can be easily explained because of the impossibility of teaching Galician during the Francisco Franco era, so older people speak the language but have no written competence. Galician is the highest-percentage spoken language in its region among the regional languages of Spain.
The earliest known document in Galician-Portuguese dates from 1228. The Foro do bo burgo do Castro Caldelas was granted by Alfonso IX of León to the town of Burgo, in Castro Caldelas, after the model of the constitutions of the town of Allariz. A distinct Galician Literature emerged during the Middle Ages: In the 13th century important contributions were made to the romance canon in Galician-Portuguese, the most notable those by the troubadour Martín Codax, the priest Airas Nunes, King Denis of Portugal and King Alfonso X of Castile, Alfonso O Sabio ("Alfonso the Wise"), the same monarch who began the process of establishing the hegemony of Castilian. During this period, Galician-Portuguese was considered the language of love poetry in the Iberian Romance linguistic culture. The names and memories of Codax and other popular cultural figures are well preserved in modern Galicia and, despite the long period of Castilian linguistic domination, these names are again household words.
Christianity is the most widely practised religion in Galicia, as it has been since its introduction in Late Antiquity, although it lived alongside the old Gallaeci religion for a few centuries. Today about 73% of Galicians identify themselves as Christians. The largest form of Christianity practised in the present day is Catholicism, though only 20% of the population described themselves as active members. The Catholic Church in Galicia has had its primatial seat in Santiago de Compostela since the 12th century.
Since the Middle Ages, the Galician Catholic Church has been organized into five ecclesiastical dioceses (Lugo, Ourense, Santiago de Compostela, Mondoñedo-Ferrol and Tui-Vigo). While these may have coincided with contemporary 15th-century civil provinces, they no longer have the same boundaries as the modern civil provincial divisions. The church is led by one archbishop and four bishops. Moreover, of five dioceses, Galicia is divided between 163 districts and 3,792 parishes, a few of which are governed by administrators, the remainder by parish priests.
Hundreds of ancient standing stone monuments like dolmens, menhirs and megalithics Tumulus were erected during the prehistoric period in Galicia, amongst the best-known are the dolmens of Dombate, Corveira, Axeitos of Pedra da Arca, menhirs like the "Lapa de Gargñáns". From the Iron Age, Galicia has a rich heritage based mainly on a great number of Hill forts, few of them excavated like Baroña, Sta. Tegra, San Cibrao de Lás and Formigueiros among others. With the introduction of Ancient Roman architecture there was a development of basilicas, castra, city walls, cities, villas, Roman temples, Roman roads, and the Roman bridge of Ponte Vella. It was the Romans who founded some of the first cities in Galicia like Lugo and Ourense. Perhaps the best-known examples are the Roman Walls of Lugo and the Tower of Hercules in A Coruña.
The patron saint of Galicia is Saint James the Greater, whose body was discovered – according to the Catholic tradition – in 814 near Compostela. After that date, the relics of Saint James became an extraordinary centre of pilgrimage and from the 9th century have been kept in the heart of the church – the modern-day cathedral – dedicated to him. There are many other Galician and associated saints; some of the best-known are: Saint Ansurius, Saint Rudesind, Saint Mariña of Augas Santas, Saint Senorina, Trahamunda and Froilan.
In northern Galicia, the A Coruña-Ferrol metropolitan area has become increasingly dominant in terms of population. The population of the city of A Coruña in 1900 was 43,971. The population of the rest of the province including the City and Naval Station of nearby Ferrol and Santiago de Compostela was 653,556. A Coruña's growth occurred after the Spanish Civil War at the same speed as other major Galician cities, but it was the arrival of democracy in Spain after the death of Francisco Franco when A Coruña left all the other Galician cities behind.
Galicia's inhabitants are known as Galicians (Galician: galegos, Spanish: gallegos). For well over a century Galicia has grown more slowly than the rest of Spain, due largely to emigration to Latin America and to other parts of Spain. Sometimes Galicia has lost population in absolute terms. In 1857, Galicia had Spain's densest population and constituted 11.5% of the national population. As of 2007, only 6.1% of the Spanish population resides in the autonomous community. This is due to an exodus of Galician people since the 19th century, first to South America and later to Central Europe.
The Galician road network includes autopistas and autovías connecting the major cities, as well as national and secondary roads to the rest of the municipalities. The Autovía A-6 connects A Coruña and Lugo to Madrid, entering Galicia at Pedrafita do Cebreiro. The Autovía A-52 connects O Porriño, Ourense and Benavente, and enters Galicia at A Gudiña. Two more autovías are under construction. Autovía A-8 enters Galicia on the Cantabrian coast, and ends in Baamonde (Lugo province). Autovía A-76 enters Galicia in Valdeorras; it is an upgrade of the existing N-120 to Ourense and Vigo.

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