1.
Gaeltacht
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Gaeltacht is an Irish-language word used to denote any primarily Irish-speaking region. The boundaries of the Gaeltacht have included a percentage of resident English-speakers since British colonisation. It is now recognised that the Gaeltacht is threatened by serious language decline, research published in 2015 showed that of the 155 electoral divisions in the Gaeltacht, only 21 are communities where Irish is spoken on a daily basis by 67% or more of the population. 67% is regarded by some academics as a point for language survival. In 1926 the official Gaeltacht came into being after the report of the first Gaeltacht Commission Coimisiún na Gaeltachta, the exact boundaries were not defined. The quota at the time was 25%+ Irish-speaking, although in many cases Gaeltacht status was accorded to areas that were weaker than this. The Irish Free State recognised that there were Irish-speaking or semi-Irish-speaking districts in 15 of its 26 counties, in the 1950s another Gaeltacht Commission concluded that the Gaeltacht boundaries were ill-defined. It recommended that the Gaeltacht status admittance of an area be based solely on the strength of the language there, the Gaeltacht districts were initially defined precisely in the 1950s, excluding many areas which had witnessed a decline in the language. This left Gaeltacht areas in seven of the states 26 counties and this would threaten the future of the Gaeltacht. Parents felt that the educational system cancelled their efforts to pass on Irish as a language to their children. The study added that a significant number of Gaeltacht schools had switched to teaching through English, in 2002 the third Coimisiún na Gaeltachta stated in its report that the erosion of Irish in the Gaeltacht was now such that it was only a matter of time before the Gaeltacht disappeared. In some areas Irish had already ceased to be a community language, even in the strongest Gaeltacht areas, current patterns of bilingualism were leading to the dominance of English. Policies implemented by the State and voluntary groups were having no effect, a new language reinforcement strategy was required, one that had the confidence of the community itself. The Commission recommended, among other things, that the boundaries of the official Gaeltacht should be redrawn. It also recommended a comprehensive study to assess the vitality of the Irish language in the remaining Gaeltacht districts. The study was undertaken by Acadamh na hOllscolaíochta Gaeilge, and on 1 November 2007 Staidéar Cuimsitheach Teangeolaíoch ar Úsáid na Gaeilge sa Ghaeltacht appeared, in response to this situation, the government introduced the Gaeltacht Bill 2012. Its stated aim was to provide for a new definition of based on language criteria. This status could only be revoked if the area failed to prepare a language plan, the Bill was also criticised for placing all responsibility for the maintenance of Irish on voluntary organisations, with no increase in resources
2.
Newry
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Newry is a city in Northern Ireland,34 miles from Belfast and 67 miles from Dublin. It had a population of 29,946 in 2011, Newry straddles counties Armagh and Down. Newry was founded in 1144 alongside a Cistercian monastery, although there are references to settlements in the area. It is one of Irelands oldest towns, the city is an entry to the Gap of the North, close to the border with the Republic of Ireland. It grew as a town and a garrison and became a port in 1742 when it was linked to Lough Neagh by the first summit-level canal built in Ireland or Great Britain. In 2002, as part of Queen Elizabeths Golden Jubilee celebrations, the name Newry is an anglicization of An Iúraigh, an oblique form of An Iúrach, which means the grove of yew trees. The modern Irish name for Newry is An tIúr, which means the yew tree, an tIúr is an shortening of Iúr Cinn Trá, yew tree at the head of the strand, which was formerly the most common Irish name for Newry. This relates to a story that Saint Patrick planted a yew tree there in the 5th century. The Irish name Cathair an Iúir appears on some signs around the city. In 820, the Danes made one of their earliest irruptions at Newry abbey, from whence they proceeded to Armagh, taking it by storm, todd James Henthorn tells us more in his 1867 Volume, where he tells us the abbey was attacked in 824. A small medieval town was in situ to the North and South of the abbey which was refounded in 1142 by King O Carroll of the Oriel on the request of Saint Malachi. The landing stage of the abbey was situated to the North of the college in Killmorey street, from early times it was the main pier. It stayed as such until the construction of the new canal took place, the abbey was later converted to a collegiate church in 1543, before being surrendered to the crown in 1548. The abbey is seen to be giving its earnings to the crown almost 200 years before this date and it is described as being one of the richest and largest in Ireland. The Vikings attacked the Abbey many time, slaughtering its occupants, the town was granted its first charter between 1157 by High King of Ireland Muirchertach Mac Lochlainn. In 1162 the monastery was attacked and burned to some degree, there is no evidence however as to how much of the abbey was burned in this attack stones dont burn so it was not completely destroyed as may be assumed. De Courcys lordship ensured a safe spell for the abbey after he had several castles in and around Newry. In 1539 an English mercenary, Nicholas Bagenal, fled to Ireland after murdering a man in Leek, Staffordshire, after some time in the employment of the O Neill he reached a high status, was granted a pardon in 1543, and became Marshal of the army
3.
Republic of Ireland
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Ireland, also known as the Republic of Ireland, is a sovereign state in north-western Europe occupying about five-sixths of the island of Ireland. The capital and largest city is Dublin, which is located on the part of the island. The state shares its land border with Northern Ireland, a part of the United Kingdom. It is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, with the Celtic Sea to the south, Saint Georges Channel to the south-east, and it is a unitary, parliamentary republic. The head of government is the Taoiseach, who is elected by the Dáil and appointed by the President, the state was created as the Irish Free State in 1922 as a result of the Anglo-Irish Treaty. It was officially declared a republic in 1949, following the Republic of Ireland Act 1948, Ireland became a member of the United Nations in December 1955. It joined the European Economic Community, the predecessor of the European Union, after joining the EEC, Ireland enacted a series of liberal economic policies that resulted in rapid economic growth. The country achieved considerable prosperity between the years of 1995 and 2007, which known as the Celtic Tiger period. This was halted by a financial crisis that began in 2008. However, as the Irish economy was the fastest growing in the EU in 2015, Ireland is again quickly ascending league tables comparing wealth and prosperity internationally. For example, in 2015, Ireland was ranked as the joint sixth most developed country in the world by the United Nations Human Development Index and it also performs well in several national performance metrics, including freedom of the press, economic freedom and civil liberties. Ireland is a member of the European Union and is a member of the Council of Europe. The 1922 state, comprising 26 of the 32 counties of Ireland, was styled, the Constitution of Ireland, adopted in 1937, provides that the name of the State is Éire, or, in the English language, Ireland. Section 2 of the Republic of Ireland Act 1948 states, It is hereby declared that the description of the State shall be the Republic of Ireland. The 1948 Act does not name the state as Republic of Ireland, because to have done so would have put it in conflict with the Constitution. The government of the United Kingdom used the name Eire, and, from 1949, Republic of Ireland, for the state, as well as Ireland, Éire or the Republic of Ireland, the state is also referred to as the Republic, Southern Ireland or the South. In an Irish republican context it is referred to as the Free State or the 26 Counties. From the Act of Union on 1 January 1801, until 6 December 1922, during the Great Famine, from 1845 to 1849, the islands population of over 8 million fell by 30%
4.
Ireland
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Ireland is an island in the North Atlantic. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel, the Irish Sea, Ireland is the second-largest island of the British Isles, the third-largest in Europe, and the twentieth-largest on Earth. Politically, Ireland is divided between the Republic of Ireland, which covers five-sixths of the island, and Northern Ireland, in 2011, the population of Ireland was about 6.4 million, ranking it the second-most populous island in Europe after Great Britain. Just under 4.6 million live in the Republic of Ireland, the islands geography comprises relatively low-lying mountains surrounding a central plain, with several navigable rivers extending inland. The island has lush vegetation, a product of its mild, thick woodlands covered the island until the Middle Ages. As of 2013, the amount of land that is wooded in Ireland is about 11% of the total, there are twenty-six extant mammal species native to Ireland. The Irish climate is moderate and classified as oceanic. As a result, winters are milder than expected for such a northerly area, however, summers are cooler than those in Continental Europe. Rainfall and cloud cover are abundant, the earliest evidence of human presence in Ireland is dated at 10,500 BC. Gaelic Ireland had emerged by the 1st century CE, the island was Christianised from the 5th century onward. Following the Norman invasion in the 12th century, England claimed sovereignty over Ireland, however, English rule did not extend over the whole island until the 16th–17th century Tudor conquest, which led to colonisation by settlers from Britain. In the 1690s, a system of Protestant English rule was designed to materially disadvantage the Catholic majority and Protestant dissenters, with the Acts of Union in 1801, Ireland became a part of the United Kingdom. Northern Ireland saw much civil unrest from the late 1960s until the 1990s and this subsided following a political agreement in 1998. In 1973 the Republic of Ireland joined the European Economic Community while the United Kingdom, Irish culture has had a significant influence on other cultures, especially in the fields of literature. Alongside mainstream Western culture, an indigenous culture exists, as expressed through Gaelic games, Irish music. The culture of the island shares many features with that of Great Britain, including the English language, and sports such as association football, rugby, horse racing. The name Ireland derives from Old Irish Eriu and this in turn derives from Proto-Celtic *Iveriu, which is also the source of Latin Hibernia. Iveriu derives from a root meaning fat, prosperous, during the last glacial period, and up until about 9000 years ago, most of Ireland was covered with ice, most of the time
5.
Occitania
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Occitania is the historical region in southern Europe where Occitan was historically the main language spoken, and where it is sometimes still used, for the most part as a second language. This cultural area roughly encompasses the southern half of France, as well as Monaco and smaller parts of Italy, since 2006, the Occitan language has been an official language of Catalonia, which includes the Aran Valley where Occitan gained official status in 1990. Gallia Aquitania is thus also a name used since medieval times for Occitania, thus the historic Duchy of Aquitaine must not be confused with the modern French region called Aquitaine, this is the main reason why the term Occitania was revived in the mid-19th century. This derives from the name Lenga dòc that was used in Italian by Dante in the late 13th century. The somewhat uncommon ending of the term Occitania is most probably a portmanteau French clerks coined from òc and Aquitània, thus blending the language, Occitan and Lenga dòc both refer to the centuries-old set of Romance dialects that use òc for yes. Occitania includes the regions, The southern half of France, Provence, Drôme-Vivarais, Auvergne, Limousin, Guyenne, Gascony, southern Dauphiné. French is now the dominant language in this area, where Occitan is not recognized as an official language, the Occitan Valleys in the Italian Аlps, where the Occitan language received legal status in 1999. The Aran valley, in the Pyrenees, in Catalonia where Occitan has been a language since 1990 The Principality of Monaco. Occitan or langue doc is a Latin-based Romance language in the way as Spanish. There are six main varieties, with easy inter-comprehension among them, Provençal, Vivaroalpenc, Auvernhat, Lemosin, Gascon. All these varieties of the Occitan language are written and valid, standard Occitan is a synthesis which respects soft regional adaptations. See also Northern Occitan and Southern Occitan, Catalan is a language very similar to Occitan and there are quite strong historical and cultural links between Occitania and Catalonia. Written texts in Occitan appeared in the 10th century, it was used at once in legal then literary, scientific or religious texts. The spoken dialects of Occitan are centuries older and appeared as soon as the 8th century, at least, revealed in toponyms or in Occitanized words left in Latin manuscripts, for instance. Occitania was often politically united during the Early Middle Ages, under the Visigothic Kingdom, since then the country was never politically united again, though Occitania was united by a common culture which used to cross easily the political, constantly moving boundaries. Actually, the terms Lenga dÒc, Occitan, and Occitania appeared at the end of the 13th century, but from the 13th to the 17th centuries, the French kings gradually conquered Occitania, sometimes by war and slaughtering the population, sometimes by annexation with subtle political intrigue. From the end of the 15th century, the nobility and bourgeoisie started learning French while the people stuck to Occitan, in 1539, Francis I issued the Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts that imposed the use of French in administration. In 1789, the revolutionary committees tried to re-establish the autonomy of the Midi regions, they used the Occitan language, the 19th century witnessed a strong revival of the Occitan literature and the writer Frédéric Mistral was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1904
6.
Brittany
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Brittany is a cultural region in the north-west of France. Brittany has also referred to as Less, Lesser or Little Britain. It is bordered by the English Channel to the north, the Celtic Sea and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and its land area is 34,023 km². Since reorganisation in 1956, the administrative region of Brittany comprises only four of the five Breton departments. The remaining area of old Brittany, the Loire-Atlantique department around Nantes, at the 2010 census, the population of historic Brittany was estimated to be 4,475,295. Of these, 71% lived in the region of Brittany, while 29% lived in the Loire-Atlantique department, in 2012, the largest metropolitan areas were Nantes, Rennes, and Brest. Brittany is the homeland of the Breton people and is recognised by the Celtic League as one of the six Celtic nations. A nationalist movement seeks greater autonomy within the French Republic, the word Brittany, along with its French, Breton and Gallo equivalents Bretagne, Breizh and Bertaèyn, derive from the Latin Britannia, which means Britons land. This word had been used by the Romans since the 1st century to refer to Great Britain and this word derives from a Greek word, Πρεττανικη or Βρεττανίαι, used by Pytheas, an explorer from Massalia who visited the British Islands around 320 BC. This term probably comes from a Gallic word, aremorica, which close to the sea. Another name, Letauia, was used until the 12th century and it possibly means wide and flat or to expand and it gave the Welsh name for Brittany, Llydaw. Later, authors like Geoffrey of Monmouth used the terms Britannia minor, breton-speaking people may pronounce the word Breizh in two different ways, according to their region of origin. Breton can be divided into two dialects, the KLT and the dialect of Vannes. KLT speakers pronounce it and would write it Breiz, while the Vannetais speakers pronounce it, the official spelling is a compromise between both variants, with a z and an h together. In 1941, efforts to unify the dialects led to the creation of the so-called Breton zh, on its side, Gallo language has never had a widely accepted writing system and several ones coexist. For instance, the name of the region in that language can be written Bertaèyn in ELG script, or Bertègn in MOGA, Brittany has been inhabited by humans since the Lower Paleolithic. This population was scarce and very similar to the other Neanderthals found in the whole of Western Europe and their only original feature was a distinct culture, called Colombanian. One of the oldest hearths in the world has found in Plouhinec
7.
Scotland
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Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and covers the northern third of the island of Great Britain. It shares a border with England to the south, and is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, with the North Sea to the east. In addition to the mainland, the country is made up of more than 790 islands, including the Northern Isles, the Kingdom of Scotland emerged as an independent sovereign state in the Early Middle Ages and continued to exist until 1707. By inheritance in 1603, James VI, King of Scots, became King of England and King of Ireland, Scotland subsequently entered into a political union with the Kingdom of England on 1 May 1707 to create the new Kingdom of Great Britain. The union also created a new Parliament of Great Britain, which succeeded both the Parliament of Scotland and the Parliament of England. Within Scotland, the monarchy of the United Kingdom has continued to use a variety of styles, titles, the legal system within Scotland has also remained separate from those of England and Wales and Northern Ireland, Scotland constitutes a distinct jurisdiction in both public and private law. Glasgow, Scotlands largest city, was one of the worlds leading industrial cities. Other major urban areas are Aberdeen and Dundee, Scottish waters consist of a large sector of the North Atlantic and the North Sea, containing the largest oil reserves in the European Union. This has given Aberdeen, the third-largest city in Scotland, the title of Europes oil capital, following a referendum in 1997, a Scottish Parliament was re-established, in the form of a devolved unicameral legislature comprising 129 members, having authority over many areas of domestic policy. Scotland is represented in the UK Parliament by 59 MPs and in the European Parliament by 6 MEPs, Scotland is also a member nation of the British–Irish Council, and the British–Irish Parliamentary Assembly. Scotland comes from Scoti, the Latin name for the Gaels, the Late Latin word Scotia was initially used to refer to Ireland. By the 11th century at the latest, Scotia was being used to refer to Scotland north of the River Forth, alongside Albania or Albany, the use of the words Scots and Scotland to encompass all of what is now Scotland became common in the Late Middle Ages. Repeated glaciations, which covered the land mass of modern Scotland. It is believed the first post-glacial groups of hunter-gatherers arrived in Scotland around 12,800 years ago, the groups of settlers began building the first known permanent houses on Scottish soil around 9,500 years ago, and the first villages around 6,000 years ago. The well-preserved village of Skara Brae on the mainland of Orkney dates from this period and it contains the remains of an early Bronze Age ruler laid out on white quartz pebbles and birch bark. It was also discovered for the first time that early Bronze Age people placed flowers in their graves, in the winter of 1850, a severe storm hit Scotland, causing widespread damage and over 200 deaths. In the Bay of Skaill, the storm stripped the earth from a large irregular knoll, when the storm cleared, local villagers found the outline of a village, consisting of a number of small houses without roofs. William Watt of Skaill, the laird, began an amateur excavation of the site, but after uncovering four houses
8.
County Dublin
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County Dublin is a former county in Ireland. It is conterminous with the Dublin Region and is in the province of Leinster and it is named after the city of Dublin, which is the regional capital and the capital city of Ireland. County Dublin was one of the first parts of Ireland to be shired by John, prior to 1994 County Dublin was also an administrative unit covering the whole county outside of Dublin City Council. In 1994 Dublin County Council was abolished and replaced with three separate administrative county councils, Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown, Fingal and South Dublin, the total population of the three aforementioned counties and Dublin city was 1,345,402 according to the census of 2016. Since the abolition of the Dublin Regional Assembly by statutory instrument No, 573/2014, the Eurostat statistical region known as Dublin Region falls under the remit of the wider Eastern and Midland Regional Authority. There are four local authorities whose remit collectively encompasses the area of the county and city of Dublin. These are Dublin City Council, South Dublin County Council, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, prior to the enactment of the Local Government Act 1993, the county was a unified whole even though it was administered by two local authorities - Dublin County Council and Dublin Corporation. They rank equally as first level administrative units of the NUTS3 Dublin Region for Eurostat purposes. There are 34 LAU1 entities in the Republic of Ireland, each local authority is responsible for certain local services such as sanitation, planning and development, libraries, the collection of motor taxation, local roads and social housing. Dublin County Council was abolished in 1994 and the area divided among the counties of Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown, Fingal. To these areas may be added the area of Dublin city which collectively comprise the Dublin Region, the area lost its administrative county status in 1994, with Section 9 Part 1 of the Local Government Act,1993 stating that the county shall cease to exist. I am not sure whether Dubliners realise that that is what we are about today, the county is part of the Dublin constituency for the purposes of European elections. Together they return 44 deputies to the Dáil, despite the legal status of the Dublin Region, the term County Dublin is still in common usage. Many organisations and sporting teams continue to organise on a County Dublin or Dublin Region basis, the term Greater Dublin Area, which might consist of some or all of the Dublin Region along with counties of Kildare, Meath and Wicklow, has no legal standing. The Dublin Region is a NUTS Level III region of Ireland, the region is one of eight regions of the Republic of Ireland for the purposes of Eurostat statistics. It is co-extensive with the old county, the regional capital is Dublin City which is also the national capital. The latest Ordnance Survey Ireland Discovery Series 1,50,000 map of the Dublin Region, Sheet 50, shows the boundaries of the city and three surrounding counties of the region. Extremities of the Dublin Region, in the north and south of the region, Local radio stations include 98FM, FM104,103.2 Dublin City FM, Q102, SPIN1038, Sunshine 106.8, TXFM, Raidió Na Life and Radio Nova
9.
Gaelic medium education in Scotland
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Gaelic medium education is a form of education in Scotland that allows pupils to be taught primarily through the medium of Scottish Gaelic, with English being taught as the secondary language. Gaelic medium education is popular throughout Scotland, and the number of pupils who are in Gaelic medium education has risen from 24 in 1985 to 3,660 in 2015. The current figure is the highest number of Gaelic medium Education pupils in Scotland since the 2005 passage of the Gaelic Language Act by the Scottish Parliament. Not included in figure are university students at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, Lews Castle College. In 2015,10,677 pupils in Scotland were receiving some kind of education in Gaelic representing 1. 6% of the student population. This figure is higher than Scotlands overall rate of Gaelic-speakers which stood at 1. 1% in 2011, over 3,600 students in Scotland were enrolled in Gaelic medium education in 2015, a 24% increase in only two years and a 38% increase over 2010 figures. Five council areas had a higher than average enrollment of students in Gaelic Medium Education, Eilean Siar, Highland, Argyll & Bute, Glasgow City, all Gaelic medium education students in Argyll & Bute are at the primary level only. Over 7,000 other pupils in Scotland were receiving instruction in Gaelic language courses in 2015, in Eilean Siar,95. 04% of all pupils were receiving some form of Gaelic-language education in 2015. In second place was the Highland council area at 8. 06%, on the reverse side, eighteen council areas had no students at all receiving any education in Gaelic. There are a handful of dedicated Gaelic medium schools in the country, the largest is Sgoil Ghàidhlig Ghlaschu, established in 2006 and catering to pupils aged three to eighteen, the countrys first 3-18 Gaelic medium school. At the beginning of the 2014-15 year the school enrolled 704 pupils and is one of the most over-enrolled schools in Scotland. Bun-sgoil Ghàidhlig Inbhir Nis opened in 2007 in Inverness and serves pupils in class 1-7, Bun-sgoil Taobh na Pàirce enrolled 253 pupils at the start of its second year in operation. A new Gaelic medium primary school, Bun-sgoil Ghàidhlig Loch Abar, opened in Caol near Fort William in 2015, as there are still relatively few such schools, however, Gaelic medium education is mainly provided through Gaelic medium units within English-speaking schools. Bun-sgoil Shlèite on the Isle of Skye is the exception in that it is a Gaelic school with an English Medium Unit, the largest Gaelic unit is at Mount Cameron Primary School in East Kilbride which enrolled 65 pupils at the start of the 2014-15 school year. In her 2013 thesis, Julia Landgraf found that the few GME students exhibiting fully bilingual abilities came from Gaelic-speaking households, however, GME students and other young adults from Gaelic-speaking areas are increasingly exhibiting English-influenced phonology. Furthermore, not all graduates end up using the language, in Dunmores study of 46 adults from a GME background, a majority were classified as low use. Usage was strongly correlated with language abilities, the attitudes towards education and the promotion of Anglicisation have been described as resulting from confrontation of two disparate societies. The history of Gaelic language schools in Scotland can be traced back to the early 18th century, however the insistence on teaching children in a language which was entirely foreign to them resulted in very little progress with regards to establishing literacy in the English language
10.
Northern Catalonia
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Northern Catalonia refers to the territory ceded to France by Spain through the signing of the Treaty of the Pyrenees in 1659. The area corresponds approximately to the modern French département of the Pyrénées-Orientales, the equivalent term in French, Catalogne Nord, is used nowadays, although less often than the more politically neutral Roussillon. Sometimes French Catalonia can also be used, Northern Catalonia forms a triangle between the Pyrenees to the south, the Corbières to the north-west and the Mediterranean Sea to the east. The Roussillon plain in the east, by far the most populated area, is formed by the plains of the Tech, Têt. The districts of Vallespir and Conflent cover the upper valleys of the Tech, the massif of the Canigou,2785 m, dominates much of the territory. The climate is of the Mediterranean type, with hot, dry summers and winters which are relatively mild, at least on the Roussillon plain where snow is rare. The city of Perpignan accounts for over a quarter of the population, over one-third if its area is taken into account. Major road and rail links run north–south through Northern Catalonia between France and Spain, while a line also links Perpignan to Latour-de-Carol via Prades. Haute-Cerdagne is geographically distinct from the rest of Northern Catalonia, lying to the south of the Pyrenean watershed in the valley of the Segre. It is a mountainous and sparsely-populated district, even taking account the town of Llívia which forms an enclave resting under Spanish sovereignty. The district lies on the most direct route between Toulouse and Barcelona, and a line still links the two cities via Latour-de-Carol. Northern Catalonia formed part of the Spanish Marches, established by Charlemagne as a territory against the Moorish forces. As such, it was divided into counties, Rosselló, Vallespir, Conflent north of the Pyrenees. By the end of the century, these counties had gained de facto independence from the Carolingian kings. As the seigneury of the counties became hereditary, the number of Catalan counts fell steadily. One individual often had the charge of several counties, but these were not always transmitted on the basis of primogeniture, the Counts of Rosselló, in alliance with their cousins the Counts of Empuriés, tried to resist this dilution of their power. However the Counts of Barcelona steadily gained suzerainty over the other Catalan counts, the last Count of Rosselló, Girard II, left his title to the Crown of Aragon on his death in 1172 to prevent the territory passing to his illegitimate half-brothers. Royal administration in Catalonia under the Crown of Aragon was organised on the basis of vegueries, in Northern Catalonia, the vegueries followed closely the boundaries of the old counties
