I am talking about the usage of the term in English language. The term Taoiseach is even defined in the Irish constitution as “the Prime Minister”, according to Wikipedia. So I wonder if there’s a historic reason the term is left untranslated in English language, unlike terms for equivalent offices in other countries.
In: Culture
Well I think its two things really:
1)Ireland and the UK have a much closer relationship than the UK and for that reason both the Taoiseach is talked about more frequently in British press so its sort of a show of respect or just another way to distinguish him from the UK’s PM with adding the “Irish” qualifier every time.
And..
2) Merkel is the Chancellor of Germany not the Prime minister so they don’t need a second term to distinguish, they can just refer to her as “the Chancellor”.
The UK colonized Ireland for a long time and at points suppressed and prosecuted people for being too Irish and that included trying to wipe out The Irish language.
In the 1920s Ireland drove the British out of most of the island and established the Republic of Ireland.
One of the things they’ve done since then is to introduce Irish language terms back into official functions to assert their identity as Irish. That’s why the police are also called Garda and the Post Office is An Post. Taoiseach is part of that.
Ireland and Britain have a very long and bloody relationship, there has been conflict for almost all of their recorded history. Insisting on the use of Irish titles is a way of asserting Irish national identity after finally breaking away from the British Empire.
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