Ring, County Waterford facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Ring An Rinn
Gaeltacht
Ring Location in Ireland
Country	Ireland
Province	Munster
County	Waterford
Population  (2016)	499
Time zone	UTC+0 (WET)
• Summer (DST)	UTC-1 (IST (WEST))
Irish Grid Reference	X259930

Ring (Irish: An Rinn, its official name) or Ringagonagh (Rinn Ó gCuanach, IPA:[ˈɾˠiːn̪ʲˈoːˈɡuənˠəx]) is a parish within the Irish-speaking Gaeltacht na nDéise area in County Waterford, Ireland. It lies on a peninsula about eleven kilometres (7 mi) south of Dungarvan. The main settlement is the village of Ring or Ringville, which is within the townland of Ballynagaul.

It is a growing area that has three schools – two primary (including Scoil na Leanaí in Coláiste na Rinne, an Irish language boarding school) and one secondary school, Meánscoil San Nioclás. There are also a post office, restaurants, pubs and other businesses. There are two fishing piers/harbours (Ballynagaul and Helvick), two beaches (The Cunnigar and Ballynagaul) and a cove at Helvick.

Placename

'Ring' is an anglicisation of the Irish name 'An Rinn', meaning a meaning cape, point or headland. In 2005, the then Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs Éamon Ó Cuív announced that by way of Placenames Orders under the Official Languages Act 2003, anglicised place names (such as 'Ring') of Gaeltacht towns and villages would no longer feature on official signposts, and only the Irish language names would appear. The English-language version of the town's name was thus officially dropped from roadsigns in 2005. However, the English-language version of the name, Ring, is still widely used in Waterford and elsewhere.

Irish language

The Irish language plays an important role for people in the area, which is pivotal for improving their linguistic abilities. Gaoluinn na nDéise - the Waterford variant of the Munster Irish dialect - is spoken by native speakers. The strongest age-group of Irish speakers is the 10-14 age category, of which 50.8% use the language on a daily basis outside of educational institutions. A large number of people have moved to the area over recent decades (primarily from other parts of Ireland), and as a result there is a group of people living in Ring for whom Irish is not their first language.

The Comprehensive Linguistic Study of the use of Irish in the Gaeltacht, published in 2007 and updated in 2014, gave information in relation to the number of Irish speakers in Gaeltacht na nDéise and the three electoral divisions it comprises: Ring, Ballymacart and Ardmore. The results for Ring were as follows:

Sport

Rinn Ó gCuanach CLG is a Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) club based in Ring. The club enters teams for both Gaelic football and hurling each year.

Education

All education in Ring is taught in Irish. There is a pre-school, Naíonra na Rinne, in the local community centre, Ionad Pobail na Rinne. There is one primary school, Scoil Náisiúnta na Rinne, located at Maoil an Choirnigh. There is one secondary school, Meánscoil San Nioclás, which services Ring, An Sean Phobal, and there are also some students from Dungarvan.

Coláiste na Rinne

Coláiste na Rinne (Ring College) is an Irish-language primary school in Ring. It also operates as an Irish-language summer college. During term time it accommodates fifth and sixth class students. As it is a primary boarding school, many students go on to secondary-level boarding schools from here. Many of the visiting students are accommodated by local families, many of whom speak only Irish at home. The college also provides Irish language training courses for various public sector bodies and trainee teachers.

View south over the peninsula

Images for kids

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  View south over the peninsula

See also

In Spanish: An Rinn para niños