New Ireland
New Ireland, formerly New Mecklenburg is an island in the
Pacific, and the most northeastern
province of
Papua New Guinea. It is located at .
Encyclopedia
New Ireland, formerly
New Mecklenburg is an island in the
Pacific, and the most northeastern
province of
Papua New Guinea. It is located at .
Physical geography
The island is part of the
Bismarck Archipelago, and is often described as having the shape of a
musket. The
tropical island of New Ireland is long, narrow and mountainous. For much of its 320 km length, it is less than 10 km across, yet the central mountainous spine is very steep and rugged. The highest peak is Lambel . The island lies between one and five degrees south of the
equator.
Also part of the province are numerous smaller islands, including
New Hanover, Saint Matthias Group , Tabar Group , Tanga Group ,
Feni Islands , Djaul,
Lihir and Anir.
The land area of the province is around 9600 square km.
History
There have been at least three waves of
migration into New Ireland over the last 40,000 years. The famous Lapita pottery culture was present around 3,300 years ago.
Chinese and South-East Asian contact appears to have been longstanding, though evidence is thin.
Dutch explorers made the first European contact in 1616. It was initially believed by Europeans to be part of
New Britain, but the British explorer Philip Carteret established in 1767 that the island was physically separate, and gave it the name
Nova Hibernia.
Missionary activity did not begin until 1877, and New Ireland was colonised by
Germany in 1886 under the name
Neu-Mecklenburg, as part of the German partition comprising the northern half of present-day Papua New Guinea.
Blackbirding - the removal, often by force, of local young men to work on plantations in northern Australia and other Pacific islands - was widespread in New Ireland in the late 19th century.
Australia took control in 1914, in the early stages of
World War I, and renamed the island as
New Ireland. It became part of the Mandated Territory of New Guinea declared in 1921 by the League of Nations and administered by Australia.
During
World War II New Ireland was occupied by Japanese forces from January 1941 until 1945.
Australian colonial administration continued until Papua New Guinea became independent in September 1975.
Human geography
The current population is 118,350 , the vast majority of whom live in small rural villages. The main town is Kavieng, the provincial capital, on the northern tip of the main island; Namatanai is another small town halfway along the island. The Boluminski Highway runs down the east coast, linking the two towns.
Around twenty
languages are spoken in New Ireland, and the number of dialects and subdialects totals perhaps 45. All are in the New Ireland languages group within the
Austronesian language family, except for one language isolate, Kuot.
Culture
New Ireland, like much of
Papua New Guinea, has a mixture of the old and the new: traditional cultural practices are widespread and almost universally respected, yet society is changing as a result of church activity,
urbanisation, and various aspects of global contemporary culture making their mark.
Probably the most famous cultural system of New Ireland is "Malagan", a Nalik word for an ancient and revered set of practices and ceremonies practised throughout much of the main island, though abandoned during World War II because of the difficulty of providing the considerable investment of resources the rites and ceremonies required.
