Everything about New Ireland Province totally explained
New Ireland Province, formerly
New Mecklenburg is the most northeastern
province of
Papua New Guinea.
Physical geography
The largest island of the province is
New Ireland.
Also part of the province are numerous smaller islands, including
New Hanover,
Saint Matthias Group (
Mussau,
Emirau),
Tabar Group (
Tabar,
Tatau,
Simberi),
Tanga Group (Malendok, Boang),
Feni Islands (
Ambitle,
Babase),
Djaul,
Lihir and Anir.
The land area of the province is around 9 600 km².
Ecology
In the early days of the
French Revolution while in search of a lost scientific expedition the vessel La Recherche passed by New Ireland. On board was the prominent botanist
Jacques-Julien Houtou de Labillardière who noted in his journal fine stands of
teak (tectona grandis) trees growing at the southern end of the island. This marks the easternmost occurrence of teak, an important timber tree which extends naturally from
India to
Thailand on the Asian mainland and also is present on
Java in the Indonesian archipelago.
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.
In the 1870s and 1880s,
Marquis de Rays, a French nobleman unsuccessfully attempted to establish a French colony on the island called
La Nouvelle France. He sent four ill-fated expeditions to the island, the
most famous of which caused the death of 123 settlers.
Missionary activity didn't 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 population during the year
2000 census was 118,350 people, 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 ("custom") 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.
Further Information
Get more info on 'New Ireland Province'.
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