title: NFL Scouting Combine

text: The NFL's first scouting organization, LESTO (Lions, Eagles and Steelers Talent Organization), was started in 1963 by the teams mentioned in its name with headquarters in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It became BLESTO when the Bears joined the following year and BLESTO-V when the Vikings came on board later in the decade; by 1971 the Bills, Colts and Dolphins had joined and the group was known as BLESTO-VIII. It is now known simply as BLESTO despite the fact that the Bears and Eagles are no longer members. The group's offices stayed in Pittsburgh until 2007 when the headquarters moved to Jacksonville, Florida, with support offices remaining in Pittsburgh.


title: NFL Scouting Combine

text: CEPO (Central Eastern Personnel Organization), formed in 1964, was a joint venture of the Colts, Browns, Packers and Cardinals. Its name was changed to United Scouting after the Falcons, Giants and Redskins joined, then to National Football Scouting in 1983 to avoid confusion with the United States Football League, which began operations that year. National Football Scouting is now known simply as The National.


title: NFL Scouting Combine

text: Another scouting organization formed in 1964 was Troika, launched by the Cowboys, Rams and 49ers. It was renamed Quadra when the Saints joined in 1967. Quadra no longer exists; its former members now all belong to The National.


title: NFL Scouting Combine

text: As of the 2015 season, eighteen franchises participate in The National (Arizona Cardinals, Atlanta Falcons, Carolina Panthers, Cincinnati Bengals, Dallas Cowboys, Denver Broncos, Green Bay Packers, Houston Texans, Kansas City Chiefs, New Orleans Saints, New York Jets, Philadelphia Eagles, Los Angeles Rams, Los Angeles Chargers, San Francisco 49ers, Seattle Seahawks, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and Tennessee Titans), with eight served by BLESTO (Buffalo Bills, Detroit Lions, Jacksonville Jaguars, Miami Dolphins, Minnesota Vikings, New York Giants, Pittsburgh Steelers, and Washington Commanders). Each of the six non-affiliated teams (Baltimore Ravens, Chicago Bears, Cleveland Browns, Indianapolis Colts, Las Vegas Raiders, and New England Patriots) relies on its in-house scouting staffs.


title: NFL Scouting Combine

text: In a typical year, there are about 330 invited players. About 250 invitations are sent before bowl games are completed to those who have completed their seasons. However, underclassmen have until mid-January to confirm their draft status. Invitations are made to those receiving supermajority support from the selection committee.


title: NFL Scouting Combine

text: Sports writer Steve Silverman explains, in an article he wrote, what happened to Terrell Suggs in 2003. Suggs was a star player for Arizona State but when Suggs ran a slow 4.83 40 he was downgraded. Later, he became a star player for the Ravens. Doug Tatum of "Times-Picayune" argues that it is unlikely players will be asked to run a 40-yard dash again during their career. Silverman says that the best way to scout is to simply watch them play.


title: NFL Scouting Combine

text: Others think the value in the 40 depends on the position; Daniel Jeremiah, a former scout and an analyst on the NFL Network says "The position where the 40 holds the most weight is cornerback. If you're a receiver who runs a 4.6 like (Anquan) Boldin, but you have short-area quickness and strong hands, the 40 isn't a big deal. But if you're a cornerback who runs a 4.6 and you're facing a receiver who runs a 4.4, it doesn't matter how good your ball skills are."


title: NFL Scouting Combine

text: The NFL scouting combine was first shown on television in 2004. Media and cameras were historically prohibited, but with the launch of NFL Network on November 4, 2003, six installments of one-hour shows to recap the day's events aired in February 2004. NFL Network aired two hours of combine workouts for each workout day in 2005, 26 total hours of coverage in 2006, 27 hours in 2007, and 25 hours in 2009. It began airing over 30 hours of Combine coverage starting in 2010, which received 5.24 million viewers.


title: NFL Scouting Combine

text: In 2019, ESPN began to additionally provide live coverage from the Combine, with daily broadcasts of "NFL Live" on-site, including a two-hour edition airing on ABC with coverage of quarterback and wide receiver drills (marking the first time that official coverage had been provided outside of NFL Network).


title: NFL Scouting Combine

text: Beginning in 2011, a series of eleven regional combines for players not invited to the main scouting combine, as well as other free agents, were held in eight cities (Los Angeles, Houston, Baltimore, Tampa, East Rutherford, Chicago, Atlanta, and Cleveland) from January to March. The best players from these regional combines were invited to the NFL super regional combine at Ford Field in Detroit in late March. In 2016, the NFL went away from this format only holding five Combines in Houston, Arizona, Baltimore, Minnesota and New Orleans.


title: NFL Scouting Combine

text: The first NFL Veteran Combine was scheduled on March 22, 2015 at the Arizona Cardinals' team facility. The combine corresponded with the NFL owners' meetings also being held in Phoenix from March 22–24, 2015. The combine featured veteran free agents, and all 32 clubs in attendance. There were over 2,000 applications from players to participate, although only a select few were chosen. Some of the notable players included Adam Carriker, Felix Jones, Michael Sam, and Brady Quinn. However, only two players participating in the combine (linebacker Brandon Copeland and tight end Ifeanyi Momah) were still on NFL rosters by Week 1 of the 2015 regular season.


title: NFL Scouting Combine

text: The NFL cancelled the planned 2016 Veteran Combine, citing a lack of player interest. Later that year, the NFL announced it would rebrand it as the Pro Player Combine and focus its attention on younger players trying to get another chance in the NFL.


title: County Dublin

text: County Dublin ( or ) is one of the thirty-two traditional counties of Ireland, located on the island's east coast, within the province of Leinster. The county is divided into the local government areas of Dublin City, Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown, Fingal and South Dublin. The latter three are counties which were created in 1994, when County Dublin was abolished for local government purposes. The four areas are a NUTS III statistical region of Ireland (coded IE061).


title: County Dublin

text: Dublin is Ireland's most populous county, with over 1.450 million residents as of 2022 – approximately 28% of the Republic of Ireland's total population. Dublin city is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Ireland, as well as the largest city on the island of Ireland. Roughly 9 out of every 10 people in County Dublin lives within Dublin city and its suburbs. Several sizeable towns that are considered separate from the city, such as Rush, Donabate and Balbriggan, are located in the far north of the county. Swords, while separated from the city by a green belt around Dublin Airport, is considered a suburban commuter town and an emerging small city.


title: County Dublin

text: The third smallest county by land area, Dublin is bordered by Meath to the west and north, Kildare to the west, Wicklow to the south and the Irish Sea to the east. The southern part of the county is dominated by the Dublin Mountains, which rise to around and contain numerous valleys, reservoirs and forests. The county's east coast is punctuated by several bays and inlets, including Rogerstown Estuary, Broadmeadow Estuary, Baldoyle Bay and most prominently, Dublin Bay. The northern section of the county, today known as Fingal, varies enormously in character, from densely populated suburban towns of the city's commuter belt to flat, fertile plains, which are some of the country's largest horticultural and agricultural hubs.


title: County Dublin

text: Dublin is the oldest county in Ireland, and was the first part of the island to be shired following the Norman invasion in the late 1100s. While it is no longer a local government area, Dublin retains a strong identity, and continues to be referred to as both a region and county interchangeably, including at government body level.


title: County Dublin

text: County Dublin is named after the city of Dublin, which is an anglicisation of its Old Norse name "Dyflin". The city was founded in the 9th century AD by Viking settlers who established the Kingdom of Dublin. The Viking settlement was preceded by a Christian ecclesiastical site known as "Duiblinn", from which Dyflin took its name. Duiblinn derives from the early Classical Irish / – from (, , ) meaning "black, dark", and () "pool", referring to a dark tidal pool. This tidal pool was located where the River Poddle entered the Liffey, to the rear of Dublin Castle.


title: County Dublin

text: In addition to Dyflin, a Gaelic settlement known as Áth Cliath ("ford of hurdles") was located further up the Liffey, near present-day Father Mathew Bridge. means "town of the hurdled ford", with Áth Cliath referring to a fording point along the river. Like Duiblinn, an early Christian monastery was also located at Áth Cliath, on the site that is currently occupied by the Whitefriar Street Carmelite Church.


title: County Dublin

text: Dublin was the first county in Ireland to be shired after the Norman Conquest in the late 12th century. The Normans captured the Kingdom of Dublin from its Norse-Gael rulers and the name was used as the basis for the county's official Anglo-Norman (and later English) name. However, in modern Irish the region was named after the Gaelic settlement of "Baile Átha Cliath" or simply "Áth Cliath". As a result, Dublin is one of four counties in Ireland with a different name origin for both Irish and English - the others being Wexford, Waterford and Wicklow, whose English names are also derived from Old Norse.


title: County Dublin

text: The earliest recorded inhabitants of present-day Dublin settled along the mouth of the River Liffey. The remains of five wooden fish traps were discovered near Spencer Dock in 2007. These traps were designed to catch incoming fish at high tide and could be retrieved at low tide. Thin-bladed stone axes were used to craft the traps and radiocarbon dating places them in the Late Mesolithic period (ca. 6,100-5,700 BCE).


title: County Dublin

text: The Vikings invaded the region in the mid-9th century AD and founded what would become the city of Dublin. Over time they mixed with the natives of the area, becoming Norse–Gaels. The Vikings raided across Ireland, Britain, France and Spain during this period and under their rule Dublin developed into the largest slave market in Western Europe. While the Vikings were formidable at sea, the superiority of Irish land forces soon became apparent, and the kingdom's Norse rulers were first exiled from the region as early as 902. Dublin was captured by the High King of Ireland, Máel Sechnaill II, in 980, who freed the kingdom's Gaelic slaves. Dublin was again defeated by Máel Sechnaill in 988 and forced to accept Brehon law and pay taxes to the High King. Successive defeats at the hands of Brian Boru in 999 and, most famously, at the Battle of Clontarf in 1014, relegated Dublin to the status of lesser kingdom.


title: County Dublin

text: In 1170, the ousted King of Leinster, Diarmait Mac Murchada, and his Norman allies agreed to capture Dublin at a war council in Waterford. They evaded the intercepting army of High King Ruaidrí Ua Conchobair by marching through the Wicklow Mountains, arriving outside the walls of Dublin in late September. The King of Dublin, Ascall mac Ragnaill, met with Mac Murchada for negotiations; however, while talks were ongoing, the Normans, led by de Cogan and FitzGerald, stormed Dublin and overwhelmed its defenders, forcing mac Ragnaill to flee to the Northern Isles. Separate attempts to retake Dublin were launched by both Ua Conchobair and mac Ragnaill in 1171, both of which were unsuccessful.


title: County Dublin

text: The authority over Ireland established by the Anglo-Norman King Henry II was gradually lost during the Gaelic resurgence from the 13th century onwards. English power diminished so significantly that by the early 16th century English laws and customs were restricted to a small area around Dublin known as "The Pale". The Earl of Kildare's failed rebellion in 1535 reignited Tudor interest in Ireland, and Henry VIII proclaimed the Kingdom of Ireland in 1542, with Dublin as its capital. Over the next 60 years the Tudor conquest spread to every corner of the island, which was fully subdued by 1603.


title: County Dublin

text: Despite harsh penal laws and unfavourable trade restrictions imposed upon Ireland, Dublin flourished in the 18th century. The Georgian buildings which still define much of Dublin's architectural landscape to this day were mostly built over a 50-year period spanning from about 1750 to 1800. Bodies such as the Wide Streets Commission completely reshaped the city, demolishing most of medieval Dublin in the process. During the Enlightenment, the penal laws were gradually repealed and members of the Protestant Ascendancy began to regard themselves as citizens of a distinct Irish nation. The Irish Patriot Party, led by Henry Grattan, agitated for greater autonomy from Great Britain, which was achieved under the Constitution of 1782. These freedoms proved short-lived, as the Irish Parliament was abolished under the Acts of Union 1800 and Ireland was incorporated into the United Kingdom. Dublin lost its political status as a capital and went into a marked decline throughout the 19th century, leading to widespread demands to repeal the union.


title: County Dublin

text: Although at one time the second city of the British Empire, by the late 1800s Dublin was one of the poorest cities in Europe. The city had the worst housing conditions of anywhere in the United Kingdom, and overcrowding, disease and malnourishment were rife within central Dublin. In 1901, "The Irish Times" reported that the disease and mortality rates in Calcutta during the 1897 bubonic plague outbreak compared ""favourably with those of Dublin at the present moment"". Most of the upper and middle class residents of Dublin had moved to wealthier suburbs, and the grand Georgian homes of the 1700s were converted en masse into tenement slums. In 1911, over 20,000 families in Dublin were living in one-room tenements which they rented from wealthy landlords. Henrietta Street was particularly infamous for the density of its tenements, with 845 people living on the street in 1911, including 19 families - totalling 109 people - living in just one house.


title: County Dublin

text: After decades of political unrest, Ireland appeared to be on the brink of civil war as a result of the Home Rule Crisis. Despite being the centre of Irish unionism outside of Ulster, Dublin was overwhelmingly in favour of Home Rule. Unionist parties had performed poorly in the county since the 1870s, leading contemporary historian W.E.H. Lecky to conclude that ""Ulster unionism is the only form of Irish unionism that is likely to count as a serious political force"". Unlike their counterparts in the north, "southern unionists" were a clear minority in the rest of Ireland, and as such were much more willing to co-operate with the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) to avoid partition at all costs. Following the Anglo-Irish Treaty, Belfast unionist Dawson Bates decried the ""effusive professions of loyalty and confidence in the Provisional Government"" that was displayed by former unionists in the new Irish Free State.


title: County Dublin

text: The question of Home Rule was put on hold due to the outbreak of the First World War but was never to be revisited as a series of missteps by the British government, such as executing the leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising and the Conscription Crisis of 1918, fuelled the Irish revolutionary period. The IPP were wiped out by Sinn Féin in the 1918 general election and, following a brief war of independence, 26 of Ireland's 32 counties seceded from the United Kingdom in December 1922, with Dublin becoming the capital of the Irish Free State, and later the Republic of Ireland.


title: County Dublin

text: From the 1960s onwards, Dublin city greatly expanded due to urban renewal works and the construction of large suburbs such as Tallaght, Coolock and Ballymun, which resettled both the rural and urban poor of County Dublin in newer state-built accommodation. Dublin was the driving force behind Ireland's Celtic Tiger period, an era of rapid economic growth that started in the early 1990s. In stark contrast to the turn of the 20th century, Dublin entered the 21st century as one of Europe's richest cities, attracting immigrants and investment from all over the world.


title: County Dublin

text: Dublin is the third smallest of Ireland's 32 counties by area, and the largest in terms of population. It is the third-smallest of Leinster's 12 counties in size and the largest by population. Dublin shares a border with three counties – Meath to the north and west, Kildare to the west and Wicklow to the south. To the east, Dublin has an Irish Sea coastline which stretches for .


title: County Dublin

text: Dublin is a topographically varied region. The city centre is generally very low-lying, and many areas of coastal Dublin are at or near sea-level. In the south of the county, the topography rises steeply from sea-level at the coast to over in just a few kilometres. This natural barrier has resulted in densely populated coastal settlements in Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown and westward urban sprawl in South Dublin. In contrast, Fingal is generally rural in nature and much less densely populated than the rest of the county. Consequently, Fingal is significantly larger than the other three local authorities and covers about 49.5% of County Dublin's land area. Fingal is also perhaps the flattest region in Ireland, with the low-lying Naul Hills rising to a maximum height of just .


title: County Dublin

text: Dublin is bounded to the south by the Wicklow Mountains. Where the mountains extend into County Dublin, they are known locally as the Dublin Mountains (Sléibhte Bhaile Átha Cliath). Kippure, on the Dublin–Wicklow border, is the county's highest mountain, at above sea level. The mountains are a popular amenity area, with Two Rock, Three Rock, Tibradden and Montpelier Hill being among the most heavily foot-falled hiking destinations in Ireland. Forest cover extends to over within the county, nearly all of which is located in the Dublin Mountains. With just 6.5% of Dublin under forest, it is the 6th least forested county in Ireland.


title: County Dublin

text: Much of the county is drained by the River Liffey and two of its main tributaries, the River Tolka in north Dublin and the River Dodder in south Dublin. The Liffey, at in length, is the 8th longest river in Ireland, and rises near Tonduff in County Wicklow, reaching the Irish Sea at the Dublin Docklands. The Liffey cuts through the centre of Dublin city, and the resultant Northside-Southside divide is an often used social, economic and linguistic distinction. In terms of biodiversity, the estuarine and coastal regions of the county are home to a wealth ecologically important areas. County Dublin contains 11 EU-designated Special Areas of Conservation (SACs) and 11 Special Protection Areas (SPAs).


title: County Dublin

text: The bedrock geology of Dublin consists primarily of Lower Carboniferous limestone, which underlies about two thirds of the entire county, stretching from Skerries to Booterstown. During the Lower Carboniferous (ca. 340 Mya), the area was part of a warm tropical sea inhabited by an abundance of corals, crinoids and brachiopods. The oldest rocks in Dublin are the Cambrian shales located on Howth Head, which were laid down ca. 500 Mya. Disruption following the closure of the Iapetus Ocean approximately 400 Mya resulted in the formation of granite. This is now exposed at the surface from the Dublin Mountains to the coastal areas of Dún Laoghaire. 19th-century Lead extraction and smelting at the Ballycorus Leadmines caused widespread lead poisoning, and the area was once nicknamed "Death Valley".


title: County Dublin

text: Dublin is in a maritime temperate oceanic region according to Köppen climate classification. Its climate is characterised by cool winters, mild humid summers, and a lack of temperature extremes. Met Éireann have a number of weather stations in the county, with its two primary stations at Dublin Airport and Casement Aerodrome.


title: County Dublin

text: Annual temperatures typically fall within a narrow range. In Merrion Square, the coldest month is February, with an average minimum temperature of , and the warmest month is July, with an average maximum temperature of . Due to the urban heat island effect, Dublin city has the warmest summertime nights in Ireland. The average minimum temperature at Merrion Square in July is , similar to London and Berlin, and the lowest July temperature ever recorded at the station was on 3 July 1974. At Dublin Airport, the driest month is February with of rainfall, and the wettest month is November, with of rain on average.


title: County Dublin

text: As the prevailing wind direction in Ireland is from the south and west, the Wicklow Mountains create a rain shadow over much of the county. Dublin's sheltered location makes it the driest place in Ireland, receiving only about half the rainfall of the west coast. Ringsend in the south of Dublin city records the lowest rainfall in the country, with an average annual precipitation of . The wettest area of the county is the Glenasmole Valley, which receives of rainfall per year. As a temperate coastal county, snow is relatively uncommon in lowland areas; however, Dublin is particularly vulnerable to heavy snowfall on rare occasions where cold, dry easterly winds dominate during the winter.


title: County Dublin

text: During the late summer and early autumn, Dublin can experience Atlantic storms, which bring strong winds and torrential rain to Ireland. Dublin was the county worst-affected by Hurricane Charley in 1986. It caused severe flooding, especially along the River Dodder, and is reputed to be the worst flood event in Dublin's history. Rainfall records were shattered across the county. Kippure recorded of rain over a 24-hour period, the greatest daily rainfall total ever recorded in Ireland. The government allocated IR£6,449,000 (equivalent to US$20.5 million in 2020) to repair the damage wrought by Charley. The two reservoirs at Bohernabreena in the Dublin Mountains were upgraded in 2006 after a study into the impact of Hurricane Charley concluded that a slightly larger storm would have caused the reservoir dams to burst, which would have resulted in catastrophic damage and significant loss of life.


title: County Dublin

text: In contrast with the Atlantic Coast, the east coast of Ireland has relatively few islands. County Dublin has one of the highest concentrations of islands on the Irish east coast. Colt Island, St. Patrick's Island, Shenick Island and numerous smaller islets are clustered off the coast of Skerries, and are collectively known as the "Skerries Islands Natural Heritage Area". Further out lies Rockabill, which is Dublin's most isolated island, at about offshore. Lambay Island, at , is the largest island off Ireland's east coast and the easternmost point of County Dublin. Lambay supports one of the largest seabird colonies in Ireland and, curiously, also supports a population of non-native Red-necked wallabies. To the south of Lambay lies a smaller island known as Ireland's Eye - the result of a mistranslation of the island's Irish name by invading Vikings.


title: County Dublin

text: Bull Island is a man-made island lying roughly parallel to the shoreline which began to form following the construction of the Bull Wall in 1825. The island is still growing and is currently long and wide. In 1981, North Bull Island ("Oileán an Tairbh Thuaidh") was designated as a UNESCO biosphere.


title: County Dublin

text: For statistical purposes at European level, the county as a whole forms the Dublin Region – a NUTS III entity – which is in turn part of the NUTS II entity – the Eastern and Midland Region. Councillors from each of the local authorities are representatives on the Eastern and Midland Regional Assembly.


title: County Dublin

text: There are ten historic baronies in the county. While baronies continue to be officially defined units, they ceased to have any administrative function following the Local Government Act 1898, and any changes to county boundaries after the mid-19th century are not reflected in their extent. The last boundary change of a barony in Dublin was in 1842, when the barony of Balrothery was divided into Balrothery East and Balrothery West. The largest recorded barony in Dublin in 1872 was Uppercross, at 39,032 acres (158 km2), and the smallest barony was Dublin, at 1,693 acres (6.9 km2).


title: County Dublin

text: Townlands are the smallest officially defined geographical divisions in Ireland. There are 1,090 townlands in Dublin, of which 88 are historic town boundaries. These town boundaries are registered as their own townlands and are much larger than rural townlands. The smallest rural townlands in Dublin are just 1 acre in size, most of which are offshore islands ("Clare Rock Island, Lamb Island, Maiden Rock, Muglins, Thulla Island"). The largest rural townland in Dublin is 2,797 acres ("Caastlekelly"). The average size of a townland in the county (excluding towns) is 205 acres.


title: County Dublin

text: Under the Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898, County Dublin was divided into urban districts of Blackrock, Clontarf, Dalkey, Drumcondra, Clonliffe and Glasnevin, Killiney and Ballybrack, Kingstown, New Kilmainham, Pembroke, and Rathmines and Rathgar, and the rural districts of Balrothery, Celbridge No. 2, North Dublin, Rathdown, and South Dublin.


title: County Dublin

text: Howth, formerly within the rural district of Dublin North, became an urban district in 1919. Kingstown was renamed Dún Laoghaire in 1920. The rural districts were abolished in 1930.


title: County Dublin

text: Balbriggan, in the rural district of Balrothery, had town commissioners under the Towns Improvement (Ireland) Act 1854. This became a town council in 2002. In common with all town councils, it was abolished in 2014.


title: County Dublin

text: The urban districts were gradually absorbed by the city of Dublin, except for four coastal districts of Blackrock, Dalkey, Dún Laoghaire, and Killiney and Ballybrack, which formed the borough of Dún Laoghaire in 1930.


title: County Dublin

text: The city of Dublin had been administered separately since the 13th century. Under the Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898, the two areas were defined as the administrative county of Dublin and the county borough of Dublin, with the latter in the city area.


title: County Dublin

text: In 1985, County Dublin was divided into three electoral counties: Dublin–Belgard to the southwest (South Dublin from 1991), Dublin–Fingal to the north (Fingal from 1991), and Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown to the southeast.


title: County Dublin

text: On 1 January 1994, under the Local Government (Dublin) Act 1993, the County Dublin ceased to exist as a local government area, and was succeeded by the counties of Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown, Fingal and South Dublin, each coterminous (with minor boundary adjustments) with the area of the corresponding electoral county. In discussing the legislation, Avril Doyle TD said, "The Bill before us today effectively abolishes County Dublin, and as one born and bred in these parts of Ireland I find it rather strange that we in this House are abolishing County Dublin. I am not sure whether Dubliners realise that that is what we are about today, but in effect that is the case."


title: County Dublin

text: Although Constituency Commissions should avoid breaching county boundaries when delineating Dáil constituencies as far as practicable, this does not include the boundaries of a city or the boundary between the three counties in Dublin. There is also still a sheriff appointed for County Dublin.


title: County Dublin

text: The term "County Dublin" is still in common usage. Many organisations and sporting teams continue to organise on a County Dublin basis. The Placenames Branch of the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media maintains a Placenames Database that records all placenames, past and present. The former county of Dublin is listed in the database along with the subdivisions of that county. It is also used as an address for areas within Dublin outside of the Dublin postal district system.


title: County Dublin

text: For a period in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, to reduce person-to-person contact, government regulations restricted activity to "within the county in which the relevant residence is situated". Within the regulations, the local government areas of "Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, Fingal, South Dublin and Dublin City" were deemed to be a single county (as were the city and the county of Cork, and the city and the county of Galway).


title: County Dublin

text: The latest Ordnance Survey Ireland "Discovery Series" (Third Edition 2005) 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, appear in other sheets of the series, 43 and 56 respectively.


title: County Dublin

text: There are four local authorities whose remit collectively encompasses the geographic area of the county and city of Dublin. These are Dublin City Council, South Dublin County Council, Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown County Council and Fingal County Council.


title: County Dublin

text: Until 1 January 1994, the administrative county of Dublin was administered by Dublin County Council. From that date, its functions were succeeded by Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown County Council, Fingal County Council and South Dublin County Council, each with its county seat, respectively administering the new counties established on that date.


title: County Dublin

text: The city was previously designated a county borough and administer by Dublin Corporation. Under the Local Government Act 2001, the country was divided into local government areas of cities and counties, with the county borough of Dublin being designated a city for all purposes, now administered by Dublin City Council. 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.


title: County Dublin

text: Dublin, comprising the four local government areas in the county, is a strategic planning area within the Eastern and Midland Regional Assembly (EMRA). It is a NUTS Level III region of Ireland. The region is one of eight regions of Ireland for Eurostat statistics at NUTS 3 level. Its NUTS code is IE061.


title: County Dublin

text: This area formerly came under the remit of the Dublin Regional Authority. This Authority was dissolved in 2014.


title: County Dublin

text: As of the 2016 census, the population of Dublin was 1,345,402, a 5.7% increase since the 2011 Census. The county's population first surpassed 1 million in 1981, and is projected to reach between 1.5 million and 1.7 million by 2031.


title: County Dublin

text: Dublin is Ireland's most populous county, a position it has held since the 1926 Census, when it overtook County Antrim. As of 2016, County Dublin has over twice the population of County Antrim and two and a half times the population of County Cork. Approximately 20.5% of Ireland's population lives within County Dublin (27% if only the Republic of Ireland is counted). Additionally, Dublin has more people than the combined populations of Ireland's 16 smallest counties.


title: County Dublin

text: With an area of just , Dublin is by far the most densely populated county in Ireland. The population density of the county is 1,459 people per square kilometre - nearly 7 times higher than Ireland's second most densely populated county, County Down in Northern Ireland.


title: County Dublin

text: During the Celtic Tiger period, a large number of Dublin natives (Dubliners) moved to the rapidly expanding commuter towns in the adjoining counties. As of 2016, approximately 25.8% (305,996) of Dubliners were living outside of County Dublin. People born within Dublin account for 28% of the population of Meath, 31% of Kildare and 35% of Wicklow. There are 880,457 Dublin natives living within the county, accounting for 66.8% of the population. People born in other Irish counties living within Dublin account for roughly 12.4% of the population.


title: County Dublin

text: Between 2011 and 2016, international migration produced a net increase of 25,261 people. Dublin has the highest proportion of international residents of any county in Ireland, with around 21% of the county's population being born outside of the Republic of Ireland.


title: County Dublin

text: As of the 2016 census, 6.8 percent of the county's population was reported as younger than 5 years old, 25.2 percent were between 5 and 25, 55.8 percent were between 25 and 65, and 12.2 percent of the population was older than 65. Of this latter group, 18,276 people (1.4 percent) were over the age of 80. The population was evenly split between females (50.14 percent) and males (49.86 percent).


title: County Dublin

text: In 2019, there were 17,682 births within the county, and the average age of a first time mother was 31.


title: County Dublin

text: Just over one fifth (20.8 percent) of County Dublin's population was born outside of the Republic of Ireland. In 2016, Fingal had the highest percentage of non-nationals in Dublin (23.2 percent), and South Dublin had the lowest (17.5 percent). The immigrant population of Dublin is mainly from other European countries. There are also substantial numbers of Indians, Brazilians, Americans and East Asians living in the county. Immigrants from other European Union member states account for 10.4 percent of Dublin's population, and those from the United Kingdom a further 5.3 percent.


title: County Dublin

text: The largest sources of foreign-born residents in Dublin are the United Kingdom and Poland, although the growth of these two groups has slowed in recent years. Prior to the 2000s, the UK was historically the largest single source of non-nationals living in Dublin. Of those born in the UK, 76.3 percent were born in Britain, and the remaining 23.7 percent were born in Northern Ireland. Between 2011 and 2016, the number of UK-born residents living in Dublin declined by 1.8 percent.


title: County Dublin

text: There is a large difference between the number of people living in Dublin who were born in the UK (55,391) and those who stated that they were UK citizens in the 2016 census (19,196). This discrepancy can arise for a variety of factors, such as people born in Northern Ireland claiming Irish citizenship rather than UK citizenship, Irish people born in the UK who now live in Dublin, British people who have become natural citizens, and foreign residents of Dublin who were born in the UK but are not UK citizens. Depending on an individual's responses in the census, all of these examples could result in the country of birth being registered by the CSO as the United Kingdom, but nationality being registered as Irish or a third country.


title: County Dublin

text: Following its accession to the EU, the Polish quickly became the fastest growing immigrant community in Dublin. Just 188 Poles applied for Irish work permits in 1999. By 2006 this number had grown to 93,787. After the 2008 Irish economic downturn, as many as 3,000 Poles left Ireland each month. Despite this, Poles still account for roughly one quarter of Dublin's EU foreign residents, and are the largest non-national group in the county, as well as the second largest foreign-born group.


title: County Dublin

text: As of 2016, the fastest growing major immigrant group in Dublin was Romanians. Despite being an EU member since 2007, Ireland had restrictions on the number of Romanians who could emigrate to the country until 2012. The five-year period from 2011 to 2016 saw a 67.7 percent increase in the number of Romanians living in Dublin, who are now the county's third largest foreign national group. County Dublin is home to around 58 percent of Ireland's Romanian community.


title: County Dublin

text: Outside of Europe, Brazil and India are the largest and fastest growing sources of foreign residents in Dublin. The number of Brazilians living in Dublin increased by 48.5 percent between 2011 and 2016, mainly as a result of Ireland's participation in the Brazilian government's "Ciência sem Fronteiras" programme, which sees thousands of Brazilian students come to study in Ireland each year, many of whom remain in the country afterwards. Dublin's Indian community grew by 15.1 percent from 2011 to 2016, and Indians are now the fourth largest migrant group in the county. The influx of Indians is primarily driven by multinational tech companies such as Microsoft, Google and Facebook who have located their European headquarters within the county, in areas such as the Silicon Docks and Sandyford. In August 2020, the first dedicated Hindu temple in Ireland was built in Walkinstown.


title: County Dublin

text: According to the Central Statistics Office, in 2016 the population of County Dublin self-identified as:


title: County Dublin

text: By ethnicity, in 2016 the population was 87.6% white. Those who identified as White Irish constituted 75.5% of the county's population, and Irish Travelers account for a further 0.5%. Caucasians who did not identify as ethnically Irish accounted for 11.7% of the population.


title: County Dublin

text: In terms of total numbers, Dublin has the largest non-white population in Ireland, with an estimated 109,732 residents, accounting for 8.3% of the county's population. Nearly half (44.7 percent) of Ireland's black residents live within the county. In terms of percentage of population, Fingal has the highest percentage of both black (3.9 percent) and non-white (10.1 percent) residents of any local authority in Ireland. Conversely, Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown in the south of the county has one of Ireland's lowest percentages of black residents, with only 0.67% of the population identifying as black in 2016. Additionally, 42.8% of Ireland's multiracial population lives within County Dublin.


title: County Dublin

text: The largest religious denomination by both number of adherents and as a percentage of Dublin's population in 2016 was the Roman Catholic Church, at 68.9 percent. All other Christian denominations including Church of Ireland, Eastern Orthodox, Presbyterian and Methodist accounted for 7.0 percent of Dublin's population. Together, all denominations of Christianity accounted for 75.9 percent of the county's population. According to the 2016 census, Dublin city is the least religious local authority in Ireland, with 18.1 percent of the population declaring themselves non-religious, followed closely by Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown and Galway city (17.1 percent). In the county as a whole, those unaffiliated with any religion represented 14.4 percent of the population, which is the largest percentage of non-religious people of any county in Ireland.


title: County Dublin

text: Of the non-Christian religions, Islam is the largest in terms of number of adherents, with Muslims accounting for 2.2% of the population. After Islam, the largest non-Christian religions in 2016 were Hinduism (0.62 percent), Buddhism (0.32 percent) and Judaism (0.11 percent). While small in percentage terms, County Dublin contains over half of Ireland's Hindu (58.4 percent), Jewish (56.3 percent) and Eastern Orthodox (52.1%) residents, and just under half of its Islamic (47.3 percent) and Buddhist (44.0 percent) residents.


title: County Dublin

text: Dublin and its hinterland has been a Christian diocese since 1028. For centuries, the Primacy of Ireland was disputed between Dublin, the social and political capital of Ireland, and Armagh, site of Saint Patrick's main church, which was founded in 445 AD. In 1353 the dispute was settled by Pope Innocent VI, who proclaimed that the Archbishop of Dublin was "Primate of Ireland", while the Archbishop of Armagh was titled "Primate of All Ireland". These two distinct titles were replicated in the Church of Ireland following the Reformation. Historically, County Dublin was the epicentre of Protestantism in Ireland outside of Ulster. Records from the 1891 census show that the county was 21.4 percent Protestant towards the end of the 19th century. By the 1911 census this had gradually declined to around 20% due to poor economic conditions, as Dublin Protestants moved to industrial Belfast. Following the War of Independence (1919-1921), Dublin's Protestant community went into a steady decline, falling to 8.5 percent of the population by 1936.


title: County Dublin

text: Between the 2011 and 2016 census, the fastest growing religions in Dublin were Evangelicalism (111.7 percent), Eastern Orthodox (41.0 percent), Hinduism (30.1 percent) and Islam (17.7 percent), while the most rapidly declining religions were Methodist/Wesleyan (−9.6 percent), Catholicism (−5.5 percent) and Anglicanism (−4.7 percent).


title: County Dublin

text: The boundaries of Dublin City Council form the urban core of the city, often referred to as "Dublin city centre", an area of 117.8 square kilometres. This encompasses the central suburbs of the city, extending as far south as Terenure and Donnybrook; as far north as Ballymun and Donaghmede; and as far west as Ballyfermot. As of 2016, there were 554,554 people living within Dublin city centre. However, as the continuous built-up area extends beyond the city boundaries, the term "Dublin city and suburbs" is commonly employed when referring to the actual extent of Dublin.


title: County Dublin

text: Dublin city and suburbs is a CSO-designated urban area which includes the densely populated contiguous built-up area which surrounds Dublin city centre. It encompasses 317.5 km and contains approximately 87% of County Dublin's population (1,173,179 people) as of the 2016 census.


title: County Dublin

text: As the city proper does not extend beyond Dublin Airport, the towns of "North County Dublin" such as Swords, Lusk, Rush and Malahide are not considered part of the city, and are recorded by the CSO as separate settlements. Under Ireland's National Planning Framework, these towns are considered part of the Dublin Metropolitan Area (DMA). The DMA also includes towns outside of the county, such as Naas, Leixlip and Maynooth in County Kildare, and Bray and Greystones in County Wicklow, but does not include Balbriggan or Skerries, which are located in the far north of County Dublin.


title: County Dublin

text: The Greater Dublin Area (GDA) is a commonly used planning jurisdiction which extends to the wider network of commuter towns that are economically connected to Dublin city. The GDA consists of County Dublin and its three neighboring counties, Kildare, Meath and Wicklow.


title: County Dublin

text: With a population of 1.9 million and an area of 6,986 square kilometres, it contains 40% of the population of the State, and covers 9.9% of its land area.


title: County Dublin

text: Under CSO classification, an "Urban Area" is a town with a population greater than 1,500. Dublin is the most urbanised county in Ireland, with 97.75% of its residents residing in urban areas as of 2016. Of Dublin's three non-city local authorities, Fingal has the highest proportion of people living in rural areas (7.9%), while Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown has the lowest (1.19%). The western suburbs of Dublin city such as Tallaght and Blanchardstown have experienced rapid growth in recent decades, and both areas have a population roughly equivalent to Galway city.


title: County Dublin

text: County Dublin has the oldest and most extensive transportation infrastructure in Ireland. The Dublin and Kingstown Railway, opened in December 1834, was Ireland's first railway line. The line, which ran from Westland Row to Dún Laoghaire, was originally intended to be used for cargo. However, it proved far more popular with passengers and became the world's first commuter railway line. The line has been upgraded multiple times throughout its history and is still in use to this day, making it the oldest commuter railway route in the world.


title: County Dublin

text: Public transport in Dublin was managed by the Dublin Transportation Office until 2009, when it was replaced by the National Transport Authority (NTA). The three pillars currently underpinning the public transport network of the Greater Dublin Area (GDA) are Dublin Suburban Rail, the Luas and the bus system. There are six commuter lines in Dublin, which are managed by Iarnród Éireann. Five of these lines serve as routes between Dublin and towns across the GDA and beyond. The sixth route, known as Dublin Area Rapid Transit (DART), is electrified and serves only Dublin and northern Wicklow. The newest addition to Dublin's public transport network is a tram system called the Luas. The service began with two disconnected lines in 2004, with three extensions opened in 2009, 2010 and 2011 before a cross-city link between the lines and further extension opened in 2017.


title: County Dublin

text: Historically, Dublin had an extensive tram system which commenced in 1871 and at its peak had over 97 km (60 miles) of active line. It was operated by the Dublin United Transport Company (DUTC) and was very advanced for its day, with near-full electrification from 1901. From the 1920s onwards, the DUTC began to acquire private bus operators and gradually closed some of its lines. Further declines in passenger numbers were driven in part by a belief at the time that trams were outdated and archaic. All tram lines terminated in 1949, except for the tram to Howth, which ran until 1959.


title: County Dublin

text: Dublin Bus is the county's largest bus operator, carrying 138 million passengers in 2019. For much of the city, particularly west Dublin, the bus is the only public transport option available, and there are numerous smaller private bus companies in operation across County Dublin. National bus operator Bus Éireann provides long-distance routes to towns and villages located outside of Dublin city and its immediate hinterland.


title: County Dublin

text: In November 2005, the government announced a €34 billion initiative called Transport 21 which included a substantial expansion to Dublin's transport network. The project was cancelled in May 2011 in the aftermath of the 2008 recession. Consequently, by 2017 Hugh Creegan, deputy chief of the NTA, stated that there had been a ""chronic underinvestment in public transport for more than a decade"". By 2019, Dublin was reportedly the 17th most congested city in the world, and had the 5th highest average commute time in the European Union. The Luas and rail network regularly experience significant overcrowding and delays during peak hours, and in 2019 Iarnród Éireann was widely ridiculed for asking commuters to ""stagger morning journeys"" to alleviate the problem.


title: County Dublin

text: The M50 is a 45.5 km (28 mile) orbital motorway around Dublin city, and is the busiest motorway in the country. It serves as the centre of both Dublin and Ireland's motorway network, and most of the national primary roads to other cities begin at the M50 and radiate outwards. The current route was built in various sections over the course of 27 years, from 1983 to 2010. All major roads in Ireland are managed by Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII), which is headquartered in Parkgate Street, Dublin 8. As of 2019, there were over 550,000 cars registered in County Dublin, accounting for 25.3% of all cars registered in the State. Due to the county's small area and high degree of urbanisation, there is a preference for "D" registered used cars throughout Ireland, as they are considered to have undergone less wear and tear.


title: County Dublin

text: For international travel, around 1.7 million passengers travel by ferry through Dublin Port each year. A Dún Laoghaire to Holyhead ferry was formerly operated by Stena Line, but the route was closed in 2015. Dublin Airport is Ireland's largest airport, and 32.9 million passengers passed through it in 2019, making it Europe's 12th-busiest airport.


title: County Dublin

text: The Dublin Region, which is conterminous with County Dublin, has the largest and most highly developed economy in Ireland, accounting for over two-fifths of national Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The Central Statistics Office estimates that the GDP of the Dublin Region in 2020 was €147.02 billion ($168 billion / £131 billion at 2020 exchange rates). In nominal terms, Dublin's economy is larger than roughly 140 sovereign states. The county's GDP per capita is €104,459 ($119,292 / £92,937), one of the highest regional GDPs per capita in the EU. As of 2019, Dublin also had the highest Human Development Index in Ireland at 0.965, placing it among the most developed places in the world in terms of life expectancy, education and per capita income.


title: County Dublin

text: In 2017, average disposable income per person in Dublin was €23,864, or 115.2% of the national average (€20,714), the highest of any county in Ireland. As Ireland's most populous county, Dublin has the highest total household income in the country, at an estimated €46.8 billion in 2017 - higher than the Border, Midlands, West and South-East regions combined. Dublin residents were the highest per capita tax contributors in the State, returning a total of €15.1 billion in taxes in 2017.


title: County Dublin

text: Many of Ireland's most prominent political, educational, cultural and media centres are concentrated south of the River Liffey in Dublin city. Further south, areas like Dún Laoghaire, Dalkey and Killiney have long been some of Dublin's most affluent areas, and Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown consistently has the highest average house prices in Ireland. This has resulted in a perceived socio-economic divide in Dublin, between the generally less affluent "Northside" and the wealthier "Southside". In Dublin (both city and county), residents will commonly refer to themselves as a ""Northsider" or a ""Southsider"", and the division is often caricatured in Irish comedy, media and literature, for example Ross O'Carroll-Kelly and Damo and Ivor. References to the divide have also become colloquialisms in their own right, such as "D4" (referring to the Dublin 4 postal district), which is a pejorative term for an upper middle class Irish person.


title: County Dublin

text: While the northside-southside divide remains prevalent in popular culture, economic indices such as the Pobal HP deprivation index have shown that the distinction doesn't reflect economic reality. Many of Dublin's most affluent areas (Clontarf, Raheny, Howth, Portmarnock, Malahide) are located in the north of the county, and many of its most deprived areas (Jobstown, Ballyogan, Ballybrack, Dolphin's Barn, Clondalkin) are located in the south of the county.


title: County Dublin

text: Utilising CSO data from the past three censuses, Pobal HP revealed that there was a much higher concentration of below average, disadvantaged and very disadvantaged areas in west Dublin. In 2012, Irish Times Columnist Fintan O'Toole posited that the real economic divide in Dublin was not north–south, but east–west - between the older coastal areas of eastern Dublin and the newer sprawling suburbs of western Dublin - and that the perpetuation of the northside-southside "myth" was a convenient way to gloss over class division within the county. O'Toole argued that framing the city's wealth divide as a light-hearted north–south stereotype was easier than having to address the socio-economic impacts of deliberate government policy to remove working-class people from the city centre and settle them on the margins.


title: County Dublin

text: Dublin is both a European and Global financial hub, and around 200 of the world's leading financial services firms have operations within the county. In 2017 and 2018 respectively, Dublin was ranked 5th in Europe and 31st globally in the Global Financial Centres Index (GFCI). In the mid-1980s, parts of central Dublin had fallen into a state of dereliction and the Irish government pursued an urban regeneration programme. An 11-hectare special economic zone (SEZ) was set up in 1987, known as the International Financial Services Centre (IFSC). At the time of its establishment, the SEZ had the lowest corporate tax rate in the EU. The IFSC has since expanded into a 37.8-hectare site centred around the Dublin Docklands. As of 2020, over €1.8 trillion of funds are administered from Ireland.


title: County Dublin

text: There was renewed interest in Dublin's financial services sector in the wake of the UK's vote to withdraw from the European Union in 2016. Many firms, including Barclays and Bank of America, pre-emptively moved some of their operations from London to Dublin in anticipation of restricted EU market access. A survey conducted by Ernst & Young in 2021 found that Dublin was the most popular destination for firms in the UK considering relocating to the EU, ahead of Luxembourg and Frankfurt. It is estimated that Dublin's financial sector will grow by about 25% as a direct result of Brexit, and as many as 13,000 jobs could move from the UK to County Dublin in the years immediately after its withdrawal.


title: County Dublin

text: The economy of Dublin benefits from substantial amounts of both indigenous and foreign investment. In 2018, the Financial Times ranked Dublin the most attractive large city in the world for Foreign Direct Investment, and the city has been consistently ranked by Forbes as one of the world's most business-friendly. The economy is centered on financial services, the pharmaceuticals and biotechnology industries, information technology, logistics and storage, professional services, agriculture and tourism. IDA Ireland, the state agency responsible for attracting foreign direct investment, was founded in Dublin in 1949.


title: County Dublin

text: Dublin has four power plants, all of which are concentrated in the docklands area of Dublin city. Three are natural-gas plants operated by the ESB, and the Poolbeg Incinerator is operated by Covanta Energy. The four plants have a combined capacity of 1.039 GW, roughly 12.5% of the island of Ireland's generation capacity as of 2019. The disused Poolbeg chimneys are the tallest structures in the county, and were granted protection by Dublin city council in 2014.


title: County Dublin

text: As a result of Dublin city's location within a sheltered bay at the mouth of a navigable river, shipping has been a key industry in the county since medieval times. By the 18th-century, Dublin was a bustling maritime city and large-scale engineering projects were undertaken to enhance the port's capacity, such as the Great South Wall, which was the largest sea wall in the world at the time of its construction in 1715. Dublin Port was originally located along the Liffey, but gradually moved towards the coast over the centuries as vessel size increased. It is today the largest and busiest port in Ireland. It handles 50% of the Republic of Ireland's trade, and receives 60% of all vessel arrivals.


title: County Dublin

text: Dublin Port occupies an area of 259 ha (640 acres) in one of the most expensive places in the country, with an estimated price per acre of around €10 million. Since the 2000s, there have been calls to relocate Dublin Port out of the city and free up its land for residential and commercial development. This was first proposed by the Progressive Democrats at the height of the Celtic Tiger in 2006, who valued the land at between €25 and €30 billion, although nothing became of this proposal. During the housing crisis of the late 2010s the idea again began to attract supporters, among them economist David McWilliams. Currently, there are no official plans to move the port elsewhere, and the Dublin Port Company strongly opposes relocation.


title: County Dublin

text: Dublin hosts the headquarters of some of Ireland's largest multinational corporations, including 14 of the 20 companies which make up the ISEQ 20 index - those with the highest trading volume and market capitalisation of all Irish Stock Exchange listed companies. These are: AIB, Applegreen, Bank of Ireland, Cairn Homes, Continental Group, CRH, Dalata Hotel Group, Flutter Entertainment, Greencoat Renewables, Hibernia REIT, IRES, Origin Enterprises, Ryanair and Smurfit Kappa.


title: County Dublin

text: County Dublin receives by far the most overseas tourists of any county in Ireland. This is primarily due to Dublin city's status as Ireland's largest city and its transportation hub. Dublin is also Ireland's most popular destination for domestic tourists. According to Fáilte Ireland, in 2017 Dublin received nearly 6 million overseas tourists, and just under 1.5 million domestic tourists. Most of Ireland's international flights transit through Dublin Airport, and the vast majority of passenger ferry arrivals dock at Dublin Port. In 2019, the port also facilitated 158 cruise ship arrivals. The tourism industry in the county is worth approximately €2.3 billion per year.


title: County Dublin

text: As of 2019, 4 of the top 10 fee-paying tourist attractions in Ireland are located within County Dublin, as well as 5 of the top 10 free attractions. The Guinness Storehouse at St. James's Gate is Ireland's most visited tourist attraction, receiving 1.7 million visitors in 2019, and over 20 million total visits since 2000. Additionally, Dublin also contains Ireland's 3rd (Dublin Zoo), 4th (Book of Kells) and 6th (St Patrick's Cathedral) most visited fee-paying attractions. The top free attractions in Dublin are the National Gallery of Ireland, the National Botanic Gardens, the National Museum of Ireland and the Irish Museum of Modern Art, all of which receive over half a million visitors per year.


title: County Dublin

text: Despite having the smallest farmed area of any county, Dublin is one of Ireland's major agricultural producers. Dublin is the largest producer of fruit and vegetables in Ireland, the third largest producer of oilseed rape and has the fifth largest fishing industry. Fingal alone produces 55% of Ireland's fresh produce, including soft fruits and berries, apples, lettuces, peppers, asparagus, potatoes, onions, and carrots. As of 2020, the Irish Farmers' Association estimates that the total value of Dublin's agricultural produce is €205 million. According to the CSO, fish landings in the county are worth a further €20 million.


title: County Dublin

text: Approximately 41% of the county's land area (38,576 ha) is farmed. Of this, is under tillage, the 9th highest in the country, and is dedicated to fruit & horticulture, the 4th highest. Rural County Dublin is considered a peri-urban region, where an urban environment transitions into a rural one. Due to the growth of Dublin city and its commuter towns in the north of the county, the region is considered to be under significant pressure from urban sprawl. Between 1991 and 2010, the amount of agricultural land within the county decreased by 22.9%. In 2015, the local authorities of Fingal, South Dublin and Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown developed a joint Dublin Rural Local Development Strategy aimed at enhancing the region's agricultural output, while also managing and minimising the impact of urbanisation on biodiversity and the identity and culture of rural Dublin.


title: County Dublin

text: The county has a small forestry industry that is based almost entirely in the upland areas of south County Dublin. According to the 2017 National Forestry Inventory, of the county was under forest, of which was private forestry. The majority of Dublin's forests are owned by the national forestry company, Coillte. In the absence of increased private planting, the county's commercial timber capacity is expected to decrease in the coming decades, as Coillte intends to convert much of their holdings in the Dublin Mountains into non-commercial mixed forests.


title: County Dublin

text: Dublin has 810 individual farms with an average size of , the largest average farm size of any county in Ireland. Roughly 9,400 people within the county are directly employed in either agriculture or the food and drink processing industry. Numerous Irish and multinational food and drink companies are either based in Dublin or have facilities within the county, including Mondelez, Coca-Cola, Mars, Diageo, Kellogg's, Danone, Ornua, Pernod Ricard and Glanbia. In 1954, Tayto Crisps were established in Coolock and developed into cultural phenomenon throughout much of the Republic of Ireland. Its operations and headquarters have since moved to neighbouring County Meath. Another popular crisp brand, Keogh's, are based in Oldtown, Fingal.


title: County Dublin

text: In Ireland, spending on education is controlled by the government and the allocation of funds is decided each year in the annual budget. Local authorities retain limited responsibilities such as funding for school meals, service supports costs and the upkeep of libraries.


title: County Dublin

text: There are hundreds of primary and secondary schools within County Dublin, most of which are English-language schools. Several international schools are based in Dublin, such as St Kilian's German School and Lycée Français d'Irlande, which teach in foreign languages. There is also a large minority of students attending gaelscoileanna (Irish-language primary schools). There are 34 gaelscoileanna and 10 gaelcholáistí (Irish-language secondary schools) in the county, with a total of 12,950 students as of 2018. In terms of college acceptance rates, gaelcholáistí are consistently the best performing schools in Dublin, and among the best performing in Ireland.


title: County Dublin

text: Although the government pays for a large majority of school costs, including teachers' salaries, the Roman Catholic Church is the largest owner of schools in Dublin, and preference is given to Catholic students over non-Catholic students in oversubscribed areas. This has resulted in a growing movement towards non-denominational and co-educational schools in the county.


title: County Dublin

text: The majority of private secondary schools in Dublin are still single sex, and continue to have religious patronages with either congregations of the Catholic Church (Spiritans, Sisters of Loreto, Jesuits) or Protestant denominations (Church of Ireland, Presbyterian). Newer private schools which cater for the Leaving Cert cycle such as the Institute of Education and Ashfield College are generally non-denominational and co-educational. In 2018, Nord Anglia International School Dublin opened in Leopardstown, becoming the most expensive private school in Ireland.


title: County Dublin

text: As of 2022–23, four of Dublin's third level institutions are listed in the Top 500 of either the Times Higher Education Rankings or the QS World Rankings, placing them amongst the top 2% of all third level institutions in the world. TCD (98), UCD (181) and DCU (471) are within the Top 500 of the QS rankings; and TCD (146), UCD (201-250) and RCSI (201-250) are within the Top 500 of the Times rankings. Newly amalgamated TUD also placed within the world's Top 1,000 universities in the QS rankings, and within the Top 500 for Engineering and Electronics.


title: County Dublin

text: County Dublin has four public universities, as well as numerous other colleges, institutes of technology and institutes of further education. Several of Dublin's largest third level institutions and their associated abbreviations are listed below:


title: County Dublin

text: For elections to Dáil Éireann, the area of the county is currently divided into eleven constituencies: Dublin Bay North, Dublin Bay South, Dublin Central, Dublin Fingal, Dublin Mid-West, Dublin North-West, Dublin Rathdown, Dublin South-Central, Dublin South-West, Dublin West, and Dún Laoghaire. Together they return 45 deputies (TDs) to the Dáil.


title: County Dublin

text: The first ever Irish Parliament convened in the small village of Castledermot, County Kildare on 18 June 1264. Representatives from seven constituencies were present, one of which was the constituency of Dublin City. Dublin was historically represented in the Irish House of Commons through the constituencies of Dublin City and Dublin County. Three smaller constituencies had been created by the 17th century: Swords; which was created sometime between 1560 and 1585, with Walter Fitzsimons and Thomas Taylor being its first recorded MPs; Newcastle in the west of the county, created in 1613; and Dublin University, which was a university constituency covering Trinity College, also created in 1613. While proceedings of the Irish Parliament were well-documented, many of the records from this time were lost during the shelling of the Four Courts in July 1922.


title: County Dublin

text: Following the Acts of Union 1800, Dublin was represented in Westminster through three constituencies from 1801 to 1885: Dublin City, Dublin County and the Dublin University. A series of local government and electoral reforms in the late 19th century radically alerted the county's political map, and by 1918 there were twelve constituencies within County Dublin.


title: County Dublin

text: Throughout the twentieth century the representation in Dublin expanded as the population grew. In the Electoral Act 1923, the first division of constituencies arranged by Irish legislation, geographical constituencies in Dublin were 23 of the 147 TDs in geographical constituencies; this contrasts with 45 of 160 at the most recent division.


title: County Dublin

text: Twenty-three Dáil Éireann constituencies have been created and abolished within the county since independence, the most recent being the constituencies of Dublin South, Dublin North, Dublin North-Central, Dublin North-East and Dublin South-East, which were abolished in 2016.


title: County Dublin

text: Of the fifteen people to have held the office of Taoiseach since 1922, more than half were either born or raised within County Dublin: W. T. Cosgrave, John A. Costello, Seán Lemass, Liam Cosgrave, Charles Haughey (born in County Mayo but raised in Dublin), Garret FitzGerald, Bertie Ahern and Leo Varadkar (Cosgrave held the office of President of the Executive Council; by convention, Taoisigh are numbered to include this position). Conversely, just one of Ireland's nine presidents have hailed from the county, namely Seán T. O'Kelly, who served as president from 1945 to 1959.


title: County Dublin

text: As the capital city, Dublin is the seat of the national parliament of Ireland, the Oireachtas. It is composed of the President of Ireland, Seanad Éireann as the upper house, and Dáil Éireann as the lower house. Both houses of the Oireachtas meet in Leinster House, a former ducal palace on Kildare Street. It has been the home of the Irish government since the creation of the Irish Free State. The First Dáil of the revolutionary Irish Republic met in the Round Room of the Mansion House, the present-day residence of the Lord Mayor of Dublin, in January 1919. The former Irish Houses of Parliament, which were abolished in 1801, are located at College Green. Government Buildings, located on Merrion Street, house the Department of the Taoiseach, the Council Chamber, the Department of Finance and the Office of the Attorney General.


title: County Dublin

text: The President resides in Áras an Uachtaráin in Phoenix Park, a stately ranger's lodge built in 1757. The house was bought by the Crown in 1780 to be used as the summer residence of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the British viceroy in the Kingdom of Ireland. Following independence, the lodge was earmarked as the potential home of the Governor-General, but this was highly controversial as it symbolised continued British rule over Ireland, so it was left empty for many years. President Douglas Hyde "temporarily" occupied the building in 1938, as Taoiseach Éamon de Valera intended to demolish it and build a more modest presidential bungalow on the site. Those plans were scrapped during The Emergency and the lodge became the president's permanent residence.


title: County Dublin

text: Much like Áras an Uachtaráin, many of the grand estate homes of the former aristocracy were re-purposed for State use in the 20th century. The Deerfield Residence, also in Phoenix Park, is the official residence of the United States Ambassador to Ireland, while Glencairn House in south Dublin is used as the British Ambassador's residence. Farmleigh House, one of the Guinness family residences, was acquired by the government in 1999 for use as the official Irish state guest house.


title: County Dublin

text: Many other prominent judicial and political organs are located within Dublin, including the Four Courts, which is the principal seat of the Supreme Court, the Court of Appeal, the High Court and the Dublin Circuit Court; and the Custom House, which houses the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. Once the centuries-long seat of the British government's administration in Ireland, Dublin Castle is now only used for ceremonial purposes, such as policy launches, hosting of State visits, and the inauguration of the president.


title: County Dublin

text: Dublin is among the most socially liberal places in Ireland, and popular sentiment on issues such as LGBT rights, abortion and divorce has often foreran the rest of the island. Referendums held on these issues have consistently received much stronger support within Dublin, particularly the south of the county, than the majority of the country. While over 66% of voters nationally voted in favour of the Eighth Amendment in 1983, 58% of voters in Dún Laoghaire and 55% in Dublin South voted against it. In 2018, over 75.5% of voters in County Dublin voted to repeal the amendment, compared with 66.4% nationally.


title: County Dublin

text: In 1987, Dublin Senator David Norris took the Irish government to the European Court of Human Rights (see "Norris v. Ireland") over the criminalisation of homosexual acts. In 1988, the Court ruled that the law criminalising same sex activities was contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights, in particular Article 8 which protects the right to respect for private life. The law was held to infringe on the right of adults to engage in acts of their own choice. This led directly to the repeal of the law in 1993. Numerous LGBT events and venues are now located within the county. Dublin Pride is an annual pride parade held on the last Saturday of June and is Ireland's largest public LGBT event. In 2018, an estimated 60,000 people attended. During the 2015 vote to allow same-sex marriage, 71% of County Dublin voted in favour, compared with 62% nationally.


title: County Dublin

text: In general, the south-eastern coastal regions of the county such as Dún Laoghaire and Dublin Bay South are a stronghold for the liberal-conservative Fine Gael party. Since the late-2000s the Green Party has also developed a strong support base in these areas. The democratic socialist Sinn Féin party generally performs well in south-central and west Dublin, in areas like Tallaght and Crumlin. In recent elections Sinn Féin have increasingly taken votes in traditional Labour Party areas, whose support has been on the decline since 2016. As a result of the economic crisis, centre-right Fianna Fáil failed to gain a single seat in Dublin in the 2011 general election. This was a first for the long-time dominant party of Irish politics. The party regained a footing in 7 of the 11 Dublin constituencies in 2020, and were also the largest party in Dublin City, Fingal and South Dublin in the 2019 local elections.


title: County Dublin

text: Dublin is a dual county in Gaelic games, and it competes at a similar level in both hurling/camogie and Gaelic football. The Dublin county board is the governing body for Gaelic games within the county. The county's current GAA crest, adopted in 2004, represents Dublin's four constituent areas. The castle represents Dublin city, the raven represents Fingal, the Viking longboat represents Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown and the book of Saint Tamhlacht in the centre represents South Dublin.


title: County Dublin

text: In Gaelic football, the Dublin county team competes annually in Division 1 of the National Football League and the provincial Leinster Senior Football Championship. Dublin is the dominant force of Leinster football, with 61 Leinster Senior Championship wins. Nationally, the county is second only to Kerry for All-Ireland Senior Football Championship titles. The two counties are fierce rivals, and a meeting between them is considered the biggest game in Gaelic football. Dublin has won the All-Ireland on 30 occasions, including a record 6 in a row from 2015 to 2020.


title: County Dublin

text: In hurling, the Dublin hurling team currently compete in Division 1B of the National Hurling League and in the Leinster Senior Hurling Championship. Dublin is the second most successful hurling county in Leinster after Kilkenny, albeit a distant second, with 24 Leinster hurling titles. The county has seen less success in the All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship, ranking joint-fifth alongside Wexford. Dublin has been in 21 All-Ireland hurling finals, winning just 6, the most recent of which was in 1938.


title: County Dublin

text: Within the county, Gaelic football and hurling clubs compete in the Dublin Senior Football Championship and the Dublin Senior Hurling Championship, which were both established in 1887. St Vincents based in Marino and Faughs based in Templeogue are by far the most successful clubs in Dublin their respective sports. Four Dublin football teams have won the All-Ireland Senior Club Football Championship; St Vincents, Kilmacud Crokes, UCD and Ballyboden St Enda's. Despite their historic dominance in Dublin, Faughs have never won an All-Ireland Senior Club Hurling Championship. Since the early 2010s, Dalkey's Cuala have been the county's main hurling force, and the club won back-to-back All-Ireland's in 2017 and 2018.


title: County Dublin

text: Association football (soccer) is one of the most popular sports within the county. While Gaelic games are the most watched sport in Dublin, association football is the most widely played, and there are over 200 amateur football clubs in County Dublin. Dalymount Park in Phibsborough is known as the "home of Irish football", as it is both the country's oldest stadium and the former home ground for the national team from 1904 until 1990. The Republic of Ireland national football team is currently based in the 52,000 seater Aviva Stadium, which was built on the site of the old Lansdowne Road stadium in 2010. Shortly after its completion, the Aviva Stadium hosted the 2011 UEFA Europa League Final. Five League of Ireland football clubs are based within County Dublin; Bohemians F.C., Shamrock Rovers, St Patrick's Athletic, University College Dublin and Shelbourne.


title: County Dublin

text: Shamrock Rovers, formerly of Milltown but now based in Tallaght, are the most successful club in the country, with 19 League of Ireland titles. They were also the first Irish side to reach the group stages of a European competition when they qualified for the 2011–12 UEFA Europa League group stage. The Dublin University Football Club, founded in 1854, are technically the world's oldest extant football club. However, the club currently only plays rugby union. Bohemians are Ireland's third oldest club currently playing football, after Belfast's Cliftonville F.C. and Athlone Town A.F.C. The Bohemians–Shamrock Rovers rivalry not only involves Dublin's two biggest clubs, but it is also a Northside-Southside rivalry, making it the most intense derby match in the county.


title: County Dublin

text: Rugby Union is the county's third most popular sport, after Gaelic games and football. Leinster Rugby play their competitive home games in the RDS Arena & the Aviva Stadium. Donnybrook Stadium hosts Leinster's friendlies and A games, as well as the Ireland A and Women's teams, Leinster Schools and Youths and the home club games of All Ireland League sides Old Wesley and Bective Rangers. County Dublin is home to 13 of the senior rugby union clubs in Ireland, including 5 of the 10 sides in the top division 1A.


title: County Dublin

text: Other popular sports in the county include: cricket, hockey, golf, tennis, athletics and equestrian activities. Dublin has two ODI cricket grounds in Castle Avenue and Malahide Cricket Club Ground, and the Phoenix Cricket Club, founded in 1830, is the oldest in Ireland. As with many other sporting organisations in the county, the Fitzwilliam Lawn Tennis Club is one of the world's oldest. It hosted the now-discontinued Irish Open from 1879 until 1983. Field hockey, particularly women's field hockey, is becoming increasingly popular within the county. The Ireland women's national field hockey team made it to the 2018 World Cup final, and many of the players on that team were from Dublin clubs, such as UCD, Old Alex, Loreto, Monkstown, Muckross and Railway Union.


title: County Dublin

text: The Dublin Horse Show takes place at the RDS, which hosted the Show Jumping World Championships in 1982, and the county has a horse racing track at Leopardstown which hosts the Irish Champion Stakes every September. Dublin houses the national stadium for both boxing (National Stadium) and basketball (National Basketball Arena), and the city hosted the 2003 Special Olympics. Although a small county in size, Dublin contains one third of Leinster's 168 golf courses, and three-time major winner Pádraig Harrington is from Rathfarnham.


title: County Dublin

text: Local radio stations include 98FM, FM104, Dublin City FM, Q102, SPIN 1038, Sunshine 106.8, Raidió Na Life and Radio Nova.


title: County Dublin

text: Most of the area can receive the five main UK television channels as well as the main Irish channels, along with Sky TV and Virgin Media Ireland cable television.


title: Amrita Pritam

text: Amrita Pritam (; 31 August 1919 – 31 October 2005) was an Indian novelist, essayist and poet, who wrote in Punjabi and Hindi. A prominent figure in Punjabi literature, she is the recipient of the 1956 Sahitya Akademi Award. Her body of work comprised over 100 books of poetry, fiction, biographies, essays, a collection of Punjabi folk songs and an autobiography that were all translated into several Indian and foreign languages.


title: Amrita Pritam

text: Pritam is best remembered for her poignant poem, "Ajj aakhaan Waris Shah nu" (Today I invoke Waris Shah – "Ode to Waris Shah"), an elegy to the 18th-century Punjabi poet, an expression of her anguish over massacres during the partition of India. As a novelist, her most noted work was "Pinjar" ("The Skeleton", 1950), in which she created her memorable character, "Puro", an epitome of violence against women, loss of humanity and ultimate surrender to existential fate; the novel was made into an award-winning film, "Pinjar" (2003).


title: Amrita Pritam

text: When India was partitioned into the independent states of India and Pakistan in 1947, she migrated from Lahore, to India, though she remained equally popular in Pakistan throughout her life, as compared to her contemporaries like Mohan Singh and Shiv Kumar Batalvi.


title: Amrita Pritam

text: Pritam's magnum opus, a long poem, "Sunehade" won her the 1956 Sahitya Akademi Award, making her the first and the only woman to have been given the award for a work in Punjabi. She later received the Bharatiya Jnanpith, one of India's highest literary awards, in 1982 for "Kagaz Te Canvas" ("The Paper and the Canvas"). The Padma Shri came her way in 1969 and finally, Padma Vibhushan, India's second highest civilian award, in 2004, and in the same year she was honoured with India's highest literary award, given by the Sahitya Akademi (India's Academy of Letters), the Sahitya Akademi Fellowship given to "the "immortals of literature"" for lifetime achievement. she wrote her poems mostly for the partition


title: Amrita Pritam

text: Amrita Pritam was born as Amrit Kaur in 1919 in Gujranwala, Punjab, in British India, the only child of Raj Bibi, who was a school teacher, and Kartar Singh Hitkari, who was a poet, a scholar of the Braj Bhasha language, and the editor of a literary journal. Besides this, he was a "pracharak" – a preacher of the Sikh faith. Amrita's mother died when she was eleven. Soon after, she and her father moved to Lahore, where she lived till her migration to India in 1947. Confronting adult responsibilities and besieged by loneliness following her mother's death, she began to write at an early age. Her first anthology of poems, "Amrit Lehran" ("Immortal Waves") was published in 1936, at age sixteen, the year she married Pritam Singh, an editor to whom she was engaged in early childhood, and changed her name from Amrit Kaur to Amrita Pritam. Half a dozen collections of poems followed between 1936 and 1943.


title: Amrita Pritam

text: Though she began her journey as a romantic poet, soon she shifted gears, and became part of the Progressive Writers' Movement and its effect was seen in her collection, "Lok Peed" ("People's Anguish", 1944), which openly criticised the war-torn economy, after the Bengal famine of 1943. She was also involved in social work to a certain extent and participated in such activities wholeheartedly, after Independence when social activist Guru Radha Kishan took the initiative to bring the first Janta Library in Delhi, which was inaugurated by Balraj Sahni and Aruna Asaf Ali and contributed to the occasion accordingly. This study centre cum library is still running at Clock Tower, Delhi. She also worked at a radio station in Lahore for a while, before the partition of India.


title: Amrita Pritam

text: M. S. Sathyu, the director of the partition movie "Garam Hava" (1973), paid a theatrical tribute to her through his performance 'Ek Thee Amrita'.


title: Amrita Pritam

text: One million people, Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims died from communal violence that followed the partition of India in 1947, and left Amrita Pritam a Punjabi refugee at age 28, when she left Lahore and moved to New Delhi. Subsequently, in 1947, while she was pregnant with her son, and travelling from Dehradun to Delhi, she expressed anguish on a piece of paper like the poem, "Ajj Aakhaan Waris Shah Nu" (I ask Waris Shah Today); this poem was to later immortalize her and become the most poignant reminder of the horrors of Partition. The poem addressed to the Sufi poet Waris Shah, author of the tragic saga of Heer and Ranjah and with whom she shares her birthplace.


title: Amrita Pritam

text: Amrita Pritam worked until 1961 in the Punjabi service of All India Radio, Delhi. After her divorce in 1960, her work became more feminist. Many of her stories and poems drew on the unhappy experience of her marriage. A number of her works have been translated into English, French, Danish, Japanese, Mandarin, and other languages from Punjabi and Urdu, including her autobiographical works "Black Rose" and "Rasidi Ticket" (Revenue Stamp).


title: Amrita Pritam

text: The first of Amrita Pritam's books to be filmed was "Dharti Sagar te Sippiyan", as "Kadambari" (1965), followed by "Unah Di Kahani", as "Daaku" (Dacoit, 1976), directed by Basu Bhattacharya. Her novel "Pinjar" (The Skeleton, 1950) narrates the story of partition riots along with the crisis of women who suffered during the times. It was made into an award-winning Hindi movie by Chandra Prakash Dwivedi, because of its humanism: "Amritaji has portrayed the suffering of people of both the countries." "Pinjar" was shot in a border region of Rajasthan and Punjab.


title: Amrita Pritam

text: She edited "Nagmani", a monthly literary magazine in Punjabi for several years, which she ran together with Imroz, for 33 years; though after Partition she wrote prolifically in Hindi as well. Later in life, she turned to Osho and wrote introductions for several books of Osho, including "Ek Onkar Satnam", and also started writing on spiritual themes and dreams, producing works like "Kaal Chetna" ("Time Consciousness") and "Agyat Ka Nimantran" ("Call of the Unknown"). She had also published autobiographies, titled, "Kala Gulab" ("Black Rose", 1968), "Rasidi Ticket" ("The Revenue Stamp", 1976), and "Aksharon kay Saayee" ("Shadows of Words").


title: Amrita Pritam

text: Amrita was the first recipient of Punjab Rattan Award conferred upon her by Punjab Chief Minister Capt. Amarinder Singh. She was the first female recipient of the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1956 for "Sunehadey" (poetic diminutive of the Punjabi word "ਸੁਨੇਹੇ" (Sunehe), "Messages"), Amrita Pritam received the Bhartiya Jnanpith Award, India's highest literary award, in 1982 for "Kagaj te Canvas (Paper and Canvas)." She received the Padma Shri (1969) and Padma Vibhushan, India's second highest civilian award, and Sahitya Akademi Fellowship, India's highest literary award, also in 2004. She received D.Litt. honorary degrees, from many universities including, Delhi University (1973), Jabalpur University (1973) and Vishwa Bharati (1987).


title: Amrita Pritam

text: She also received the international Vaptsarov Award from the Republic of Bulgaria (1979) and Degree of Officer dens, Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Officier) by the French Government (1987). She was nominated as a member of Rajya Sabha 1986–92. Towards the end of her life, she was awarded by Pakistan's Punjabi Academy, to which she had remarked, "Bade dino baad mere Maike ko meri Yaad aayi.." (My motherland has remembered me after a long time); and also Punjabi poets of Pakistan, sent her a chaddar, from the tombs of Waris Shah, and fellow Sufi mystic poets Bulle Shah and Sultan Bahu.


title: Amrita Pritam

text: In 1935, Amrita married Pritam Singh, son of a hosiery merchant of Lahore's Anarkali bazaar. They had two children together, a son and a daughter. In 1960, Amrita Pritam left her husband. She is also said to have had an unrequited affection for poet Sahir Ludhianvi. The story of this love is depicted in her autobiography, "Rasidi Ticket" (Revenue Stamp). When another woman, singer Sudha Malhotra came into Sahir's life, Amrita found solace in the companionship of the artist and writer Inderjeet Imroz. She spent the last forty years of her life with Imroz, who also designed most of her book covers and made her the subject of his several paintings. Their life together is also the subject of a book, "Amrita Imroz: A Love Story".


title: Amrita Pritam

text: She died in her sleep on 31 October 2005 at the age of 86 in New Delhi, after a long illness. She was survived by her partner Imroz, daughter Kandlla, son Navraj Kwatra, daughter-in-law Alka, and her grandchildren, Kartik, Noor, Aman and Shilpi. Navraj Kwatra was found murdered in his Borivali apartment in 2012. Three men were accused of the murder but were acquitted due to lack of evidence.


title: Amrita Pritam

text: In 2007, an audio album titled, 'Amrita recited by Gulzar' was released by noted lyricist Gulzar, with poems of Amrita Pritam recited by him. A film on her life is also in production.


title: Amrita Pritam

text: On 31 August 2019, Google honoured her by commemorating her 100th birth anniversary with a Doodle. The accompanying write up read as, "Today’s Doodle celebrates Amrita Pritam, one of history’s foremost female Punjabi writers, who 'dared to live the life she imagines.' Born in Gujranwala, British India, 100 years ago today, Pritam published her first collection of verse at the age of 16."


title: Hou Yifan

text: Hou Yifan ( ; born 27 February 1994) is a Chinese chess grandmaster, four-time Women's World Chess Champion and the second highest rated female player of all time. Once a chess prodigy, she was the youngest female player ever to qualify for the title of grandmaster (at the age of 14 years, 6 months, 2 days) and the youngest ever to win the Women's World Chess Championship (at age 16).


title: Hou Yifan

text: At the age of 12, Hou became the youngest player ever to participate in the Women's World Championship (Yekaterinburg 2006) and the Chess Olympiad (Torino 2006). In June 2007, she became the youngest Chinese Women's Champion ever. She achieved the titles of Woman FIDE Master in January 2004, Woman Grandmaster in January 2007, and Grandmaster in August 2008. In 2010, she won the 2010 Women's World Championship in Hatay, Turkey at age 16. She won the next three championships in which the title was decided by a match (in 2011, 2013 and 2016, with a total of ten wins to zero losses and fourteen draws against three different opponents), but was either eliminated early or she declined to participate in the championships in which the title was decided by a knockout tournament (in 2012, 2015 and 2017).


title: Hou Yifan

text: Hou is the third woman ever to be rated among the world's top 100 players, after Maia Chiburdanidze and Judit Polgár. She is widely regarded as the best active female chess player, "leaps and bounds" ahead of her competitors. she has been the No. 1 ranked woman in the world since September 2015, and is 51 points ahead of the No. 2 ranked Aleksandra Goryachkina. She was named in the BBC's "100 Women" programme in 2017. She has been semi-retired since 2018, and became a professor at Shenzhen University in 2020, at the age of 26.


title: Hou Yifan

text: Hou started playing chess regularly at the age of five, but already was fascinated by the game when she was three years old. Hou's father, Hou Xuejian, a magistrate, often took his young daughter to a bookstore after dinner. He noticed that the little girl liked to stare at glass chess pieces behind the window. He later bought his daughter her first chess set. The three-year-old was able to beat her father and grandmother after a few weeks. In 1999, her father engaged a chess mentor, IM Tong Yuanming, for his five-year-old daughter. Tong later said that Hou was an unusual talent, showing "strong confidence, distinguished memory, calculating ability and fast reaction". Hou has said that she took up chess because she was fascinated by the pieces.


title: Hou Yifan

text: In 2003, Hou played against the chief coach of the Chinese national men's and women's chess teams, Ye Jiangchuan, for the first time. The chess master was surprised that the nine-year-old could identify almost all of his weak moves. "Then I knew she was an exceptional genius", Ye said. That year, Hou became the youngest member of the national team and won first place at the World Youth Championship for girls under age ten. In June 2007, she became China's youngest national champion.


title: Hou Yifan

text: She was admitted to the National Chess Center, an academy for young talented players from all over the country, in Beijing when she was ten, with leading Chinese grandmasters Ye Jiangchuan and Yu Shaoteng as her trainers. In order to better support her chess career, her family relocated to Beijing in 2003. Hou's mother, Wang Qian, a former nurse, accompanied her to many international tournaments when Hou was young. Hou was homeschooled. As a teenager, she listed her interests as reading and studying and she listed her favorite chess player as Bobby Fischer.


title: Hou Yifan

text: Hou has attempted to balance chess with life outside of it. Against the wishes of her trainer, she enrolled in Peking University in 2012, studying International Relations. She took a full course load and participated in many extracurricular activities. She was offered a Rhodes Scholarship, and studied for a Master of Public Policy at St Hilda's College, Oxford with the Blavatnik School of Government. Competitors give her credit for what she has achieved in spite of her lack of preparation, and for her life outside of chess. Vladimir Kramnik said: "If she wants to stay the best female player, she can probably do nothing. If she wants to achieve her potential, she must concentrate fully on chess." Hou is aware of this as well, but nonetheless chooses to treat chess as a hobby, not a career. She said in 2018: "I want to be the best, but you also have to have a life."


title: Hou Yifan

text: In 2020, at age 26, Hou became the youngest ever professor at Shenzhen University where she is a professor at the School of Physical Education, which includes chess in its Sports Training Program.


title: Hou Yifan

text: Hou Yifan's first major tournament was on 31 August–12 September 2003 at the Chinese Team Chess Championship (Open) in Tianjin. She scored 3/7 with a 2246 performance rating.


title: Hou Yifan

text: She won her first international tournament when she came first (9½/11; +8 =3 −0, TPR 2121) in the girl's under-10 section of the World Youth Championship in Halkidiki, Greece in October–November 2003. In November, she made her debut in the National Women's Chess Championship, held at Shanwei, Guangdong. She finished in 14th place with 3½/9 with a performance rating of 2202.


title: Hou Yifan

text: On 1 January 2004, she received her first International FIDE rating of 2168, which automatically qualified her for the title of Woman FIDE Master. In April, she competed at the Chinese Team Chess Championship (Women's) in Jinan, Shandong. She scored 1½/7 (TPR 2096) having faced an average opposition rating (R) of 2316.


title: Hou Yifan

text: In November, she finished first jointly with Yu Yangyi, Jules Moussard, and Raymond Song, but third on tiebreaks in the boy's under-ten section of the World Youth Championship, held in Heraklio, Crete (9/11; +8 =2 −1; TPR 2119).


title: Hou Yifan

text: At the 11th Asian Women's Championship in Beirut, Lebanon from 4–11 December 2004, she came in eleventh with a score of 4½/9 (+4 =1 −4; TPR 2278). The event was won by Wang Yu with 6½/9.


title: Hou Yifan

text: In February, she competed at the fourth Aeroflot Open (Group C) in Moscow, where she scored 2/5(TPR 2111).


title: Hou Yifan

text: In April, she finished fifth with a score of 7/11 (+6 =2 −3) (tied for fourth) at the Three Arrows Cup 2005 ladies tournament in Jinan, China. In that tournament, she defeated international master Almira Skripchenko and achieved a performance rating of 2393.


title: Hou Yifan

text: From 28 June–6 July at the second China-France Youth Match at Shenzhen, Guangdong, Hou Yifan scored 3/8 (+2 =2 −4, TPR 2324). The Chinese team (Zhou Jianchao, Zhao Jun, Zhao Xue and Hou) won the match 19–13.


title: Hou Yifan

text: In July, at the Festival Open International des Jeunes in Saint-Lô, France, she came second out of 75 players with 6/8(TPR 2305), behind Wen Yang. In 18–29 July at the World Youth Chess Championship in Belfort, France, Hou Yifan, seeded eighth, came in fifth in the Boy's Under-12 Section with 8/11 (+5 =6, TPR 2171).


title: Hou Yifan

text: In October, she qualified for the World Women's Chess Championship to be held in March 2006. Despite being rated only 2220 and ranked women's number 28 in her own country, she qualified by winning the Chinese Women's Zonal (3.5) tournament, scoring 6/9 points with a performance rating of 2526 against a rating opposition of 2401, ahead of several better-known Chinese players.


title: Hou Yifan

text: The sixth World Team Chess Championship was staged in Beersheva, Israel from 31 October to 11 November. China fielded two teams – the men's and women's, which was only the second time in the championship history when a women's team competed in what traditionally has been a male team event. This was Hou Yifan's first major team tournament and she was the youngest participant there, at eleven years of age.


title: Hou Yifan

text: She played as second reserve and finished with 0/3. The Chinese women's team drew one match and lost all of their others (+0 =1 −7), finishing last. The tournament was won by Russia, with China (men's) coming in second and Armenia third.


title: Hou Yifan

text: In December, Hou came in second at the China Women Selective Tournament in Beijing for the 37th Chess Olympiad to be held in May–June 2006 in Turin, Italy. She scored 16½/28 (TPR 2433) and gained 121 elo-points. She made the Olympiad team with the other top finishers, Wang Yu and Shen Yang.


title: Hou Yifan

text: Hou reached the third round (the last 16) of the Women's World Chess Championship in March 2006. Despite being rated 2269 and seeded 56th out of 64 players, she defeated IM Nadezhda Kosintseva (rated 2480) of Russia 1½–½ in the first round, then the former 2000 European champion WGM Natalia Zhukova (2432) of Ukraine 2–0 in the second round. She was beaten 0–2 by IM Nino Khurtsidze (2430) of Georgia in the third round to finish with a performance rating of 2504.


title: Hou Yifan

text: In May–June 2006, China came in third and won the bronze metal at the 37th Chess Olympiad in Turin, Italy. Hou Yifan scored 11/13 (+10, =2, −1), all played on the fourth board, at her Olympiad debut. For her winning percentage of 84.6%, she won a silver medal for fourth (reserve) board performance, and her performance rating of 2596 was the third highest overall.


title: Hou Yifan

text: The Chinese Championships for men and women took place in Wuxi, Jiangsu, 25 June–6 July 2006. Ni Hua took the men's title and Li Ruofan the women's. Hou Yifan came fourth in the women's category V (2369) event with a score of 7/11 (+5 =4 −2) and a performance rating of 2477.


title: Hou Yifan

text: In July–August, she performed badly at what has been traditionally the strongest women's tournament, the North Urals Cup in Krasnoturinsk, Russia. Although seeded third, she failed to win a game scoring 3/9 (+0 =6 −3) with a performance rating of 2357. She finished eighth out of ten players.


title: Hou Yifan

text: In 10–20 August, she played in the China–Russia Summit Match in Ergun, Inner Mongolia. The tournament was a two double-round-robin Scheveningen, one for men and one for women (category VIII (2444)). Russia won the men's event 26½–23½ but China won the women's section 28–22, winning the match 51½–48½. Hou Yifan was the highest scoring female player on tiebreak with 6½/10 (+5 =3 −2, TPR 2563).