Carrawen
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Isle of Carrawen Í Chnáʿon | |
|---|---|
Crown dependency | |
 Flag | |
 Carrawen (red), with Ireland for reference | |
| Sovereign State | United Kingdom |
| Settlement | 6th century BCE |
| Norse-Gaelic hegemony | 9th century CE |
| de facto Independence | 2 July 1266 |
| English control | 17 May 1756 |
| Capital and largest city | Ármhaid |
| Official languages | English Carrawenian |
| Religion | largely Roman Catholicism |
| Demonym(s) | Carrawenite |
| Government | Parliamentary democratic constitutional monarchy |
• Monarch | Elizabeth II |
| Imogen Caistlean | |
• Shóifeit | George Glass |
| Area | |
• Total | 248 km2 (96 sq mi) |
| Population | |
• 2018 estimate | 27,046 |
• 2010 census | 28,276 |
• Density | 109/km2 (282.3/sq mi) |
Carrawen (/kær.ə.wɛn/,Carrawenian: Cnáʿon [kɾˠaːən̪ˠ]), officially the Isle of Carrawen (Carrawenian: Í Chnáʿon [iː xɾˠaːən̪ˠ]), is a self-governing British Crown dependency situated in the Bay of Donegal, about fifty kilometres west of Rossan Point. The head of state, Queen Elizabeth II, holds the title Lady of Carrawen (Ráibe Chnáʿon, masculine equivalent Ráibh Chnáʿon) and is represented by a lieutenant governor. The United Kingdom holds responsibility for the island's defence.
Humans have continuously inhabited the island of Carrawen since the 6th century BC. It is unknown exactly who the first settlers on Carrawen were and why they chose to make their homes on the island, but it is known that by the time the Romans were describing the British Isles, the language spoken there was recognisably Northwest Semitic. With the arrival of the Gaels in the Iron Age, the Semitic dialect spoken on the isle came under significant Goidelic influence; by the early middle ages, it had developed into Classical Carrawenian, the ancestor of the modern Carrawenian language. The island remained largely independent during the early post-Roman era in western Europe, although a great deal of trading contact between mainland Ireland and Carrawen was taking place during this time, and intermarriage with the Gaels was the rule rather than the exception. The Carrawenites were converted to Christianity during this time by Saint Hebel, who translated a portion of the Vulgate into Classical Carrawenian between 752 and his death 775 AD.
In the 9th century, Carrawen fell under the hegemony of the Norse-Gaelic Kingdom of the Isles. The isle became de facto independent once again in 1266 when the Hebrides and the Isle of Man (the former territories comprising the Kingdom of the Isles) were transferred from Norway to Scotland in the Treaty of Perth, leaving the unclaimed isle once more to its own affairs until it was subdued by a small British expedition in 1756 under the claim that Carrawen fell within the natural borders of the Kingdom of Ireland. Authority was vested in the Crown, but the isle was never incorporated into the Kingdom of Ireland or its successor the United Kingdom. Its strategic unimportance, largely owing to its lack of a suitable deep-water harbour, has contributed to underdevelopment and underinvestment by the Crown in the Isle, but has also helped to maintain the unique cultural and linguistic identity of Carrawen.