CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · General Reference

Scouting Ireland

Irish Scouting organisation established in 2004

Cross-disciplinary reference desk with index cards, atlas, dictionary and catalogue
General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 2, 2026
Entity authorityQ7438354
Source-derived summary

Scouting Ireland (Irish: Gasóga na hÉireann) is one of the largest youth movements on the island of Ireland, a voluntary educational movement for young people with over 35,000 members, including over 9,000 adult volunteers early 2025. Of the 750,000 people between the ages of 6 and 18 in Ireland, over 6% are involved with the organisation. It was founded in 2004, following the amalgamation of two of the Scouting organisations on the island. It is the World Organization of the Scout Movement-recognised Scouting association in the Republic of Ireland. In Northern Ireland it operates alongside The Scout Association of the UK and the Baden-Powell Scout Association.

The organisation is independent, non-political, and open to all young people without distinction of origin, race, creed, sexual orientation, spiritual belief or gender, in accordance with the purpose, principles and method conceived by Lord Baden-Powell and as stated by WOSM. The aim of the organisation is to encourage the social, physical, intellectual, character, emotional, and spiritual development aspects (known as the SPICES) of young people "so that they may achieve their full potential and as responsible citizens, to improve society". The process of founding the new organisation came on 21 June 2003, after a merger between Scouting Ireland C.S.I. and Scouting Ireland S.A.I. was announced, becoming effective on 1 January 2004. Its national office is at Larch Hill, County Dublin.

The organisation, which is registered with the Companies Registration Office as a company, is headed by the Chief Scout, and governed by a board of directors who are answerable to the Scout Groups as company members. A small professional staff team is led by a chief executive officer.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Scouting Ireland” is irish Scouting organisation established in 2004. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Scouting, Ireland and Irish, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2025, 2004, 2003—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 2004-01-01. For this dossier, Scouting, Ireland and Irish is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “irish Scouting organisation established in 2004” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7438354. VIAF identifies the subject as 152701225. The Library of Congress control number is no2011088351. 3 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2025, 2004 and 2003.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Scouting Ireland”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Scouting Ireland primary sources, Scouting Ireland archive and Scouting research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Scouting Ireland”?
  2. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Scouting Ireland” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.