Laora

Cairan Free State of Laora Saorstát Caireanach Laor
Flag
Laora (in green) within Messenia
Capital	Lúbhadh
Largest city	Seanbheith
Official languages	Dael
Demonym	Laoran
Government
• Chief Minister	Hanraoi Ó Báire
Establishment
• Battle of Tuaim: Laora absorbed into Odann	1498
• Treaty of Ostari: Laora re-established as independent state	1958
Area
• Total	19,036.7 km2 (7,350.1 sq mi) (117th)
Population
• Census	5,040,918
• Density	264.8/km2 (685.8/sq mi)
Currency	Laoran bonn (LAB)
Time zone	IAT-M -1

Laora, or more formally the Cairan Free State of Laora (Dael Saorstát Caireanach Laor) is a country in north-western Messenia; it is bordered to the east and north-east by Odann along the river Daugh, and to the south and west by Fiobha, where the border is mainly formed by the river Poitéal. The country has a sea-coast in the north where it faces the Daugh Bay (Bá na Dhaugh), an arm of the larger Arcedian Sea.

While Laora has had a separate existence at other times in the past, in the present day it is one of Messenia’s newer countries, having been re-established only in 1958 as part of the Treaty of Ostari which formally ended the Gaste War and detached Laora and its neighbour Fiobha from Odann. In this form it is much reduced in size from its traditional extent, with a substantial part of the former principality of Laora being retained by Odann, including its historic capital at Clachán. (Perhaps in partial compensation, the state of Laora includes most of the former Odannach province of Tír an Rúach.) While there had been a significant separatist movement within Laora during the later 1940s and 1950s, the detachment of Laora and Fiobha was intended by the principal participants at Ostari primarily as a deliberate measure by which to weaken Odann, by removing from it most of its economically productive coastline.

Etymology

The derivation of the name Laora is uncertain. Suggestions have been made that it arose as a mishearing or mistranscription of Dael Tir na Laonna, “land of the calves”, in reference to the country’s livestock, but these have been discounted given the antiquity of its use; the word is recorded as a descriptor for the region at least as early as the third century BCE. Tales of a purported early king Laor, from whom the country took its name, have been mostly treated as apocryphal since at least 1000 CE.

History

15th century: Laora lost

For much of the 14th and 15th centuries Laora was one of the strongest states along the Arcedian littoral, largely on the back of its sea trade and river commerce along the Daugh, with Clachán being challenged only by the expanding city of Ráth as a focus for economic power and political influence across the region. Laora’s sense of distinctiveness from Odann was only further enhanced by the dispute within the Argan of Odann which came to a head in 1436, when senior Laoran prelates under Niamh uí Dhoirnáin, disputing the dominance of the triburion of Ráth, set up an independent Holy Council in Clachán. The breakaway group very quickly gained the backing of Domhnaill, king of Laora, who saw them as a useful source of support against the ailing king Liam III of Odann. Liam’s death in 1439 and the confusion which resulted in Odann during the subsequent War of the Three helped to cement this division, with the so-called “Holy Mother in Clachán” (a title intended to allow the Holy Council in Cairn a means of saving face) enjoying some fifty years of almost untrammeled autonomy.

Laora and Odann continued to eye each other warily during the later 15th century; Odann, under the martial vigour of the House of Clairhain, increasingly saw itself as the major player in the region, disdainful of the Laoran monarchs’ subtler and more manipulative approach to interordinate affairs. However, such a stand-off could not last indefinitely; and it would be the Laorans who blinked first.

In 1498, Éamonn, king of Laora, died from what is now thought to have been renal failure, at the remarkably young age of 39 years; his only child, the 15-year-old Muirne, could not inherit the throne, and the Laoran court fell into paralysis as courtiers squabbled over who should succeed Éamonn. For Liam V of Odann, this was a perfect opportunity to rid himself of a major rival power; Odannach forces attacked virtually without real opposition, snapping up swathes of southern and eastern Laora. Still hamstrung by internal discord, the Laorans nonetheless finally succeeded in putting a force into the field at Tuaim, south of Clachán, on 2 Estion 1498; but its internal rivalries left it almost unable to function as a coherent entity, and Odannach soldiers destroyed it without mercy. A distraught Muirne agreed to marry Liam’s son Faolán in the hope of ending the war without further slaughter; and Liam claimed Éamonn’s lands as his own, extending the Sacred Kingdom to the sea for the first time. While Laora’s past glories did not go unrecognised – with Faolán becoming the first heir to the throne of Odann to hold the title of Prince of Laora – the country now ceased to exist, becoming an Odannach province (ceanoiseocht).

16th-18th centuries: the province of Laora

However, although Laora was now subordinated to Odann, it nonetheless retained a substantial influence in the now-enlarged Sacred Kingdom. Clachán’s mercantile power took something of a dip in the early 1500s in the immediate wake of the annexation, but this was a short-lived phenomenon; and Laoran commercial acumen and maritime knowledge contributed greatly to Odann’s growing prosperity in this period, as it reoriented itself away from its old rivalries in Elland and the Sabamic lands and looked outward towards the sea and the wider world. Continuing seaborne rivalries with Quènie – with whom Odann fought an inconclusive war between 1628 and 1634 – prompted the Clairhains and their advisors to push for a more expansive approach to the matter, with Laoran seamen being prominent in that process. Laoran explorers and merchants increasingly drove Odann’s engagement with its latterly-acquired territories in present-day Tassedar and with northern Ascesia, building an extensive trade with the successor states to the collapsed Sabhian Unity; and the Odannach claim to Diothún, the island to the north of the Ascesian continent, dates from 1641, although the island is almost entirely ice-bound (with the immense Diothún Ice Cap rendering habitation in the interior almost impossible), and is conventionally habitable only in the south-eastern Tharáin peninsula and along the southern coast close to the Onnech Sound.

Laora developed strongly in the two centuries following its annexation as Odann’s farmyard, orchard and granary, having generally more hospitable land for farming, and the strong centralising drive exhibited by the Odannach monarchy saw it become firmly integrated into the fabric of the Sacred Kingdom as a whole. Laoran noblemen enjoyed a strong voice in the councils of state, and Laoran churchwomen played a significant role in the affairs of the Argan of Odann during the 17th and 18th centuries.

19th and early 20th century: Laora resists

As the fruits of the Industrial Revolution in Messenia began to appear across Odann, Laora benefited markedly more strongly than most of the country, with its proximity to the sea reducing import costs and its nascent industries drawing a ready workforce from much further inland, particularly from the poorer-quality agricultural regions of the Odannach Highlands. The shift was a shot in the arm for the fortunes of Clachán, which had to some degree fallen behind Ráth in terms of economic importance, and fostered a minor rebirth in the city’s sense of self-confidence – perhaps too much so at times; Hubert Durrell-Lagan, an Ellish émigré who had married into a prominent Clachán noble family and who lived in the city between 1896 and 1910, remarked that “[he was] too often weary beyond endurance of the haute monde clachannois and their belief that the very sun rises and sets upon them”.

Seanachan Ó Pharlain: shown here in 1950.

The strains created within Odann by the Long War period, and in particular its efforts to support its long-time allies in Ceresora, were made worse in Laora by the emergence of more clearly organised separatist groups. Separatism in Laora was not necessarily a recent matter – agitators angered by the dominant role played by a highlander monarchy and a complaisant argan had been an irritant in the local body politic since as early as 1790 – but in the 1930s and early 1940s they re-emerged with new strength and more clearly defined goals. By probably the beginning of 1942 a spell of internal wrangling and infighting among the various groups saw one of these, Ár dTalamh (Dael “our land”), emerge as dominant under its combative leader Seanachan Ó Pharlain, a Clachán merchant who had built a successful business in commercial butchery and wholesale meat sales (from which he gained his kenning of Seanachan an Sheamlas, rendered in Ellish as “Slaughterhouse Shane”), and it was primarily this group which drove the separatist agenda during the later 1940s and 1950s.

In the period after 1954 this agitation turned into direct action; with Odann under invasion from a combined Savamese, Ellish and Zepnish army in the Gaste War, Laoran separatists caused significant damage away from the front lines. This in turn forced Ráth to divert vital resources into the rear and left their troops even more beleaguered. Some Odannach army units were still trying to pin down Ár dTalamh and others when the main body of the army was forced to surrender in 1958.

1950s and early 1960s: Laora at bay

With Odann now at the mercy of the alliance, conditions were ideal for the Sacred Kingdom’s actions in excising Savamese lands after the Embute War to be revisited on it. Under the 1958 Treaty of Ostari which officially ended the war, approximately two-thirds of Odann’s coastline and a good-sized piece of the hinterlands behind it were constituted as the new states of Laora and Fiobha. However, while the separatist insurgents naturally claimed a victory, the decision was essentially driven by a desire on the part of the allies to weaken Odann and deny it much-needed resources with which it could rebuild its strength. As it was, a late concession pushed by Siurskeyti during the treaty talks allowed Odann to retain Cláchan, its second-largest city, and approximately one-third of the former province of Laora.

Amid substantial dispute as to who should take charge of the new country, the allies imposed their own solutions. Siurskeyti and Savam set up a jointly-operated body, the Oversight Commission for Laora and Fiobha, in Fabricad 1958, and it was under this body’s auspices that an interim “unity” government was convened under the leadership of Éamonn na Sciath in early Dominy. The new chief minister had been one of the region’s leading dramatists before the war, and was at the time the chancellor of the University of Lúbhadh, a small town in what was now central Laora. This decision probably facilitated the choice of Lúbhadh as the new capital (over the loud protests of Seanbheith, historically a district of Clachán but now separated from it, and the largest city in the new Laora). Several university buildings were commandeered for use by the new government until suitable accommodations could be found elsewhere, and Laora’s main parliament building is still called An Coláiste d’Aois or “the Old College”.

The government itself was very much a mixed bag. Although it dominated the interim body, Ár dTalamh had brought people with a wide range of political opinions under its umbrella during the separatist campaign – ranging from dissident churchwomen to mainstream concordists to disaffected nobility. Now, with the factions’ immediate goals achieved, the faultlines between them began to widen almost before the ink on the Treaty of Ostari was dry – and at perhaps the worst possible time, as the climatic disruption of the immediate post-war years wracked northern Messenia in 1958 and 1959. While na Sciath enjoyed a widespread respect across the new country, he had had no strong associations with any of the factional groups within his emergency government – part of his appeal to the allied commissioners who agreed his appointment – and his remote, academic manner made it all too easy for his ministers to pay him lip service while building their own power bases in readiness for a future conflict.

With the country grinding towards a halt – and with na Sciath and other senior figures far away in Kethpor as delegates to the Congress in that city – Ó Pharlain and a small group of supporters stepped in to oust the chief minister in Metrial 1959; as a vanguard party, they co-opted the recently-formed and barely-functioning police force and Fórsa Cosanta na Laora (Laoran Defence Force) into backing them, and forced through an emergency programme which kept the country operational – within certain tolerances – and most of its people alive, if not necessarily well, in a period still known in Laora today as the Reclamation (Dael an Mintiriú). Much of this was achieved over howls of protest at the way in which consultation and consensus had been brusquely shoved to the side; but Ó Pharlain made no apology for apparently stealing the collectivists’ clothes, insisting to his opponents that “we don’t have time to argue about fine points of protocol while people are dying in the streets. You can do what you want; but I can look the Builder in the eye when I’m called and say that I did the best I could.”

By early 1963 the worst of the catastrophe was over, and Laora’s great-power patrons (who had had a variety of issues of their own to confront during the period) were beginning to suggest – if not actually to insist – that the Administrative Council (Comhairle Riaracháin) which Ó Pharlain headed should dissolve itself. True to his own nature, Ó Pharlain threw the suggestion straight back at them; in an address to the interim parliament in Lúbhadh on 15 Floridy 1963, he castigated the victors at Ostari for “seeking to use us as catspaws, lickspittles to meekly do their bidding” and declaring that “we are our own country, and we will find our own solutions”. The latter phrase gave the address the name by which it is still remembered (Dael ár dtír, ár réitigh), and which has become an unofficial motto for the revived country.

This was a challenge too far for both Savam and Siurskeyti, neither of whom saw any advantage to them in leaving an incipient dictatorship in place; units of both countries’ armies, stationed in Laora as part of the reconstruction process, were dispatched to take Ó Pharlain and leading members of Ár dTalamh into custody. The subsequent raid on the Coláiste d’Aois on 20 Floridy ended in bloodshed as more than fifty people on both sides, including the chief minister and four cabinet members, were wounded; five people were killed, including the treasurer, Síle Garbh, who died of her injuries early the following morning. Ó Pharlain himself escaped, and later re-emerged in Tvåriken, where he claimed political asylum. The new parliament was immediately prorogued and an executive committee put in place to run the country temporarily under Domhnaill an Traochta, hitherto the minister for transport, who was seen by the allies as a more tractable candidate.

Later 1960s to present: Laora in remission

Little was expected of an Traochta at the outset; he had been a marginal figure in Ó Pharlain’s government, and his portly figure and enthusiasm for rail transport within his portfolio had already gained him the mocking nickname of “the Fat Controller” (an Rialtóir Saille) from parts of the Laoran public. However, while he was widely expected to be not much more than a mouthpiece for the Siursk and Savamese on the Oversight Commission, he proved his independence very early on, securing an overall reduction in repayments being made to Odann for Laora’s share of its state debt at independence. He also successfully argued against strong Siursk pressure for a delay in re-establishing an elected parliament, while a full investigation into prospective candidates could be undertaken and procedures for the ballot strengthened against potential abuses. Elections for the new Laoran parliament finally took place in Empery 1964, and an Traochta was able to amass sufficient support around his own faction to be accepted as Chief Minister in his own right.

To some extent, the continuing great-power influence hampered Laoran freedom of action in foreign affairs, and especially as regards Odann, where Savamese influence still favoured detachment, even if sentiment in favour of improved relations was strong on both sides of a border which often separated members of the same extended family. This was famously depicted by the newspaper cartoonist Aibéal in 1968 as Odann, a handsome and dapper young “masher”, seeking to charm his way into the affections of a frail and demure Laora who was, perhaps, not entirely as uninterested as she would have the onlooker believe. There was a marked movement in that direction following the young Diarmuid II becoming Defender in 1972, as Diarmuid went to some lengths to foster a re-engagement with the Messenian interordinate community, and the later 1970s and early 1980s saw a modest degree of cross-border co-operation in areas of mutual concern.

The accession to the Defender’s throne of Ultan II in 1988 caused a significant shift in Laoran policy towards its neighbour, as Ultan – part of a widespread group in Odann who decried the Ostari settlement as capitulation by those then in authority – made increasingly bold statements asserting Odann’s “moral rights” over its former territories. While these have become more muted in subsequent years, successive Lúbhadh governments have remained concerned over the matter, especially given the degree to which Odann has strengthened its military over the last two decades.

Laora’s relations with its other neighbour Fiobha have not necessarily been smooth, despite their broad similarities and common origins. Although they have generally worked together in relations with other states, the two countries have been persistent competitors in interordinate markets, and have been occasionally at odds with each other in matters which concerned only themselves directly. Perhaps the most serious example of this was the dispute over the Creigeach Islands in Daugh Bay in the summer of 1992, which saw several close encounters and one actual exchange of fire between Laoran and Fiobhan coastal patrol vessels before the negotiation of a solution acceptable to all.

More recently, the departure of Tadhg mac Lúiscne as Chief Minister in 2011 brought into office Hanraoi Ó Báire, who, at the age of 51 (born Conservene 1959), became the first leader of his country to have been born in an independent Laora – a form of generational shift which did not go unrecognised at the time, and which was heralded as a signal of Laora’s own maturity and legitimacy as an independent state.

Government

Laora is unusual in the Cairan world in that it was not established as a monarchy, but was instead set up with an executive government led by a Chief Minister who was both head of state and head of government. This was principally a decision forced on the negotiations at Ostari by the Savamese, who were distrustful of most of the noblemen who had thrown in their lot with the Laoran separatists and concerned about the possibilities for a charismatic leader to dominate political life in the country (as, so they considered, was already too much the case in Odann).

Laoran government is otherwise unexceptional by Messenian standards; the Administrative Council established under Ó Pharlain was retained, but today functions more as a conventional cabinet over the Laoran parliament. While an Traochta was careful in structuring his government as one covering all shades of political opinion, the present council has reverted to the more obvious state of control by particular factional groups more usual in Messenia.

At the regional level Laora is divided into twelve districts (dúichí), although these have responsibility only for matters specific to their own areas and raise local levies only for those purposes.

Foreign relations

Given the circumstances which brought it back into being, Laora has mainly sought broadly good relations with most foreign states, and a generally neutral position in military matters. This has been particularly important as regards its “big brother” Odann; while the Sacred Kingdom was in no position to press the issue at Ostari, a substantial body of opinion there has not been wholly reconciled to Laoran and Fiobhan independence. The part of the province of Laora which Odann retained continues to use the name today (although the title of Prince of Laora, previously given to the heir to the throne when he reached his majority, has been abandoned), and official Odannach practice is still to refer to the independent state as the Provisional State of Laora (Stát Sealadach Laor). Because of this, Laora and Fiobha are the only states within Messenia, other than the pocket principalities of Västrahamn, Eichenhain and Grand Fenwick, where Odann does not have an embassy; trade legations in both countries fill some of the gap, and Laoran diplomatic affairs in Odann are directed through a support staff within the embassy of Elland.

Laora’s long past history as a part of Odann has left it with something of an ambivalent attitude to the Sacred Kingdom; although the policies of successive governments have been broadly neutral-to-wary, opinion among the general population is somewhat more positive, with many Laorans having family ties across the border as a result of the division. The waters have been muddied further over the years by interference from Odann, and even the more muted irredentist claims emerging from Ráth are still something of a live issue in Laoran politics. The government’s position is in any event tempered by the presence of Odann as its single largest trading partner, creating a marked shadowing in Laora of fluctuations in the Odannach economy.

Laora’s principal foreign alliances are with its partners in the Pact of Ekerö, Fiobha and Tvåriken, with the Pact being created as early as 1960; however, the agreement has come under some recent strain as Tvåriken, which speaks Kunic rather than Dael and which lacks the same close history with Odann which its partners have, creating friction with the others by pursuing closer associations with the Odannaigh than the Laoran and Fiobhan governments are comfortable with.

Culture

After centuries in which Laora was only a part of the great power that is Odann, its detachment as a state in its own right came as a surprise – and all the more since, after centuries of union within Odann, a separate Laoran state was never something which the majority of the population had wanted or asked for. As a result, a frequent question – asked by the Laorans of themselves as much as by outsiders – has been “what does it mean to be Laoran”; and certainly, for the visitor, there seems to be little to strongly distinguish Laora from its “big brother”. Such differences as there are seem to be limited, perhaps even cosmetic, in nature; Laorans have traditionally tended to think of themselves as more outgoing, and perhaps more worldly, than the typical Odannaigh, whom they often crudely dismiss as cachiceoirí (“shitkickers”). On the other hand, the Laorans themselves are the frequent butt of Odannach jokes centring mainly on snobbery – reflecting the retention by the Laoran dialect of the T–V distinction which is absent in standard Dael – and the significant role played by fish in Laoran cuisine: a typical jibe runs, “what is twenty-five metres long and smells of fish? A busload of Laorans.”

In terms of the Cairan faith which dominates northern Messenia, Laora remains almost completely orthodox, and shares much of the current restrictive practices in Odann against non-Cairans and reformists alike, despite Savamese efforts to ameliorate the position. Allied concerns over a perceived need for separation of church and state meant that the faith was denied a formal role within government, as had been (and remains) the case in Odann; however, some dissident churchwomen served in government in Laora’s early years, before internal disputes over policy forced their withdrawal. Proposals were floated even before the agreement at Ostari for the creation of a separate Argan of Laora; however, these foundered as impractical and were superseded by the establishment in 1960 of the combined Argan of Laora and Fiobha, which is based in Lúbhadh. Support for the new argan – formed by Laoran- and Fiobhan-resident churchwomen of the Odannach argan, which had generally withdrawn its support for the war effort in 1956 after the Autumn Leaves speech – was distinctly weak in the new country’s first decade of life; it has broadly recovered since the early 1970s, but the argan is still a markedly weaker influence on day-to-day life in Laora as compared to the position across the border.