New Ireland is an island north of New Britain. It is one of the provinces of Papua New Guinea, and the administrative center is Kavieng. The island is around 320 kilometers long, but most of it is no wider than 6 to 10 kilometers. It has probably been inhabited for at least 30,000 years, and the population today is around 90,000 people. Around twenty languages are spoken in New Ireland, all of them Austronesian with the exception of Kuot, currently studied by Eva Lindström, who works in the west coast village of Bimun.

Kavieng Airview. Nusa Lavu and Nusalik islands	Kavieng, from the south. Kavieng Airport is seen	Kavieng Airport. Getting closer	Kavieng Airview, preparing to land	Kavieng Airport main building

Nuguria Street, Kavieng	Looking down Mongol Street, Kavieng	Djaul Street, Kavieng.	Kavieng Harbour Market. Fruit, vegetables and bilums	Kavieng Harbour Market. Pastery

Nice lunch food: The Mardi Gras, Kavieng	Whatever you need, Patu has it	Waiting for a southbound truck outside PMM	The Kavieng Post office	The Fire Squad

The Kavieng Hotel. Fantastic sea food buffet!	The Malagan Lodge. Great snorkelling!	... and nice rooms	A PNG Santa Claus passing by, with police escort	Me, protecting my head

Celebrating the Millennium with Eva and her sister Anne	The church in Bimun	Preparing a “mumu”, i.e. an earth oven	Ditto	Ditto

Me trying to make a cassava (tapiok) cake	Galeng preparing a “bulume” sauce	Coral fish and lobster straight from the reef...	... to the grill	Joshua keeping an eye on the fish

Villagers relaxing on the beach in Bimun	Me teaching the kids stupid hand tricks	A group of kids with their catch	A truck full of singers. There are many of them	Bimun sunset

Paradise (small!) island Ral	Airview of Ral	View from Nusalik, a small island off Kavieng	East coast or west coast? Decide here: Fangalawa crossing from the sky	Fangalawa crossing on the ground

Beautiful church on the east coast	Copra shed	Road store in typical colours	Paradise resort, Dalom	Children swimming

East coast village of Kabil Kuot is spoken here.	Me with children in Kabil	Renting a truck in Namatanai	Millennium celebration at the church in Lemau	Two women seeking cover from sudden rain

Jungle Sounds

Sound Files

Sawing insects. (I don’t know their names. If you do, please tell me!)	[mp3]
Night in Bimun. Recording made in January 2000 by Robert Eklund. Short version. Duration: 0:30 (484 kb).	[mp3]
Night in Bimun. Recording made in January 2000 by Robert Eklund. Long version. Duration: 2:44 (2584 kb).	[mp3]

Below you find (only) one New Britain-related link. More links can be found on the Papua New Guinea and New Ireland pages.

Tourist Links Nusa Island Retreat. For scuba divers. See pictures of Nusa islands above. Great place! ... and, of course, Eva Lindström's “background information for travellers, field workers and visitors to New Ireland”. Covers kinship and social structure, food, gifts, clothes, malaria and other stuff from someone who has lived there. Don't miss it!