Jirapa is the capital town of the

Jirapa Municipal Jirapa Municipal District is one of the eleven districts in the Upper West Region Ghana. Originally it was formerly part of the then-larger Jirapa/Lambussie District in 1988; until the northern part of the district was later split off to create La ...

in the

Upper West Region The Upper West Region of Ghana is located in the north-western corner of Ghana and is bordered by Upper East Region to the east, Northern Region (Ghana), Northern Region to the south, and Burkina Faso to the west and north. The Upper West regional ...

Ghana Ghana, officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It is situated along the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, and shares borders with Côte d’Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, and Togo to t ...

Institutions

* The only girls' secondary school in the region, St. Francis Girls' Secondary School, is situated in the town. *

Jirapa Senior High School Jirapa is the capital town of the Jirapa Municipal in the Upper West Region of Ghana. Institutions * The only girls' secondary school in the region, St. Francis Girls' Secondary School, is situated in the town. * Jirapa Senior High School. ...

. * St. Joseph's Hospital in Jirapa is the district hospital. The Franciscan Missionaries of Mary started the work in 1949 as a wound-dressing centre. It was converted to a hospital and adopted by the Catholic Mission of Tamale in 1953. Two training schools originally attached to the hospital are now the autonomous Jirapa Nursing Training College and Jirapa Midwifery Training College. There is also a community health training school known as Jirapa Community Health Nursing Training School * The St. Joseph Orphanage was renovated in about 2004 by an orphan who is now resident in Italy. It takes up to 40 newborn orphans from nearby hospitals and looks after them during their early childhood. * St. Joseph Catholic Church is the oldest Catholic Church in the Upper West Region. * There is a police station and a district magistrate court. * There is a 5-star hotel named Royal Cosy Hills Hotel, commonly referred to as ''Jirapa Dubai''.

Religion

There is a very strong Roman Catholic tradition in the Jirapa-Lambussie district. The

White Fathers The White Fathers (), officially known as the Missionaries of Africa (), and abbreviated MAfr, are a Roman Catholic society of apostolic life of pontifical right (for men). They were founded in 1868 by Charles-Martial Allemand-Lavigerie, who w ...

opened a mission station first in

Navrongo Navrongo is a town and the capital of Kassena-Nankana Municipal District in the Upper East Region of northern Ghana, adjacent to the border with Burkina Faso. Navrongo is an important market town, known for its cathedral and its grotto. It hou ...

in 1906, from which three men were delegated to work in Jirapa in 1929. They were allotted a plot of land by the Jirapa Naa (chief) who allegedly wanted to see whether they would be driven out by evil spirits, or vice versa. Despite early conflicts between converts and the local chiefs, and even the resulting disapproval of the British District Commissioner of

Lawra Lawra is a small town and is the capital of Lawra district, a district in the Upper West Region of Ghana.Lawr ...

, the work was given great impetus by the locally famous 'rain event' of 1932 in which rain fell during a severe drought in the Lawra district, only in Jirapa and in nearby villages following prayer for each case. According to government statistics, 42.5% of the population in the district now claim to be Christian, 96.1% of which are Catholic, the remainder being affiliated to either Islam or traditional religion.

Culture

The Chief of Jirapa is the Paramount Chief of the Jirapa traditional area, and is at present

Peter Nanfuri Peter Tenganabang Nanfuri (12 October 1942 – 17 February 2023) was a former Inspector General of Ghana Police Service who became the Paramount Chief of the Jirapa Traditional Area with the title Naa Ansoleh Ganaa II upon retirement. He served ...

, Naa Ansoleh Ganaa II. There is an annual festival called Bong-Ngo in Jirapa for the chiefs and people of the area. It is held in the last week of April and marks the end of the ban on harvesting the fruit of the Dawadawa tree (Parkia Biglobosa) and the beginning of the farming season.

Language

The local people are called

Dagaaba The Dagaaba people (singular Dagao, and, in northern dialects, for both plural and singular) are an ethnic group located north of the convergence of Ghana, Burkina Faso and Côte d'Ivoire. They speak the Dagaare language, a Gur language made up ...

, and speak

Dagaare Dagaare is the language of the Dagaaba people of Ghana, Burkina Faso, and Ivory Coast. It has been described as a dialect continuum that also includes Wali language (Gur), Waale and Birifor language, Birifor. Dagaare language varies in dialect s ...

, which is a Gur branch of the Niger–Congo language family. The name of the town, written in Dagaare as Gyerebaa, is pronounced roughly as ''jira-‘baa'', and means 'reed-stream', i.e. a stream of reeds.Ghana Place Names
/ref>

References

External links