In this paper we characterize the congruence associated to the direct sum of
all irreducible representations of a finite semigroup over an arbitrary field,
generalizing results of Rhodes for the field of complex numbers. Applications
are given to obtain many new results, as well as easier proofs of several
results in the literature, involving: triangularizability of finite semigroups;
which semigroups have (split) basic semigroup algebras, two-sided semidirect
product decompositions of finite monoids; unambiguous products of rational
languages; products of rational languages with counter; and \v{C}ern\'y's
conjecture for an important class of automata