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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3Archive 4Archive 5Archive 6→Archive 10

History Again

I'm going to cut the history section right down. We now have a very big summary article at History of Ireland and many more detailed articles. It makes no sense for this page to have such a long section as its really a summary of a summary of a summary. People who are interested should be directed to the main articles. Jdorney 13:49, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Image Formatting

(Could someone format this page to remove the large blanks caused by the picture boxes? --Krashlandon 17:46, 5 January 2006 (UTC))

I've moved the Arts up a bit, and the page looks better. Also, I moved your request here, to the talk page, as I'm responding to it, and I think this'll generate more talk than anything that should be on the article itself. More work should probably be done, but it looks a bit better now. Canaen 23:41, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

We either need an expert in page dynamics to wrap the text, or we need to remove some of those pictures or fill in the space. Krashlandon 13:15, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Looks like a pretty intractable problem. I imagine simply removing some of the right-hung images might help. Or redesigning some so they will spread more left-from-right instead of down-from-up (so narrowing the text and forcing its extent more down the page). Many seem to be single-columns of sub-images, and I imagine they could be reconstructed as rows-and-columns. Laurel Bush 12:18, 7 January 2006 (UTC).

Perhaps. I would just as soon remove the pictures. Some of them are not needed. Krashlandon 23:17, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Archiving

I'm going to start a proper Archiving of this talk page. It shouldn't be more than 2, or at most 3 pages. I'll leave what seems to still be active. If you have any qualms, then plese bring them up to me. Better yet, be bold and do it yourself! Canaen 00:03, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

The entry "Ireland"

About the title of this page: I understand that this has been up for several motions and votes and debates and what not over on the article entitled Republic of Ireland. But if that article itself states that the name of this sovereign state is usually just Ireland in the English language, then why does the island of the same name monopolize on that entry on WP? Is it really unequivocally the predominant usage in English? Similar cases elsewhere will usually lead to a disambiguation page if several uses of a word are equally common. Like this:

Ireland may refer to either:
See also New Ireland and Northern Ireland

Compare where the reader is (re)directed if he/she types in other ambiguous terms with multiple meanings, such as "Georgia", "Samoa", "China", "Micronesia" or "Macedonia". //Big Adamsky 03:13, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

This page is about the sovereign country Ireland. In standard english, that country is most often called "Ireland" alone. I don't know what we should do to make it universal, though. Maybe you should talk to an Irish person. Krashlandon 17:46, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

If anyone has comments regarding this topic Talk:Republic of Ireland maybe the ideal place? Djegan 19:07, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Layout on higher resolutions

The page looks awful with 1600x1200 resolution (Mozilla Firefox). The row of images continues for a kilometer after the text has ended, and the "[edit]" signs are scattered all over the place. I think that this is because of the long Flags of Ireland, etc image blocks. There's also three very random images at the bottom without any captions (picture of an airplane, a picture of a train, a picture of some construction yard, and "ESB" logo). Could anything be done about this problem? (this is the only page where I've noticed the [edit]s get messed up). --85.49.234.240 16:10, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

I totally agree with you, I think removing one is a start. For those who think the image boxes add enough to merit there use, well it might look good at your resolution but it doesn't at every ones so its not a bad idea getting rid of one. lets have a vote. - Fabhcún 19:40, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Which one should we remove?

Poll: Ireland article titles

A poll is currently underway to determine the rendition of the island, nation-state, and disambiguation articles/titles for Ireland in Wp. Please weigh in! E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 08:32, 11 February 2006 (UTC)


"Hibernophile" not in dictionaries?

From Talk:Hibernophile

"I don't find the word "Hibernophile" in any online dictionary. Can somebody give a cite for this word (online or in print)? If not, we should probably yank this article. (Also, Google only gives 265 hits for this word and Wikipedia is among them.)" -- 12 Feb 2006

It may not be much used it is a perfectly valid word, just as Hibernophobe, Anglophile, Anglophobe, homophile, homophobe, etc. For minor topics (and even major ones) google is worthless. It regularly throws up inaccurate facts and simply matches the linguistic dominance of American English and British English usage while largely ignoring all other variants of English many of which use the word. But then as most internet users are American or from the Commonwealth of Nations, the bias towards their usage is hardly unusual. FearÉIREANN\(caint) 19:03, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Flags of Ireland

"Flag of St. Patrick, still used as an all-Ireland flag by the Irish Rugby Football Union and others."

I don't think that this flag has been used by the IRFU for a long time. To my knowledge they now (unfortunately IMHO) use the 4 provinces flag - can anyone find a source for this? Perhaps the next time anyone's at a match a photo wouldn't be out of the question? A couple of things it has been used for: the badge of the PSNI and the Church of Ireland (Anglican church) [1]. The arms of the Queen's University, Belfast also seem to originate from those of the Queen's University of Ireland (1850-1870). Both contain a St Patrick's cross with a white background in the left and right portions, and blue background in the top and bottom portions. I almost forgot, I cannot find a source at the moment but AFAIK the Northern Ireland flag wasn't created until the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, and was based on the Arms granted to the government in 1922. Beano ni 01:38, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Just found this at Ireland_national_rugby_union_team
"Similarly, the Irish tricolour, the official flag of the Republic is only used when playing in the Republic. A quartered flag with symbols representing the four provinces of Ireland is flown alongside in Dublin, and is used exclusively when playing elsewhere. At some matches, the standard of the island's rugby union governing body, the Irish Rugby Football Union, is displayed on the field during pre-match ceremonies."
Beano ni 10:58, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
It seems to me that all the information about flags of Ireland duplicates the information in that article. Shouldn't we just point there? Evertype 13:48, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Either the four Provnces of Ireland flag or the de facto Irish Tricolour are what is commonly used as an all Ireland flag by most. Most people take the Irish Tricolour as the flag of Ireland, it was created to represent the Nationalist Irish and the "orange" Scots-Irish etc. And the decendants of the plantations - so to speak anyway - in Ireland and peace and unity between the two. The "Flag of St. Patrick" is probably neutral also, but it is mainly only used by Unionist northerners by choice: southerners and northern Nationalists tent to use the Irish Tricolour.

In terms of totally neutral, the four Provinces of Ireland flag is probably Your best bet for an all island, all Ireland flag, in My personal opinion, though again, the Irish Tricolour is as much the De Facto flag of the island as the old government of the north's flag is the De Facto flag of the Northern Ireland state. Though many Nationalists are offended by the usage of that particular flag, I doubt many would want to pass that offence onto others. So again, the four Provinces of Ireland might be best.

The sutiability or otherwise of a particular flag for some pipe-dream united ireland is not really the issue here, its which flag is used by the IRFU. Based on the lack of anyone refuting the source above, I think the "Irish Flags" box should be amended to remove the claim that the St Patrick's cross is used at rugby matches. beano 12:55, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Shannon the longest river in the British Isles

I just changed the article to describe the Shannon as the longest river in the British Isles as opposed to Ireland and Britain. For a start it should be Great Britain instead of Britain as that is the name of the island. Anyway, I changed this (even though it may be controversial) as the Shannon is the longest river in the entire archipeligo and not just the two main islands and this term is used in the article for the Shannon. Using "Ireland and Britain" seemed clumsy to me (does "Ireland" refer to the island or the state?) as you have to specify that you mean the geographical meaning of the terms rather than the political meaning (i.e the islands of Ireland and Great Britain) or use the formal names for the states (i.e. Republic of Ireland and the UK) otherwise it can be confusing.Jizz 11:58, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I didn't see that this was discussed in the politics section, but I stand by my point that Ireland and Britain is not a wise substitute for British Isles. Ireland and Great Britain is more correct but this excludes the Isle of Man and perhaps the Channel Islands too. Joke Prince suggestion: The islands formerly known as the British Isles Jizz 12:20, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

The British Isles is quite an pointlessly offensive term to the people of Ireland. Although I personally have no strong feelings on the matter either way, I don't believe in offending people. Ireland, Britain and surrounding islands are the Western European Archipelago, so why not describle them as what they are? The Western European Archipelago.

I really think the Irish can get by with the Shannon being the longest river in Ireland. If you are going to say it is the longest river in 'Britain and Ireland' why not say the longest river in 'Britain and Ireland and Denmark'? It's silly, and it is patently politically inspired to leave out Denmark (or any other country) and place Ireland within a British context. As for the alternative inserted by Jizz, there is no need for the British political construct of the "British Isles". Removed the term for the (very obvious) reason cited by the above poster. El Gringo 15:10, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree, there's no need to even mention Britain. LOngest river in Ireland would suffice (Derry Boi 15:22, 19 May 2006 (UTC))

Yes but British Isles is factually correct and when you are claiming the largest something you want to use as large a geographical area as possible. It is simply a geographical term for all the islands off the coast of Brittany. Ben W Bell talk 08:34, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
It's the longest river in the Republic of Ireland then surely. Why include Northern Ireland in the statement as that is a different country entirely. Similarly you could say the largest river on the island of Ireland. I agree that it should be described as the longest river in the British Isles though. Why the term British Isles is offensive doesn't make much sense TBH.
Rational people everywhere realise that the Shannon is the longest river in Ireland, and that it's also the longest river in the British Isles. However, you won't get away with stating that fact here. The owners of the article will unrelentingly revert any such attempt to diseminate this, and other related facts. Arcturus 20:58, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
Ireland is part of the British Isles the same way that Mumbai is still Bombay, but if you say that to Arcturus and his ilk, you'll be branded as "irrational." Dppowell 21:33, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
As noted in British_Isles#Problems_with_modern_usage_and_controversy, "British Isles" can mean that but it can also mean something different, politically. Not quite so "simple," I'm afraid.--Craig Stuntz 13:30, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

British Isles is the correct term and saying it is the longest river in the British Isles includes Ireland. This is a geographical term only and besides part of Ireland is BRITISH (if I had my way the whole of the Island would rejoin the United Kingdom where it belongs). It would seem the only ones that get "offended" by the term are the nationalistic fanatics in Southern Ireland. Everyone else in the British Isles is fine with the term, just like everyone else in the British Isles is fine with being within the United Kingdom. The Southern Irish are the ones out of line and out of place with thinking in the rest of the British Isles and need to get their act together. Once again, it's a GEOGRAPHICAL term only! YourPTR! 18:58, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Um...no. The Irish aren't out of line for not desiring to be British. And no, Ireland isn't British and therefore isn't part of the British Isles. IrishGuy talk 19:34, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
You're partly right, Ireland isn't British in it's entirety, although part of it is. However, the island is part of the British Isles. It's just that you, DPpowell, MelForbes and others don't like to acknowledge it. Please draw me your map of the British Isles. Next you'll be telling me the British Isles don't exist. Arcturus 22:50, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
No, I won't be telling you the British Isles don't exist. They do...they just don't include Ireland which isn't British. IrishGuy talk 23:29, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
Irish Guy - I can't understand you guys. We all acknowledge that the Republic of Ireland isn't British, but the island of Ireland includes a part that is British. You cannot say that Ireland, the island, isn't British full stop. Ireland, the island, is a geographic notion, as is the British Isles, and the one is part of the other. This article is not about the Republic, it's about a geographic entity called Ireland. Arcturus 23:38, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
You don't understand the other side because you choose not to. Ireland (the island) is not British. While you yourself said You cannot say that Ireland, the island, isn't British full stop the reverse is also true: You cannot say that Ireland, the island, is British full stop. As such, it is not part of the British Isles. One cannot take a smaller piece of a whole and use that small piece to claim ownership over the whole. IrishGuy talk 00:15, 18 December 2006 (UTC)


For long historical reasons, most English-speakers on the planet when speaking of "The British Isles" understand it to include Ireland. Those more familiar with the history understand that there are some Irish people (and arguably more Irish Americans) who find that concept offensive. Personally (let me emphasize the personally), I don't see the term "British Isles" as an affront to the Republic of Ireland's nationhood but I do agree that it may bother some folks on a conceptual basis and deeply offend still others. That said, and having acknowledged that others will disagree, I feel that an encyclopedia should be bound by common usage of a phrase in the intended readership. If common usage of a phrase is egregiously offensive, usage of the offensive phrase becomes marginalized. I do not believe that this particular phrase comes close, even in Ireland. I have to ask myself this: if a 9-year-old looks up "British Isles" what should she or he find? That the term is not in the encyclopedia? That an artist formerly known as page will redirect to the freshly minted PC phrase. I don't think that this would be a useful outcome. These are just my thoughts as a native-born Paddy now living stateside, and are not directed particularlly at any of the previous contributers to this debate. I Wish you all a very merry Eurocentrically-imposed mid Winter festivalDmccabe 03:39, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Wow Irish Guy really has lost the plot! No one is claiming the Irish Republic is British when they include it in the British Isles. British Isles is not a political term. I'm sure the Southern Irish are fully aware of this but they keep pretending not to understand just to cause problems and be a nuisance. They seem to think the term Ireland means Irish Republic are they not hypocrites? Ireland is PARTIALlY British. Northern Ireland is British 100%! The rest of the Island is Irish. Northern Ireland is still Irish in the sense that England is English but both regions are also British. Republic of Ireland is Irish in the same sense that Northern Ireland and England are British. I'm not happy with this article, it still needs a lot of work and is far from being NPOV. For example, near the start it mentions that the Island is the 3rd largest in Europe but then it fails to mention it is the 2nd largest in the British Isles. Why not? Because of Southern Irish PRETENDING they don't understand what the term British Isles mean? They know perfectly well what it means and are just being akward. YourPTR! 04:02, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Lost the plot? I'm not sure you should be pointing fingers about trying to cause problems and be a nuisance while you egregiously broach the guidelines for civility. Frankly, Northern Ireland isn't 100% British as not everyone in Northern Ireland considers themselves British. Hence the problems up there. You obviously aren't happy with this article as it doesn't reflect your personal points of view. IrishGuy talk 05:07, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

No, Northern Ireland is 100% British as it is part of the United Kingdom, it doesn't matter if a deluded minority do not think of themselves as such. They are still British because they are citizens and residents of the United Kingdom. It is a fact that around 90% of the inhabitants of the British Isles see Ireland as part of it and I bet a huge majority of the worlds population also see it the same way! We shouldn't let a small but fanatical minority who haven't got a clue what they are on about define what constitutes the British Isles. Ireland is part of the British Isles and Northern Ireland is British and part of the UK. It seems Irish Nationalists are determined to vandalise every article about the British Isles or the island of Ireland. They see the WHOLE of the island as theirs, when 17% of the island is British, is part of the British state and belongs to the British (shame it weren't more)! YourPTR! 07:01, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

It appears that British Nationalism is still very much alive and well!! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.42.164.26 (talk) 10:37, 18 December 2006 (UTC).

Sir, you bet it is and I will resist all attempts to undermine Ireland's status as A) partially British B) Northern Ireland being British and nothing else and C)Ireland being one of the major islands that makes up the British Isles. GOD SAVE THE QUEEN, QUEEN OF (Northern) IRELAND! YourPTR! 13:11, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia isn't a venue for you to push your POV. IrishGuy talk 17:36, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Jasus lads, wouldn't it be great if they start calling them the Irish Isles! (192.198.151.130 06:23, 22 December 2006 (UTC)stoneill)

Whether the Shannon is the longest river in the British Isles is a bit of a moot point. After all, the Shannon is probably longer than the rivers contained WITHIN the Benelux countries (given their small geographic area), yet I doubt anyone would start describing it as the "longest river of Northern-West Europe"! Personally, I see no reason to compare the Shannon to rivers in Belgium, Luxembourg or anywhere else (including any and all political or geographic descriptions of the United Kingdom or parts thereof).

The term "British Isles" is used as a convenient term to include the Isle of Mann, Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, and other islands in the surrounding waters, because "Britain", "Ireland" and "The UK" each exclude some of them. It in no way states that the Republic of Ireland or its citizens are British. It is simply a term with a strict definition, meaning the islands off the North-Western coast of Europe. Gareth Cash 13:41, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Éire is NOT Ireland in Irish

Éire is the official name of the Republic of Ireland, it is not "Ireland" in Irish. "Ireland in Irish is "Éireann".

Éire is the name of the state, in Irish, and most certainly not English. I understand that Éireann means of Ireland. Djegan 00:30, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, you've been misinformed. Éire and Éireann are just two different forms of the Irish word for "Ireland", the latter being the genitive case. As Djegan says, Éire is the name of the state in Irish.--Ryano 09:07, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

You're right, it's not: Ireland is the English for Éire. Talk about distorting the historical sequence. To equate Éire with the 26 counties, can we assume our anonymous user is British? As Djegan and Ryano point out, Éire is obviously the nominative case. Éireann is the genitive case as in Bus Éireann and Banc na hÉireann. Éire has been the name of Ireland for well over a millenia. You will find Éire used to refer to the island throughout Irish literature since the Early Christian period. There is no dispute about this among educated people. The etymology of the English word 'Ireland' itself derives from 'Éire' and the Germanic word 'land'. Derry, Ireland is simply the English for the original Doire Cholm Chille, Éire regardless of what states were invented in Ireland in the past century. El Gringo 15:24, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

'Éire' shows up on the stamps, and on the pre-Euro coins. Does that help?Dmccabe

It also shows up on euro coins!--Dub8lad1 16:59, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Incidentally, this issue came up at ga.wikipedia in recent weeks, so I'll paraphrase what I said there. With reference to the dictionary Foclóir Gaeilge-Béarla Uí Dhónaill, published by An Gúm:

  • Éire is the Irish word which corresponds to the English Ireland. It is in the nominative case, and is as ambiguous as the word Ireland is (i.e. it can mean the whole island or just the Republic).
  • Éireann is the genitive case of Éire - that is, it means of Ireland. Thus we have 'Uachtarán na hÉireann' (President of Ireland), 'Tuaisceart Éireann' (Northern Ireland, lit. north of Ireland) and so on.
  • Éirinn is the dative case of Éire, and is only used in specific circumstances such as with prepositions - for example, 'go hÉirinn', to Ireland; 'in Éirinn', in Ireland; 'd'Éirinn', for Ireland; 'le hÉirinn', with Ireland; etc.

--Kwekubo 23:44, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Multiple Edits

Will people please use the "Preview" button instead of making multiple consecutive edits! A user called "SeanMack" made 21 edits over two days when two or three would have been enough. Patrick 13.55, 15 April 2006.

And will people, in this case you, please not change others talk page comments, as you've done directly above this to El Gringo's comments? --Kiand 13:12, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
Sorry one or 2 edits would not have been enough. I find people on wikipedia are SO quick to criticise others. Did I vandalise? No. Did I add rubbish? No. I added references which this article was badly lacking. I spent a long time between edits trying to find sites online that would backup what was being said in the article. Plus, when I was doing this I had to correct facts, which should have been correct in the first place. Can I ask a question big man, is your criticism because I fixed up an article or some other reason. Did I use up some finite resource doing what I did? Again I don't think so. As far as I remember multiple edits do not cost anything, it seems to me you are being sh***y without reason. Really what is your point? SeanMack 13:55, 15 April 2006 (UTC) BTW every time I used preview to make sure the reference I added was added correctly. You try and add more than 20 references to an article without coming across an edit conflict or a computer crash - which tends to happen with me with multiple tabs open in firefox on XP... BTW I did not touch the talk page apart from nominate the article as a Good Article... SeanMack 13:55, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I have reverted the changes — its generally frowned on to change any editors comments, except for instance if they are a personal attack, libelous etc in which case they may be removed. Djegan 13:17, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

You are quite right about 'editing' the comments page. Sorry about that: I obviously forgot that it wasn't the article page I was commenting on.

To "SeanMack", who's all hot under the collar: I didn't read through the 21 revisions you say you needed to update the article. All I saw was 21 consecutive edits. A while ago "Denniss" rightly told me off (quite nicely!) for doing about 12 consecutive edits when he felt 2/3 would have done. I assume this must relate to systems overuse, or whatever, but why shouldn't the same rule apply to all?

To Wikipedia: I would like to complain about SeanMack's use of bad langauge towards me. S****y is a word I object to. Action, anyone?

You are quite right, I lost my cool. As I mentioned my PC was crashing a lot and I was losing work, I did try to bundle some of the refs together and if I had realised that multiple edits were so frowned upon I would have tried harder to bundle more together. I also take you point about language, it was over the top, and I have moderated my comments. I let my frustrations get the better of me. It seemed at the time I was being criticised for doing something that wikipedia needs more of, and that's making sure article facts can be independently checked. I should never have let the frustrations of my own pc and the criticism get to me. Please accept my apologies. SeanMack 14:57, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

No problem. Yes, Wikipedia needs people to work to improve the wonderful work done to date. Keep it up. Patrick

Why the hell would multiple edits be frowned upon? I've never heard so much nonsense in my life. It seems to me that some people just search for any possible excuse to be annoying. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.129.53.183 (talk • contribs) date.

Country Stats

Where have the country stats, that are used in all of the country articles, gone?

Ironcorona 06:50, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

This article is about the island not about the country, for the country see Republic of Ireland, aslo see Northern Ireland. --Boothy443 | trácht ar 06:52, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Huuum. But the country isn't called the Republic of Ireland. Which can be quite confusing. Ironcorona 17:14, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

The first line is
This article is about the island; for the state also called Ireland, see Republic of Ireland. For other uses, see Ireland (disambiguation).
I'm not sure how much more clear this article could be? Jizz 22:57, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
Also consider that the the official description of the state is Republic of Ireland. --Boothy443 | trácht ar 23:04, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
Actually, I don't believe the word "Republic" is even used once in the constitution. Where do you get the official description from? And as to what Jizz says above... Yes, I'm an idiot but... I dunno, it seems we have the only country in the world that is commonly named after it's own football team. Perhaps the article on the Island of Ireland should be called "island_of_ireland" and the article on the state should be called "ireland". That seems more logical. It seems that most of what appears in the article describing the island belongs in the article describing the state anyway. Ironcorona 01:57, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
THE REPUBLIC OF IRELAND ACT, 1948, Republic of Ireland Act, anyway this is an issue that has been numeriously discussed before. --Boothy443 | trácht ar 05:02, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
Ok, I accept that. I didn't know it'd been talked about before. Thanks for the link Ironcorona 02:34, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
N/P --Boothy443 | trácht ar 03:45, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Names of Ireland

For an informal merger discussion see Wikipedia_talk:Irish_Wikipedians'_notice_board#Names_of_Ireland.

Djegan 20:09, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

I was looking at the external likns, and after remoivg some basic spam links to external boards, i noticed that their are a fair amount of republic specific links. Considering that this article is not about the republic and about the island as a whole, i think that the country specific and non cultural links should be removed. Any objections? --Boothy443 | trácht ar 19:36, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Michael Collins

How can an article about Ireland not include a reference and information about Michael Collins? I looked at the article for the first time today. It may never be a FA if there is no reference to Michael Collins. Mfields1 15:23, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

This article is about the Island of Ireland, not the state. I would imagine that Republic of Ireland would be the place for Michael Collins stuff (and indeed, he's mentioned in the history section). Martin 01:45, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
Also, despite what the film may have portrayed, he wasn't as important as most of the world outside of Ireland seems to think.... --Kiand 01:55, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

I have few political allegiances however Kiand may belong to another group altogether. I have tracked their comments across different pages and they are very pointed in their design. Let us be clear, whatever your political affiliation in Ireland, Michael Collins was immensely important. In the context of the Twentieth Century probably in the top three.

Is Ireland, or is it not, the second largest of the British Isles?

This article is about Geography, not Politics. It is a fact that the island of Ireland is the second largest of the British Isles. This is borne out in very many sources, including Wikipedia List of the British Isles by area. Some people might not like this, but there's nothing that can be done about it; it remains a fact. We are not here to placate the sensibilities of a particular group. It matters not if no-one in the Republic of Ireland uses this term, or even if they all find it offensive, because it is used elsewhere and there's even a lengthy Wikipedia article on it. I would urge certain users to stop removing facts because they don't like the particular terminology associated with them. Don't forget, the island of Ireland is not exclusively the territory of the Republic of Ireland. Part of the island is British - part of Irleand is British. Having said that, this is about geography. Another point: I find it childish that two editors (User:Sarah777 and User:MelForbes) have combined to overcome the 3RR rule and remove the fact that Ireland is the second largest of the British Isles. Incidently, the River Shannon is the longest river in the British Isles - that is also a fact. Arcturus 16:25, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

NO, Ireland is NOT part of the BRITISH Isles....

I certainly don't live on a British island. I live in Dublin. The "British Isles" was a geographical term invented when the islands dominated by the London Government. Persia was once inhabited by Persians. Names change to reflect demographic and political change. You can't get Peking Duck in Peking anymore, there is no such place as Siam. The entire Spanish speaking world knows "The Falklands" as the "Malvinas". There is no such thing as "politically neutral" geographic names.

I might also add that some of the "British" contributors here lend way too much authority to colonial British Law in supporting their definitions of Irish and British.

And "the Shannon is the longest river in Ireland or Britain" is how most Irish people would put it, avoiding a political pov.

(Sarah777 19:45, 8 October 2006 (UTC))

Sarah, no one is saying you live on a British island (political), but like it or not, you do live in the British Isles (geographical). You cannot abolish a geographical entity simply because you don't agree with the concept. If you don't want to acknowledge that the Republic of Ireland is in the British Isles (actually it is) then take it up at that article. This article is about geography and includes an area of land that is not part of the Republic of Ireland. British Isles is a widely accepted term throughtout the world and we have an article about it here on Wikipedia. You are denying the fact of the matter. Arcturus 21:24, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
Take it up with the article? The one that has a preface which states: The term "British Isles" can be confusing and is objectionable to some people, particularly in Ireland. See the Terminology section below for details of the controversy. and later goes on to note In October 2006, Irish educational publisher Folens announced that it was removing the term British Isles from its popular school atlas from January 2007. That article? Seeing as how that article itself takes great pains to illustrate how controversial that term is, how can you possibly use that as an argument to add the term into other articles? IrishGuy talk 00:35, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
If Arcturus or anyone who supports his position can find a contemporary (say, last ten years) reference to the British Isles on a map or in a geography text that was not produced in Britain, there may be an argument for retaining its use in this article. His effective assertion that the term's use is immune to the march of history is so obviously laughable that I suspect he's trolling (and enjoying the rise he's getting out of everyone). Yes, it's correct that Ireland is part of the "British Isles." It's also true that the Navajo tribes of the U.S. southwest are "Indians", if one insists on using obsolete labels. By the way, since I'm here, I'd like to point out to everyone in the UK and Ireland that the liquid you fill your cars' fuel tanks with is, in fact, gas--not "petrol", whatever that is. If you don't want to acknowledge that you're actually buying gas, take it up at that article.  ;-) Dppowell 01:10, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
You mean something like this [2], from National Geographic, no less! Arcturus 08:37, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
Touché! As I said above, though, that's merely one piece of evidence (the first you've produced, as far as I can tell from my admittedly hasty overview of the discussion) to support an extremely contentious assertion. Labels are not "geographical entities" like mountains or oceans. They do change. They change to reflect evolving knowledge, understanding, and, yes, sensibilities. I understand the desire to stem the often-insidious tide of political correctness, but at some point that becomes more obstinacy than noble traditionalism. It's clear which way the wind is blowing on this label. Why intentionally bat the hornets' nest? Dppowell 13:52, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
The example from NG is one of thousands available online. They depict the British Isles as a geographic entity, including Ireland. The term "British Isles" scores 9.1 million Google hits (not exactly scientific, I know, but a good indicator - "Republic of Ireland" scores 8 million). The truth of the matter is that the term is used widely across the world. Only in the Republic of Ireland is it not favoured, and I bet it's only a voiciferous minority who object to it there. Funny thing is, I don't have a problem with Irish Sea at all. Unless someone can come up with a geographic reason as to why Irleand is not the second largest island in the British Isles I will re-instate this basic fact in the article. This article is for readers, not editors with a grudge. Arcturus 17:16, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
There's already a NPOV-friendly reference to the British Isles (and the attendant controversy) in the article. That should be sufficient. Dppowell 02:47, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
Argghh!!! I live in the Americas but most Canadians and South Americans I know do not want to be styled with any appellation denoting that ( excluding America which by an anamoly of English has already been taken by citizens of the States). Even though it is a geographic fact borne of history. I also know many Pakistanis who do not want it mentioned that their country is on the Indian subcontinent. Ah, history thou art a hideous bitch goddess!Gary Joseph 00:47, 9 October 2006 (UTC)


The use of the word "British Isles" is an old and out dated term that goes back to when Britian ruled Ireland. The new edition of the Follens World Atlas published in Ireland has rightly removed this term. This signifies a new outlook on how we view this region and the future of the word will be up for discussion I'm sure, but the political comment (if any)on this action is yet to be heard.

Adding flag icons to the header

I propose attaching flag icons to the header of this article for NI and ROI. The majority of people on the island know that the red cross is representative of 'Northern Ireland' and the tri-colour as the 'Rep. of Ireland'. Outsiders visiting the article may skip the italicised header and go straight to the main content. Simple flag icons would catch their eye and assist then in finding the article of the state they might need. I've seen this used before in other Wiki articles, Taiwan for example.

This is how it might look:


This article is about the island of Ireland as a whole, including the state also called Ireland (i.e., Republic of Ireland the Republic of Ireland) and Northern Ireland Northern Ireland. For other uses, see Ireland (disambiguation).


I can't see how it would have a negative effect on the article as a whole. Any thoughts? Wiki01916 03:20, 9 October 2006 (GMT)

The NI flag as shown is no longer an official flag and is never used- I believe (top of head) NI now technically represented by the symbol on the NI Assembly website. The Union Flag would be a far better choice as it remains an official flagWeggie 09:37, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
The corporate logo of the Northern Ireland Assembly isn't used anywhere to represent Northern Ireland (other than the assembly itself). The Union Flag is the only 'official' symbol, with the old Government of Northern Ireland flag used for some purposes to represent Northern Ireland as an individual territory\region\country\statelet. In this case the Union Flag would only add to the confusion. Best to leave the header as it is. « Keith » 20:05, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Economy

Can someone back this up? Coming from an Irish agricultural background, I would have to say that the opposite is true i.e. tillage is usually more profitable on a large scale, Also I've never heard of this change of policy before, a reference would be nice:

"De Valera focused on agriculture again, but this time on tillage farming, as this favoured the small farmers, whereas cattle farming benefited the larger farmers."

Also, I've heard from several sources that the economic war with Britian resulted in severe hardships, and I've never heard anyone suggest that there was a favourable outcome to the Republic at the end of it. If a reasonably good reference for this paragraph in the economy section is not found I think that it should be significantly rewritten.



134.102.186.220 12:33, 24 October 2006 (UTC)Sean_0, also 2 November 2006 17:39


Sport

"Gaelic football and hurling are the most popular sports in Ireland"

While this may be true for the South I doubt its true for Northern Ireland (I'd of thought football). Is there any official figures that could be found to show that its the most popular sport in the two countries and not just the south? --Alanewing1 09:55, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

  • I personally don't know any exact figures, but I do know the popultion in the Republic is about four times the North. On top of that Gaelic sports and very popular in the North. I think it would be a pretty good educated guess that the gaelic sports are most popular in Ireland. codu (t/c) 17:11, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
The population ratio is 2.5:1, not 4:1. I think collectively gaelic games are the most popular, but individually I think hurling is roughly level with soccer in terms or participation. Fasach Nua 17:19, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
Well I guess this shows what I know!
Gaelic football, the most popular of the GAA games, is played by 8 per cent of male adults and at that is the fourth most commonly played sport among males in Ireland (after golf, soccer and swimming) (Fahey et al. 2004, p. 22). Hurling is played by 5 per cent (ibid.) Gaelic football and hurling together have a share of the adult male playing population somewhat less than that of soccer (which amounts to 17 per cent when 5-a-side soccer is included – ibid.)
Taken from the Irish sports council [[3]] Fasach Nua 17:48, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

The North/The South

I was under the impression that these were POV terms, at the very least they should be ‘the north’ or ‘the south’? I changed a couple of instances in the article; maybe someone has a better grasp of the issue. Sorry if I have got the wrong end of the stick.  Keithology  "Talk"  12:20, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry Keith, your edit is not allowed, but you don't need to change it back. One of the article's owners will do that for you. Arcturus 14:57, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
Okay, two things:
  1. "your edit is not allowed" on what grounds?
  2. "the article's owners"?
There appears to be some confusion these are the three changes I was referring to.  Keithology  "Talk"  15:37, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
Apologies for the sarcasm. In the past when I've tryed to add factual material to this article it just hasn't been allowed/accepted. There is a group of editors who ensure that a Republic of Ireland POV is maintained here, and they will mercilessly revert anything that doesn't adhere to their views. Have a look at the edit history, and some of the comments on this Talk page. Cheers, Arcturus 15:48, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
No problem, I know what you mean.  Keithology  "Talk"  16:20, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
Arcturus, in accordance with his apparently standard M.O., is expressing his frustration with our (collective, consensus-based) attempts to combat Anglocentric terms and language, which he feels espouse a Republican POV. He dismisses the obvious, ongoing controversy over the term British Isles (a controversy which contributors have attempted to explicitly acknowledge in NPOV-friendly language) as the grumblings of a few extremists, imposes so-called "geographical facts" (also known as subjective labels; "The Panama Canal transects an isthmus" is a geographic fact) on the article and calls the inevitable reversions POV. In fact, Keith, I've performed a vandalism revert since your edit, leaving your changes intact, because I'm not familiar enough with the POV/NPOV status of the terms in question. If someone else feels that your edit was inappropriate, I hope they'll discuss it here before acting.Dppowell 16:28, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Hibernia?

I didn't want to revert without discussion, but does the ancient Roman name for Ireland need to be the second word in the article? Dppowell 22:29, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Reversions to 81.104.174.7 edits

I reverted the last two edits from this IP; I'm not sure any of the edits added anything really necessary to the article, but I try to err on the side of inclusion. The last two edits, however, could reasonably be labeled as POV. I was less sure about the first two and would welcome another pair of eyeballs. Will drop a note on that IP's talk page, too. Dppowell 00:35, 11 November 2006 (UTC)


Catholic v Roman Catholic etc.

I don't want to get into a discussion on terms but at present several of the words used go to articles not about the intended subject: e.g. X% are Catholic goes to a disambiguation page on Catholicism and Catholic Church goes to a redirect page. Neither are ideal: redirects are bad for WP overall (it will get fixed by a bot eventually anyway) and bad article links give users a bad experience. However, I don't really want to sort them out through fear of being perceived in an article where I have almost no knowledge (beyond the odd holiday) of trying to switch any meaning. Could one of the regulars have a go? --BozMo talk 18:58, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

I think the confused linkage is just a function of how many different editors have assembled this article, not of some kind of disagreement over what "Catholic" should link to. Would anyone object to my pointing all the affected links to Roman Catholic Church? Dppowell 20:44, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Divisions

In the first paragraph, it states;

Politically it is divided into a sovereign state, the Republic of Ireland, that covers about five-sixths of the island (south, east, west and north-west), and Northern Ireland, which is part of the United

If memory serves there is a small area of soverign US soil at Shannon airport, handed over in the 1960s, does anyone know what I am thinking of? 86.12.249.63 11:40, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

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