![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | → | Archive 5 |
Discussion moved from Talk:Ireland (which was too big for people to edit)
Is this seriously from the CIA factbook??. I had to change the stuff about Northern Ireland history cus it was wrong.Should it be noted that the peace agreement signed 10 April 1998 was not between the UK and Irish governments but rather was a ceasefire between the various terrorist groups operating in Northern Ireland? (Actually between political parties in Northern Ireland, only some of which were the "political wing" of terrorist organisations, though that term is now no longer so popular with those parties (some of the Irish media describe the relationship as having "an insight into the thinking of" the particular paramilitary organisation)).
The UK and Irish Governments are friendly and work together on the Northern Ireland situation.
I fixed the name of the country (Obviously De Valera picked the name to confuse the northern unionists). "The name of the country is Eire, or in the English language, Ireland..." Actually, that's the English translation of the constitution, and it all gets horribly self referential and tricky when you try to translate text that talks about what language it's in - but that's a whole other article...
I have recently spoken to several people from both sides of the 'divide', and the result is this disambiguation page. NPOV has, in my opinion, now been restored. Renata 18:35 Nov 15, 2002 (UTC) What's the thinking behind having this article here [at 'Republic of Ireland (Irish state)'] rather than simple Republic of Ireland? -- Camembert 19:10 Nov 15, 2002 (UTC)
I could not redirect to 'Republic of Ireland' as that page already existed. The software would not let me. I would have preferred redirecting to 'Republic of Ireland' and having 'Irish state' as a redirect page to the Republic. Renata 19:18 Nov 15, 2002 (UTC)
I wish you had put this up for debate before moving, Renata. I'm not yet convinced we should move the article to "Republic of Ireland". Though "Republic of Ireland" should in places be used to distinguish the two parts, the anglophone Irish themselves call their country "Ireland" and I believe that most people would associate that word with the country and not necessarily the island, or perhaps with a mixture of the two. Compare this with the debate on Talk:China. Also, you will want to take a look at this page to see what links may need to be changed to the disambiguated pages, which also indicates what "Ireland" is most commonly expected to refer to. I would suggest to move back and add a disambiguating note at the top. If we do keep it here, shouldn't we also move all the subpages? Scipius 23:34 Nov 15, 2002 (UTC)
I agree with Camembert and Derek, for the same reason that made me split the pages in the first place - see above. YOU CANNOT REFER TO IRELAND AND MEAN THE REPUBLIC. IT GIVES GRAVE OFFENCE TO THE PEOPLE OF NORTHERN IRELAND. AND VICE VERSA. I cannot stress this enough! It also reflects extremely badly on Wikipedia, as I was told by my Irish friends. Renata 16:02 Nov 17, 2002 (UTC)
I hate "me toos", but me too! I am entirely convinced that you have to keep separate the idea of Ireland, the island, and the two different political entities on it, the Republic and Northern Ireland. To shift it back to Ireland would just muddy things which is surely the opposite of what an encyclopedia should do? And this is not a political point, it's a practical one. :) Sorry to jump on the bandwagon, but hey ... Nevilley 16:21 Nov 17, 2002 (UTC)
I repeat - the policy is not simply "use the most common name" but "use the most common unambiguous name". To quote from Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(common_names): "Use the most common name of a person or thing that does not conflict with the names of other people or things." It is clear that "Ireland" does conflict with other things - both with the name of the island as a whole, and with Northern Ireland. Furthermore, I am unconvinced that when people talk of "Ireland" they really do mean only the Republic. When one speaks of "Irish writers" or "Irish music", for example, one means not only music and writing from the republic, but from the whole of Ireland. Yes, "Ireland" is probably used to mean specifically the Republic at times, but it's used to mean N.Ireland or the entire island just as often, I should think. If China really is comparable in every way to Ireland (which I doubt) then it's the China article that is badly named, not this one. -- Camembert
Then we already have the correct solution in situ and the status quo should be maintained. user:sjc
Also note that Scipius mentions two publications of the American government and one of an American publisher as authority for his preferred naming. I'd rather hear what an Irish organisation, or at least an Irish Wikipedian, has to say on the naming issue than rely on what Americans think before making any changes, although sjc's idea seems quite reasonable. -- Derek Ross 17:21 Nov 17, 2002 (UTC)
To DanKeshet: What I mean is that I represent the established consensus we reached on Talk:China (e.g. read mav's post at the bottom). I feel that this case is very similar. The WikiProject Countries has resulted in a consensus or policy that we should use the conventional short form as article titles. If we are to change this for Ireland, then we open ourselves up to all sorts of potential name changes, in that we would be acknowledging certain political sentiments, rather than basing our naming policy on the most common interpretation of a word, which could be a dangerous thing. Also note that I'm in fact the one that started this debate, it was Renata who didn't feel the need for discussion. I'm just informing you of a related previous debate and the consequences it could have.
To Camenbert: We regularly put disambiguating notes on articles that have a title that can be used for many things, but is predominantly associated with one thing, which is then the topic of the rest of the article. This would also be the case here. I think you're trying to downplay the common use of "Ireland" as the country name, but it really is the most common interpretation and I seriously doubt that "Ireland" is used just as often to refer to Northern Ireland as it is to the Republic. I realise that "Ireland" can sometimes be a vague reference to a mixture of the island, the culture and the country, but even then the country is the primary inheritor of that concept.
To Derek Ross: The Irish constitution in fact defines the name of the country in English as "Ireland". Other sources that name the country "Ireland" include the BBC and the UK Foreign Office. -- Scipius 17:55 Nov 17, 2002 (UTC)
Two major problems here: 1) "Republic of Ireland" does not appear to be an official title of this country. According to the Factbook there is no conventional long form for the title of this nation. That leaves us with only Ireland. 2) It is the responsibility of the person making a disambiguation page to fix all misdirected links.
Therefore that leaves us with the ugly Ireland (republic) for disambiguation (which I don't like but could live with). But the country is commonly called "Republic of Ireland" to distinguish between Northern Ireland and the Island. I would like to know just who uses this type of disambiguation and why. It could very well show a POV in favor or Northern Ireland (which is bad). If this is a POV-based disambiguation then we can't use it and must return this article to simply Ireland or Ireland (republic). If this article is not returned to Ireland then the person who did the move is responsible for fixing all the links the the non-article disambiguation page (or at least write a decent stub about the Island and its geography with a prominent mention that a republic called Ireland is on the island along with Northern Ireland). -- mav 19:23 Nov 17, 2002 (UTC)
Scipius: I'm aware that "Ireland" is frequently used to mean the Republic, and, OK, maybe I'm overdoing it a bit by saying that N.Ireland is referred to as "Ireland" just as often. However, I do stand by the assertion that the entire island is referred to as "Ireland" just as often - you have to remember that the Republic is a relatively new political entity, and the history of Ireland (the island) goes back far further than the history of the republic. If you're talking about Jonathan Swift, for example, you're going to say that he was from Ireland - you don't mean the republic in that case, the republic didn't even exist as it does now.
Now, ordinarily, context will make it clear what you mean when you say "Ireland" - if you say it in relation to Swift, then, as I say, you must mean the island, not the republic. If, on the other hand, you say "Ireland and France are in talks about the trade of carrots", then its clear you're talking about the republic. Those BBC, CIA and other sources you cite do have a kind of context in this way, which makes it unnecessary to call the country anything other than simply "Ireland" - the CIA Factbook, for instance, is a gazeteer of current countries, so it must be referring to the republic. However, here at the wikipedia, we have no such context.
If you want to bandy around third party sources, then here are some I picked up from xrefer.com - all are from the opening of the articles: "Ireland: an island of the British Isles, lying west of Great Britain" (Oxford English Reference Dictionary); "Ireland: The second largest island in the British Isles ... Since 1920 Ireland has been politically divided, the NE part forming Northern Ireland in the UK and the remainder comprising the Republic of Ireland." (Macmillan Encyclopaedia); "Ireland: An island of Western Europe" (Oxford Companion to the English Language); "Ireland: an island of the British Isles, lying west of Great Britain" (Oxford Paperback Encyclopaedia).
Some of these then go on to talk about the country as well, but our article talks exclusively about the country. If our article was more like those, then Ireland would be a decent enough place to put it, but it clearly isn't like those. It gives a lot of information specific to the republic and hardly any relevent to the whole of the island. To put it at "Ireland" would be perverse.
There are two articles on xrefer which talk exclusively about the Republic as we do here; they are both called "Republic of Ireland" - they are from the Oxford English Reference Dictionary, and the Oxford Paperback Encyclopaedia. Unfortunately, I don't have reference to any Irish sources (at least not right now), so I don't know how they'd handle the issue. It'd be interesting to know.
Now, all that said, I do agree that a disambiguation page at Ireland is not very satisfactory, so let me make an alternative proposition: Ireland will be an article about the history of the island, and the culture of pre-Republic Ireland (as Island of Ireland is now). It will have a disambiguation block at the top to Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland (or, if it's preferred Ireland (republic)), and will make it clear at the outset that Ireland is now divided in two, and there is political dispute over the matter. However, it will not provide detailed demographic info, and detail of the governmental structure of the Republic - that will remain here, as it is now. It will, in short, be more like those articles at xrefer or our own article at History of Ireland (which could probably redirect there). What do people think?
I am prepared to do all the required work to put this plan into action, by the way, but I don't want to do it and then have people say "why have you done this? this is wrong". So I'm not touching it for the time being. -- Camembert 20:31 Nov 17, 2002 (UTC)
I think what you have suggested is a good compromise. I had been planning something similar myself, but as soon as I started moving pages about, all hell broke loose, and there did not seem much point to continue sorting the pages out. By the way, I have just re-read the Belfast Agreement on the website of (and I quote!) "The Irish State", and there is much mention of the "island of Ireland" as well as the "Republic of Ireland" and "Northern Ireland", not to mention a "united Ireland". I wish they would get on with it, then we would not have to wrestle with thi! :-)) Renata 21:08 Nov 17, 2002 (UTC)
I'll try to put my case briefly, but I must admit there are other areas I'd rather be working on, so I'm probably going to let it drop after this.
First of all, I don't see this as something primarily of concern to N.Ireland residents, and I don't think it would be offensive or whatever to residents of the Republic to not call an article on their country "Ireland". You're right that I'm not Irish myself, but I have talked to a couple of Republic residents, and the impression I got from them is that they would expect an article on their country to be under a less ambiguous name than "Ireland", given that we are wanting to cover the island in a more general sense as well. If we put an article about the island at Ireland, I don't see how anybody could have anything to complain about, whatever side of the political divide they might be on.
The question of the Irish constitution fixing the country's name as "Ireland" is, I think, not quite as simple as it might appear. My understanding is that the name is fixed in the constitution as "Éire", and "Ireland" just gets used as an English language equivalent of that. The name "Ireland" does, apparently, feature in the constitution, but it isn't very clear whether it has the same official statue as "Éire", or even if it refers to the state or the island. The phrase "Republic of Ireland" is set in statute law (we have a little bit about this rather complex issue at Éire).
On the question of Britannica having its article under "Ireland" - I haven't looked it up, but I would guess that their article covers the history of the island before the division into Republic and Northern came about, as well as info on the Republic itself. As I said before, such an article would be fine to put at Ireland, but I think we agree that such an article would be too long. So we can't follow Britannica (of course, I may be wrong about the Britannica article - if I am, and their "Ireland" article is just about the Republic, then I think Britannica is wrong).
Now, as far as I can tell, you're now advocating that this page be moved to Ireland (country) and that we have another page at Ireland (island). This would presumably leave Ireland itself as a disambiguation page, which I think would be undesirable (although its certainly better than moving this article to Ireland). A lot of links point to Ireland at the moment, and it is reasonable to assume that people will continue to link there. Why not give them some info on the island when they get there?
Honestly, I can't see anything wrong with Ireland being a page about the island, with this page remaining where it is - I could just about live with this page being at Ireland (country) (though I'd prefer it not to be, because I still think that people say "Republic of Ireland" when being careful about referring to the country, not the island), but when we have such a good natural disambiguator with "Republic of Ireland", I don't see any need for it. Finally - I don't have much interest in the WikiProject template - those things are OK for importing info from the Factbook or some other source, but I strongly believe that we shouldn't feel compelled to stick to them as articles grow and evolve.
I hope all that makes some sort of sense. I haven't spent too long writing it, I must admit, but I have been thinking about this a fair bit. I'll look at what's going on here in a week or two, but until then, I'm leaving it in the hands of others. -- Camembert
I have no wish to prolong this debate. So I'll just add a few small points as a historian, a political scientist and an Irish nationalist.
1. To use Ireland to describe the political entity that is the 'Republic of Ireland' is plain wrong, ludicrous, insensitive to the complexities of Irish politics and would undermine this encyclopaedia's reputation as a reliable source of information. 'Ireland' is a geographic entity, an island. It has two states, two constitutions, two civil administrations. Imagine how Portugal or Canada would react if the geographical terms 'Iberia' and 'America' were used to describe an entire landmass including them, but which were applied in a manner that really meant 'Spain' or 'The United States'. No credible publication would get away with that. This one can't do either.
2. Referring to the fact that the Irish [republic's] constitution talks about 'Ireland' is irrelevant, because the gaelic version of the constitution takes precedence, and it names the state 'Éire'. DeV's analysis of what Ireland was is largely disowned by both parts of the island today, and was ditched from his constitution by a vote of the people and the Good Friday Agreement.
Therefore, a proper encyclopedia needs to feature definitions of the various names & descriptions applied to both parts of Ireland in the twentieth century; many had different constitutions, borders or status; [32 counties] Irish Republic (1919-22); [26 counties] Irish Free State (1922-37); Éire [new state replacing IFS 1937]; Republic of Ireland [Éire as a republic] (1949- ); Northern Ireland (1921- ), 'Ireland' doesn't clarify whether you mean north or south, republic or free state, 26 or 32 county. User:Jtdirl
As such, I will move this page back to return to the status quo. If any of you wish to continue this debate, then I do feel we should do this at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countries, since this would effect all countries and I don't think we should be making exceptions based only on local political sensitivities. However valid they are, we are an international English encyclopedia and for the sake of usability we should use as title the name most international readers would associate with the Republic: Ireland. It's very well possible that we will decide at the WP Countries to return the Republic article to "Republic of Ireland", but until then we return to the way things were. -- Scipius 21:58 Dec 1, 2002 (UTC)
What do you suggest we do with links like this one from C. S. Lewis:
It's incorrect as it stands, as Belfast is not in the Republic of Ireland, which is what Ireland currently describes. But saying Northern Ireland is not good either, as it suggests that he was born after partition. Thoughts? Matthew Woodcraft
I( Camembert) am going to try and sum up Scipius' main reasons for wanting this page at Ireland rather than some other page, and briefly respond to each in turn (expanded versions can probably be dragged out of the above). If I'm misrepresenting you, Scipius, please put me straight. I feel this discussion is getting a bit out of hand, and a summary might be useful:
1. A disambiguation page is undesirable: the Ireland page has many links pointing to it. It is likely that more links will be made to it in the future. Therefore, a disambiguation page at that location is undesirable.
2. The naming convention: The most common name for the country which makes up most of this island is "Ireland". Therefore, following the "use the most common name" convention, the article on the country should be called "Ireland".
3. User expectation: Most people would expect an article called "Ireland" to be about the country, not the island.
4. It's what other sources do: The BBC, the US and UK governments, the CIA World Factbook and the Encyclopaedia Britannica all call the country simply "Ireland".
In my view, having the Ireland article about the island, and the country at Republic of Ireland is the right thing to do. Hopefully, the above makes it clear why I think this. I hope that if I've got your views wrong, Scipius, you'll put me right. And of course, if anybody else wants to chip in, they should do so. Finally, I'm fully prepared to be convinced that I am wrong on this, but I don't feel convinced yet. -- Camembert
Scipius & Co: Interesting Fact No1: One top US encyclopedia is so unreliable on 'Ireland' its CD-ROM version plays the wrong anthem. Fact No 2: The UK and the Republic spent 50 years disputing the relative merits of titles Éire, Republic of Ireland, Irish Republic and United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. (I've put or am putting entries in for all of these to clarify which means what to whom. JTD
I've followed this discussion with great interest since I did the disamb page and renaming. Having weighed each argument and having spoken to Irish friends again, I still feel I was right in creating the disamb. It's the safer option. And it's not so much about "not offending" anyone, but about historical and poitical accuracy which I thought is what Wikipedians are striving for? I live in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, but my personal sympathies lie with the nationalist cause. But a united Ireland seems a long way down the road, and a lot more blood may have to be shed to bring it about. Renata 09:23 Dec 3, 2002 (UTC)
I look forward to seeing the article on the Netherlands being renamed to Holland in line with Scipius policy of not deviating by one iota from Wikiproject policies even when everyone apart from himself seems to think that it would make good sense to do so. -- Derek Ross
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | → | Archive 5 |
Discussion moved from Talk:Ireland (which was too big for people to edit)
Is this seriously from the CIA factbook??. I had to change the stuff about Northern Ireland history cus it was wrong.Should it be noted that the peace agreement signed 10 April 1998 was not between the UK and Irish governments but rather was a ceasefire between the various terrorist groups operating in Northern Ireland? (Actually between political parties in Northern Ireland, only some of which were the "political wing" of terrorist organisations, though that term is now no longer so popular with those parties (some of the Irish media describe the relationship as having "an insight into the thinking of" the particular paramilitary organisation)).
The UK and Irish Governments are friendly and work together on the Northern Ireland situation.
I fixed the name of the country (Obviously De Valera picked the name to confuse the northern unionists). "The name of the country is Eire, or in the English language, Ireland..." Actually, that's the English translation of the constitution, and it all gets horribly self referential and tricky when you try to translate text that talks about what language it's in - but that's a whole other article...
I have recently spoken to several people from both sides of the 'divide', and the result is this disambiguation page. NPOV has, in my opinion, now been restored. Renata 18:35 Nov 15, 2002 (UTC) What's the thinking behind having this article here [at 'Republic of Ireland (Irish state)'] rather than simple Republic of Ireland? -- Camembert 19:10 Nov 15, 2002 (UTC)
I could not redirect to 'Republic of Ireland' as that page already existed. The software would not let me. I would have preferred redirecting to 'Republic of Ireland' and having 'Irish state' as a redirect page to the Republic. Renata 19:18 Nov 15, 2002 (UTC)
I wish you had put this up for debate before moving, Renata. I'm not yet convinced we should move the article to "Republic of Ireland". Though "Republic of Ireland" should in places be used to distinguish the two parts, the anglophone Irish themselves call their country "Ireland" and I believe that most people would associate that word with the country and not necessarily the island, or perhaps with a mixture of the two. Compare this with the debate on Talk:China. Also, you will want to take a look at this page to see what links may need to be changed to the disambiguated pages, which also indicates what "Ireland" is most commonly expected to refer to. I would suggest to move back and add a disambiguating note at the top. If we do keep it here, shouldn't we also move all the subpages? Scipius 23:34 Nov 15, 2002 (UTC)
I agree with Camembert and Derek, for the same reason that made me split the pages in the first place - see above. YOU CANNOT REFER TO IRELAND AND MEAN THE REPUBLIC. IT GIVES GRAVE OFFENCE TO THE PEOPLE OF NORTHERN IRELAND. AND VICE VERSA. I cannot stress this enough! It also reflects extremely badly on Wikipedia, as I was told by my Irish friends. Renata 16:02 Nov 17, 2002 (UTC)
I hate "me toos", but me too! I am entirely convinced that you have to keep separate the idea of Ireland, the island, and the two different political entities on it, the Republic and Northern Ireland. To shift it back to Ireland would just muddy things which is surely the opposite of what an encyclopedia should do? And this is not a political point, it's a practical one. :) Sorry to jump on the bandwagon, but hey ... Nevilley 16:21 Nov 17, 2002 (UTC)
I repeat - the policy is not simply "use the most common name" but "use the most common unambiguous name". To quote from Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(common_names): "Use the most common name of a person or thing that does not conflict with the names of other people or things." It is clear that "Ireland" does conflict with other things - both with the name of the island as a whole, and with Northern Ireland. Furthermore, I am unconvinced that when people talk of "Ireland" they really do mean only the Republic. When one speaks of "Irish writers" or "Irish music", for example, one means not only music and writing from the republic, but from the whole of Ireland. Yes, "Ireland" is probably used to mean specifically the Republic at times, but it's used to mean N.Ireland or the entire island just as often, I should think. If China really is comparable in every way to Ireland (which I doubt) then it's the China article that is badly named, not this one. -- Camembert
Then we already have the correct solution in situ and the status quo should be maintained. user:sjc
Also note that Scipius mentions two publications of the American government and one of an American publisher as authority for his preferred naming. I'd rather hear what an Irish organisation, or at least an Irish Wikipedian, has to say on the naming issue than rely on what Americans think before making any changes, although sjc's idea seems quite reasonable. -- Derek Ross 17:21 Nov 17, 2002 (UTC)
To DanKeshet: What I mean is that I represent the established consensus we reached on Talk:China (e.g. read mav's post at the bottom). I feel that this case is very similar. The WikiProject Countries has resulted in a consensus or policy that we should use the conventional short form as article titles. If we are to change this for Ireland, then we open ourselves up to all sorts of potential name changes, in that we would be acknowledging certain political sentiments, rather than basing our naming policy on the most common interpretation of a word, which could be a dangerous thing. Also note that I'm in fact the one that started this debate, it was Renata who didn't feel the need for discussion. I'm just informing you of a related previous debate and the consequences it could have.
To Camenbert: We regularly put disambiguating notes on articles that have a title that can be used for many things, but is predominantly associated with one thing, which is then the topic of the rest of the article. This would also be the case here. I think you're trying to downplay the common use of "Ireland" as the country name, but it really is the most common interpretation and I seriously doubt that "Ireland" is used just as often to refer to Northern Ireland as it is to the Republic. I realise that "Ireland" can sometimes be a vague reference to a mixture of the island, the culture and the country, but even then the country is the primary inheritor of that concept.
To Derek Ross: The Irish constitution in fact defines the name of the country in English as "Ireland". Other sources that name the country "Ireland" include the BBC and the UK Foreign Office. -- Scipius 17:55 Nov 17, 2002 (UTC)
Two major problems here: 1) "Republic of Ireland" does not appear to be an official title of this country. According to the Factbook there is no conventional long form for the title of this nation. That leaves us with only Ireland. 2) It is the responsibility of the person making a disambiguation page to fix all misdirected links.
Therefore that leaves us with the ugly Ireland (republic) for disambiguation (which I don't like but could live with). But the country is commonly called "Republic of Ireland" to distinguish between Northern Ireland and the Island. I would like to know just who uses this type of disambiguation and why. It could very well show a POV in favor or Northern Ireland (which is bad). If this is a POV-based disambiguation then we can't use it and must return this article to simply Ireland or Ireland (republic). If this article is not returned to Ireland then the person who did the move is responsible for fixing all the links the the non-article disambiguation page (or at least write a decent stub about the Island and its geography with a prominent mention that a republic called Ireland is on the island along with Northern Ireland). -- mav 19:23 Nov 17, 2002 (UTC)
Scipius: I'm aware that "Ireland" is frequently used to mean the Republic, and, OK, maybe I'm overdoing it a bit by saying that N.Ireland is referred to as "Ireland" just as often. However, I do stand by the assertion that the entire island is referred to as "Ireland" just as often - you have to remember that the Republic is a relatively new political entity, and the history of Ireland (the island) goes back far further than the history of the republic. If you're talking about Jonathan Swift, for example, you're going to say that he was from Ireland - you don't mean the republic in that case, the republic didn't even exist as it does now.
Now, ordinarily, context will make it clear what you mean when you say "Ireland" - if you say it in relation to Swift, then, as I say, you must mean the island, not the republic. If, on the other hand, you say "Ireland and France are in talks about the trade of carrots", then its clear you're talking about the republic. Those BBC, CIA and other sources you cite do have a kind of context in this way, which makes it unnecessary to call the country anything other than simply "Ireland" - the CIA Factbook, for instance, is a gazeteer of current countries, so it must be referring to the republic. However, here at the wikipedia, we have no such context.
If you want to bandy around third party sources, then here are some I picked up from xrefer.com - all are from the opening of the articles: "Ireland: an island of the British Isles, lying west of Great Britain" (Oxford English Reference Dictionary); "Ireland: The second largest island in the British Isles ... Since 1920 Ireland has been politically divided, the NE part forming Northern Ireland in the UK and the remainder comprising the Republic of Ireland." (Macmillan Encyclopaedia); "Ireland: An island of Western Europe" (Oxford Companion to the English Language); "Ireland: an island of the British Isles, lying west of Great Britain" (Oxford Paperback Encyclopaedia).
Some of these then go on to talk about the country as well, but our article talks exclusively about the country. If our article was more like those, then Ireland would be a decent enough place to put it, but it clearly isn't like those. It gives a lot of information specific to the republic and hardly any relevent to the whole of the island. To put it at "Ireland" would be perverse.
There are two articles on xrefer which talk exclusively about the Republic as we do here; they are both called "Republic of Ireland" - they are from the Oxford English Reference Dictionary, and the Oxford Paperback Encyclopaedia. Unfortunately, I don't have reference to any Irish sources (at least not right now), so I don't know how they'd handle the issue. It'd be interesting to know.
Now, all that said, I do agree that a disambiguation page at Ireland is not very satisfactory, so let me make an alternative proposition: Ireland will be an article about the history of the island, and the culture of pre-Republic Ireland (as Island of Ireland is now). It will have a disambiguation block at the top to Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland (or, if it's preferred Ireland (republic)), and will make it clear at the outset that Ireland is now divided in two, and there is political dispute over the matter. However, it will not provide detailed demographic info, and detail of the governmental structure of the Republic - that will remain here, as it is now. It will, in short, be more like those articles at xrefer or our own article at History of Ireland (which could probably redirect there). What do people think?
I am prepared to do all the required work to put this plan into action, by the way, but I don't want to do it and then have people say "why have you done this? this is wrong". So I'm not touching it for the time being. -- Camembert 20:31 Nov 17, 2002 (UTC)
I think what you have suggested is a good compromise. I had been planning something similar myself, but as soon as I started moving pages about, all hell broke loose, and there did not seem much point to continue sorting the pages out. By the way, I have just re-read the Belfast Agreement on the website of (and I quote!) "The Irish State", and there is much mention of the "island of Ireland" as well as the "Republic of Ireland" and "Northern Ireland", not to mention a "united Ireland". I wish they would get on with it, then we would not have to wrestle with thi! :-)) Renata 21:08 Nov 17, 2002 (UTC)
I'll try to put my case briefly, but I must admit there are other areas I'd rather be working on, so I'm probably going to let it drop after this.
First of all, I don't see this as something primarily of concern to N.Ireland residents, and I don't think it would be offensive or whatever to residents of the Republic to not call an article on their country "Ireland". You're right that I'm not Irish myself, but I have talked to a couple of Republic residents, and the impression I got from them is that they would expect an article on their country to be under a less ambiguous name than "Ireland", given that we are wanting to cover the island in a more general sense as well. If we put an article about the island at Ireland, I don't see how anybody could have anything to complain about, whatever side of the political divide they might be on.
The question of the Irish constitution fixing the country's name as "Ireland" is, I think, not quite as simple as it might appear. My understanding is that the name is fixed in the constitution as "Éire", and "Ireland" just gets used as an English language equivalent of that. The name "Ireland" does, apparently, feature in the constitution, but it isn't very clear whether it has the same official statue as "Éire", or even if it refers to the state or the island. The phrase "Republic of Ireland" is set in statute law (we have a little bit about this rather complex issue at Éire).
On the question of Britannica having its article under "Ireland" - I haven't looked it up, but I would guess that their article covers the history of the island before the division into Republic and Northern came about, as well as info on the Republic itself. As I said before, such an article would be fine to put at Ireland, but I think we agree that such an article would be too long. So we can't follow Britannica (of course, I may be wrong about the Britannica article - if I am, and their "Ireland" article is just about the Republic, then I think Britannica is wrong).
Now, as far as I can tell, you're now advocating that this page be moved to Ireland (country) and that we have another page at Ireland (island). This would presumably leave Ireland itself as a disambiguation page, which I think would be undesirable (although its certainly better than moving this article to Ireland). A lot of links point to Ireland at the moment, and it is reasonable to assume that people will continue to link there. Why not give them some info on the island when they get there?
Honestly, I can't see anything wrong with Ireland being a page about the island, with this page remaining where it is - I could just about live with this page being at Ireland (country) (though I'd prefer it not to be, because I still think that people say "Republic of Ireland" when being careful about referring to the country, not the island), but when we have such a good natural disambiguator with "Republic of Ireland", I don't see any need for it. Finally - I don't have much interest in the WikiProject template - those things are OK for importing info from the Factbook or some other source, but I strongly believe that we shouldn't feel compelled to stick to them as articles grow and evolve.
I hope all that makes some sort of sense. I haven't spent too long writing it, I must admit, but I have been thinking about this a fair bit. I'll look at what's going on here in a week or two, but until then, I'm leaving it in the hands of others. -- Camembert
I have no wish to prolong this debate. So I'll just add a few small points as a historian, a political scientist and an Irish nationalist.
1. To use Ireland to describe the political entity that is the 'Republic of Ireland' is plain wrong, ludicrous, insensitive to the complexities of Irish politics and would undermine this encyclopaedia's reputation as a reliable source of information. 'Ireland' is a geographic entity, an island. It has two states, two constitutions, two civil administrations. Imagine how Portugal or Canada would react if the geographical terms 'Iberia' and 'America' were used to describe an entire landmass including them, but which were applied in a manner that really meant 'Spain' or 'The United States'. No credible publication would get away with that. This one can't do either.
2. Referring to the fact that the Irish [republic's] constitution talks about 'Ireland' is irrelevant, because the gaelic version of the constitution takes precedence, and it names the state 'Éire'. DeV's analysis of what Ireland was is largely disowned by both parts of the island today, and was ditched from his constitution by a vote of the people and the Good Friday Agreement.
Therefore, a proper encyclopedia needs to feature definitions of the various names & descriptions applied to both parts of Ireland in the twentieth century; many had different constitutions, borders or status; [32 counties] Irish Republic (1919-22); [26 counties] Irish Free State (1922-37); Éire [new state replacing IFS 1937]; Republic of Ireland [Éire as a republic] (1949- ); Northern Ireland (1921- ), 'Ireland' doesn't clarify whether you mean north or south, republic or free state, 26 or 32 county. User:Jtdirl
As such, I will move this page back to return to the status quo. If any of you wish to continue this debate, then I do feel we should do this at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countries, since this would effect all countries and I don't think we should be making exceptions based only on local political sensitivities. However valid they are, we are an international English encyclopedia and for the sake of usability we should use as title the name most international readers would associate with the Republic: Ireland. It's very well possible that we will decide at the WP Countries to return the Republic article to "Republic of Ireland", but until then we return to the way things were. -- Scipius 21:58 Dec 1, 2002 (UTC)
What do you suggest we do with links like this one from C. S. Lewis:
It's incorrect as it stands, as Belfast is not in the Republic of Ireland, which is what Ireland currently describes. But saying Northern Ireland is not good either, as it suggests that he was born after partition. Thoughts? Matthew Woodcraft
I( Camembert) am going to try and sum up Scipius' main reasons for wanting this page at Ireland rather than some other page, and briefly respond to each in turn (expanded versions can probably be dragged out of the above). If I'm misrepresenting you, Scipius, please put me straight. I feel this discussion is getting a bit out of hand, and a summary might be useful:
1. A disambiguation page is undesirable: the Ireland page has many links pointing to it. It is likely that more links will be made to it in the future. Therefore, a disambiguation page at that location is undesirable.
2. The naming convention: The most common name for the country which makes up most of this island is "Ireland". Therefore, following the "use the most common name" convention, the article on the country should be called "Ireland".
3. User expectation: Most people would expect an article called "Ireland" to be about the country, not the island.
4. It's what other sources do: The BBC, the US and UK governments, the CIA World Factbook and the Encyclopaedia Britannica all call the country simply "Ireland".
In my view, having the Ireland article about the island, and the country at Republic of Ireland is the right thing to do. Hopefully, the above makes it clear why I think this. I hope that if I've got your views wrong, Scipius, you'll put me right. And of course, if anybody else wants to chip in, they should do so. Finally, I'm fully prepared to be convinced that I am wrong on this, but I don't feel convinced yet. -- Camembert
Scipius & Co: Interesting Fact No1: One top US encyclopedia is so unreliable on 'Ireland' its CD-ROM version plays the wrong anthem. Fact No 2: The UK and the Republic spent 50 years disputing the relative merits of titles Éire, Republic of Ireland, Irish Republic and United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. (I've put or am putting entries in for all of these to clarify which means what to whom. JTD
I've followed this discussion with great interest since I did the disamb page and renaming. Having weighed each argument and having spoken to Irish friends again, I still feel I was right in creating the disamb. It's the safer option. And it's not so much about "not offending" anyone, but about historical and poitical accuracy which I thought is what Wikipedians are striving for? I live in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, but my personal sympathies lie with the nationalist cause. But a united Ireland seems a long way down the road, and a lot more blood may have to be shed to bring it about. Renata 09:23 Dec 3, 2002 (UTC)
I look forward to seeing the article on the Netherlands being renamed to Holland in line with Scipius policy of not deviating by one iota from Wikiproject policies even when everyone apart from himself seems to think that it would make good sense to do so. -- Derek Ross