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The Ireland disambiguation task force is a workgroup of Manual of Style (Ireland-related articles), initiated for the purpose of centralising discussion on issues surrounding the use of the name "Ireland" in article names and within articles. A positive effect of this taskforce will be to free Ireland-related talk pages of much of the discussion and polling on 'Ireland naming issues' that has taken place on them over a long period, which can prevent discussion of other main-page issues. Problems have arisen because:
(re-named as a specific 'statement of the facts' by User:Scolaire, but edited by others beforehand, with some possible compromised content)
The word "Ireland" can commonly mean either;
1) Ireland the sovereign state, also known as Republic of Ireland.
2) Ireland the island, which contains the following two political entities;
3) Ireland the country which encompassed the entire island before 1801.
The use of the word "currently" below is not intended to signify that change is likely to occur, but is used in areas where change has been suggested.
The current approach on Wikipedia is to have an article for the modern state called 'Republic of Ireland', and have a separate article called 'Ireland', that covers all the entire island's geographical and historical/cultural/political information from pre-history to the present day.
The Republic of Ireland article has been consistently pipe-linked as the word "Ireland" over the last 6 months, although it unfortunately must be noted that many of these changes (though not all of them, by any means) were performed by one person acting under several 'sock puppet' accounts. The pipe-link change has been accepted in places, although in others it hasn't.
Republic of Ireland is currently the article name for the Irish state, and has been for five years. Although a change from this ' status quo' has been proposed at varying intervals in this period since the article's creation, no consensus has been found to move away from the existing approach.
Both 'Ireland' and 'Republic of Ireland' appear to fulfill the requirements for common names of the Irish state per Wikipedia's guideline on WP:COMMONNAMES. On the whole, more people globally use "Ireland" to refer to the state (which has been its official name since the new constitution in 1937), while “Republic of Ireland” is often used in the United Kingdom to disambiguate either from the island or from Northern Ireland, and is still the official legal name in UK domestic law.
In the Belfast Agreement of 1998, each government agreed to call the other by the name it calls itself, so the two states are given as "the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" and "Ireland". It must also be noted that "Republic of Ireland" is recognised and sometimes used within the republic of Ireland too, even though "Ireland" is the more official name within the Irish government. The national Irish football (soccer) team is known as Republic of Ireland as per a FIFA ruling on the name.
The Republic of Ireland article currently includes a "Culture" section that includes people who precede 1921, the date the state was formed.
Ireland is currently the name of the article for the island, as both a geographical entity, and a political entity: ie it covers the geography, politics and culture throughout the islands history. The name and purpose of this article is also often challenged.
There are currently many anomalies within the island of Ireland article and its sub-articles. While many of the "Main article:" links point to their respective ROI and NI sub-articles, some of the sub-articles clearly cover the island as a whole, while some are clearly ROI articles entitled "Ireland" - which may or may not have NI's information included. Some NI-only links lead to 'redirect pages' that seamlessly lead onto the equivalent ROI articles.
The meaning of "Ireland" often changes from state to island - often within a single article, and within templates too.
This Ireland disambiguation task force/cross-usage tables highlights the various naming anomalies that currently exist throughout the ROI, NI and island related articles.
Various phrases have been used to help disambiguate the term Ireland, both as an island and a state. As many people on Wikipedia are unhappy with the name "Republic of Ireland" for the state article, various options have been used to 'hide' it within an article's prose or text.
Pipe links hide the destination in the text (ie the word "Ireland" can be made to point to the "Republic of Ireland" article).
Note on Ireland-ROI pipelinking: Many editors have asserted the right to use the name "Ireland", as this is the name of country according to its constitution and is in common use there. Opinion is divided amongst editors on whether "Ireland" pipe-linking to ROI is acceptible: in some articles the change has been accepted, in others it hasn't. Many editors are happy the name "Ireland" being presented on the article page, including those who prefer the title "Republic of Ireland" for the state article (they are happy with the pipe-link).
Redirect links point to an actual page that immediately redirects to another article (ie the "island of Ireland" page currently redirects to the "Ireland" article).
Other encyclopedias, like Encyclopaedia Britannica, choose to use ”Ireland” for the name of their state article. This includes all stages of the country's history, and its geographical information too. Britannia use the phrase "republic of Ireland" (small 'r') for the modern Irish state. Its Northern Ireland article is fully self contained too, which includes having its own geographical information.
This opening proposal and its immediate discussion has been halted pending further taskforce-related discussion. Existing votes can be altered, but no new ones please. It is halted as an act of good faith to people who felt it was "forum shopping" (which is strongly denied by the proposer). It is possible that this proposal could become redundant, be re-started, or simply be re-opened from where it left off (with all contributors contacted). For the moment it is on pause, and is archived here.
The "Ireland" article is and should be an article about the whole country of Ireland, not just about the 26-county state. A country is not the same thing as a state (the wikipedia Country article notwithstanding). To me, Ireland is a country, and the country goes from Fair Head in Country Antrim to Mizen Head in County Cork i.e. the whole island. I mean this only in the sense that if I take the train from Dublin to Belfast, I don't feel as though I'm leaving the country, whereas if I take the boat to Holyhead – which is closer – I do. The geography of Ireland is the geography of the whole country – there is no great river or mountain range separating north from south. The history of Ireland is the history of the whole country, which was one country before the Norman invasion, and still one country after the Act of Union; the current two states are less than ninety years old, and even the famous "two nations" are barely 150 years old. The economy of the country is more or less the same north and south, albeit economic policy is directed by different governments. The same languages are spoken on both sides of the border, including Ulster Scots. In other words, an article about Ireland should be an article on the country of Ireland, not the state named "Ireland". To name the article "Ireland (island)" or similar, or to make it, as some have put it, a sub-article or "fork", is to make the whole less than the parts, and that, for an encyclopædia, makes no sense whatever.
On 17 September 2008, asked about plans for Fianna Fáil to organise in Northern Ireland, An Taoiseach, Brian Cowen said, "I am concentrating...on the strategic review of our own organisation within the Republic." [1] This was reported on the inside pages of the Irish Times. There was no comment made on his use of the term, nor was there any report of raised eyebrows at the Fianna Fáil party meeting, nor were there any letters to the paper to protest. This is ample evidence that the term "Republic of Ireland" is still common currency among Government ministers, politicians and people generally to distinguish the state of which Cowen is head of government from Northern Ireland. In all the discussions and debates I have not yet seen any reliable source showing where an Irish politician, or even a respected journalist, said straightforwardly that its use is unacceptable, objectionable or even debatable.
In a discussion on WT:IMOS there was a quote from Lord Dubs referring to "the welcome disappearance of one small but significant difference in practice between the British and Irish Governments" whereby the British Government had called the Irish Government “Government of the Republic of Ireland". I was (not unreasonably) accused of hair-splitting when I said that the quote applied only to the name by which the government was referred to, not the name by which the state was referred to, but in fact the distinction is important. Ever since the start of the Troubles the Irish Government had been trying to establish that it had a legitimate interest in determining the conduct of affairs in Northern Ireland. The use of "Government of the Republic of Ireland" by the British underlined their position that it was a "foreign" government, rather than an equal partner in the Peace Process. That attitude, and not the perpetuation of some "derogatory" name, is what changed after Good Friday. Here again I have yet to see a source that says that the British Government used, or was accused of using, "Republic of Ireland" to further a political agenda that was against Ireland's interests.
So, while I am on this task force because I know a significant number of Wikipedians object to this term, I still find the argument that it causes strife in the real world unconvincing. If we are going to change the name of the article, we need to be clear that we are doing it for a valid reason.
Note also: it is already accepted by everybody here that "Ireland" is used by most people most of the time when disambiguation is not involved, I'm pretty sure. Evidence of its use does not advance the argument against "Republic of Ireland", in my opinion.
Article 4 of the Constitution of Ireland says that the name of the state is "Éire, or, in the English language, Ireland." Unambiguous, you would say. But it has to be read in the context of the original Article 2, which said, "The national territory consists of the whole island of Ireland, its islands and the territorial seas." De Valera, in framing the constitution, was saying that the state was the whole country, and that its name was Ireland. The Republic of Ireland Act 1948 was an attempt to resolve the ambiguity created by the Constitution and the External Relations Act 1936 – de Valera had consistently said that the state was a republic but had declined to introduce legislation to give effect to that statement. Fianna Fáil opposed the 1948 Bill because "its enactment at this time would seriously impair the prospects of uniting the six counties of Northern Ireland with the rest of Ireland." [2] They believed that the Republic must be achieved by re-unification before it could be declared. They never objected to the term "Republic of Ireland" per se. Why did the Bill call it a description and not a name? Because it couldn't be called a name without a constitutional amendment i.e. a referendum, and the Taoiseach, John A. Costello knew well he couldn't carry a referendum; he could barely hold on to a majority in the Dáil! Costello explained the difference by saying, "If I say that my name is Costello and that my description is that of senior counsel, I think that will be clear to anybody who wants to know." But of course if you apply that reasoning to the wording in the Bill you will come up with the statements: "Mr. Costello is a senior counsel. Ireland is a The Republic of Ireland." The second statement is meaningless! So it wasn't that kind of a description that was intended at all – it was a name, by another name. The Constitution Review Group, established by the Irish government in 1995, "considered whether the Article should be amended to include ‘Republic of’ in the name of the State." It did not recommend it because it was "satisfied that the legislative provision (section 2 of the Republic of Ireland Act 1948), which declared the description of the State to be ‘the Republic of Ireland’, is sufficient." [3] There it is in black and white: the effect of that section is to add "Republic of" to the name of the State.
The Ireland Act 1949 was intended to deal with the consequences of the Republic of Ireland Act 1948. By it the British Government agreed that the term "Republic of Ireland" could be substituted for "Eire"(sic) in the UK. So the term was not foisted on the unhappy Irish by the British in pursuit of a political agenda, it crossed the water in the opposite direction. The 1949 Act caused a storm in Ireland because of its provisions regarding the status of Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom (thus fulfilling de Valera's prophesy). It's provisions relating to the term "Republic of Ireland" were wholly uncontroversial.
One of the most frequent arguments against "Republic of Ireland" in these discussions is that "it's not a name, it's a description." While I accept the sincerity and respect the obviously strong feelings of those who make the argument, in the end it's only an opinion, and it's not backed up by the sources.
In my view, in any restructuring of Ireland articles the country of Ireland (i.e. the whole island of Ireland) must remain the primary article. In any re-writing of that article, only that information that manifestly belongs in the state article alone should be removed. And the name of that article should be "Ireland". A disambiguation page should be named "Ireland (disambiguation)", and such a page would also include, for instance, the surname "Ireland". In naming the article on the Irish state, account must be taken of the objection of many Wikipedians to the term "Republic of Ireland", but at the same time, any assertions concerning objections to the term in the real world, or the lack of legal justification for its use, need to be backed up by reliable sources.
'In the English language the name of this State is "Ireland" and is so prescribed by Article 4 of the Constitution. Of course if the courts of the United Kingdom or of other States choose to issue warrants in the Irish language then they are at liberty to use the Irish language name of the State ... However, they are not at liberty to attribute to this State a name which is not its correct name ... If there is any confusion in the United Kingdom courts possibly it is due to the terms of the United Kingdom statute named the Ireland Act, 1949 ... That enactment purported to provide that this State should be "referred to ... by the name attributed to it by the law thereof, that is to say, as the Republic of Ireland" (emphasis supplied). That of course is an erroneous statement of the law of Ireland. Historically it is even more difficult to explain. There is only one State in the world named Ireland since it was so provided by Article 4 of the Constitution in 1937 and that name was recognised by a communiqué from No. 10 Downing Street, London in 1937.'
The objections to "Republic of Ireland" by Irish-nationalist editors on WP seem to be visceral (perhaps even irrational). Here, however, is an alternative nationalist view from the real world:
The claim that the "country of Ireland" is the whole island is not accurate, and that claim was abandoned by Irish nationalists as part of the Good Friday Agreement 10 years ago. Wiki claims that Northern Ireland is a "country"! If so, how much greater the claim of the South? The need to occasionally disambiguate the whole island from five sixths of it does not justify relegating the name of the Wiki article to a description used solely for disambiguation purposes. Ireland is a Republic, and the common, legal and internationally recognised name of the Irish Republic is Ireland. Calling the Wiki article 'RoI' is akin to calling the six-county article "The North"; a dab that Brian Cowen would also use in everyday speech without any fuss being raised. If Ireland the country were to expand to encompass the full extent of Ireland the Nation, it would add only half of the North; nobody seriously denies that the Protestant Unionist community in the North are not part of a different nation - least of all themselves! Sarah777 ( talk) 00:30, 26 October 2008 (UTC)
Anyway, to get back to the point. The arguments about the meaning of "name" and "description", are semantic. If my point above is rephrased to say that "Republic of Ireland" is not a statutory term, then perhaps it is clearer. Sarah777 claimed that "calling the Wiki article 'RoI' is akin to calling the six-county article "The North". My simple response was that "Republic of Ireland" and "The North" are not equivalents. "Republic of Ireland" is a statutory name/description/term. "The North" is a mere colloquialism. Mooretwin ( talk) 09:48, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
This is drawn from my personal experience, not from references etc., but in my experience if someone from England is visiting Northern Ireland, they will say "I'm going to Northern Ireland"; if they're visiting the Republic, they will say "I'm going to Ireland". It's certainly true that "Ireland" could, and sometimes does, refer to the whole island as opposed to the state, but in my experience the word "Ireland" is used more for the country than the island. "Ireland" is the most common name for both, which would imply disambiguation is the best course of action, with the articles being "Ireland (island)" and "Ireland (state)" or similar. If that's not to be the case, then Sarah's [now withdrawn] proposal to have "Ireland" being the state and "Ireland (island)" for the island makes much more sense to me than the current arrangement (provided of course there's a suitable dab link at the top of the Ireland article).
That's my view on the article naming. The usage of the term Ireland within articles is far more complex - for example the sentence "X is an organisation covering the whole of Ireland" isn't clear enough, and the "Ireland" there would have to be clearly qualified (and not just by a wikilink to the relevant article - the qualification should be in the text itself): "X covers the whole state of Ireland" / "X covers the whole island of Ireland" or similar. But we probably need to agree on the naming before we get into that kind of detail. Waggers ( talk) 09:29, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
commentMy experience is of English people refering to the whole population of the island as Irish whether they be Adams, Reynolds or Paisley, they're Irish.-- Peter cohen ( talk)
Having had my attention drawn to this anew after the withdrawn proposal to move Republic of Ireland to Ireland, I feel tis short statement and (semi-)formal proposal is in order here:
Thank you. DDStretch (talk) 12:17, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
I just wish IP accounts wouldn't get involved in these discussions. GoodDay ( talk) 15:43, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
Comment on the proposal itself: as you can see above, this task-force began with a proposal, the "non-forking" proposal, which almost caused the task force to be deleted. While DDStretch makes a good point here, which is worthy of discussion, in my view it is still far too early for proposals and votes. Once again we see that the proposal, while it has some merit, has generated more heat than light. I would prefer to see a format in which participants discuss the core issues - including whether "Ireland" should be a dab page - in a more formal and less adversarial manner. Scolaire ( talk) 09:45, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
Comment: The objections I have read so far really do not address the issue of why the guidelines as given in WP:DISAM should not be simply followed here in order to remove the ongoing unhelpfully heated disagreements that have gone on for far too long. nIntead, they merely restate either of the two rival positions that further illustrate that no one term for "Ireland" is the primary term, which, in turn, leads us to the almost inevitable conclusion that Ireland should be a disambiguation page. I find it interesting that so far no one has been able to directly address the argument that it should be, instead choosing to mostly restate the rival positions that merely confirm that the proposal I made has a great deal going for it. DDStretch (talk) 16:36, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
I would like too make the following statements
I believe this issue is an aside from the article location and the need to disambiguate or not. Would their be a consensus on this or has consensus ever been tested for this ? Gnevin ( talk) 18:39, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
Disagree, per my statement above. "Republic of Ireland" is not "only" a description - it is a name in all but name. The word "description" was used in the 1948 Act to avoid a constitutional referendum. A legally constituted review group stated that the effect of the 1948 Act was to add the words "Republic of" to the name of the State. Scolaire ( talk) 07:55, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
In all the history of this, has anyone ever proposed to settle this by mentioning all uses on the one Ireland article? Someone somwhere once mentioned the example of ambiguous or generalised articles such as China or Korea (and there must be others).
It strikes me that the great tapestry of information that is "Ireland" can be described in summary all on one article as:
All of this info in my view could be covered in summary style on an "Ireland" article, with the appropriate {Main} tags directing users to more appropriately titled pages elsewhere.
Any disputes about the content/scope/wording of the article should then be resolveable by a good faith acceptance and support by the majority of what the article "Ireland" is for, as described above. As ever, there would be die-hard opposers who make a fuss, but with majority support from a cross section of editors, and liberal amounts of DNFTT, I think it could work.
Ready, set, go! MickMacNee ( talk) 16:06, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
Not realy, I had intended that the Ireland article be made into a concise summary of ireland with sections as listed above, and the state and island articles to be full detail. i.e. the current Ireland article would be radically shorter, with merely summary sections. i.e there would only be a section on Geograpy, not flora, fauna etc. Cut down stuff like transport and energy into a single infrastructure section. The history section is about right length wise, but the recent partition/NI sections are way too long, and could be merged into a single contemporary Politics section. Things like economy could be radically trimmed, as much of it is state specific. Music and sport, while shared, seem massively overlong and recentist. MickMacNee ( talk) 13:13, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
Coming back to Mick's bluesky proposal, I think it could fly but either it would be a very long article or would need sub articles - and what would they be called? Don't they bring us back to square one? -- Red King ( talk) 00:18, 6 November 2008 (UTC)
Is any progress being made? -- Evertype· ✆ 15:57, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
The original principal motivation for setting up this "taskforce" seems to have been the manner of referring to the state and island within articles. However, the discussion seems to have drifted inexorably back to the names of the two main articles.
I would like to broaden the discussion again. As I see it, there are a number of issues:
To me this is the least important element, despite all the talk. We have a Names of the Irish state article which is quite good. It can always be improved and should form a major source of the factual data on which the debates here will rely, rather than different editors here making sometimes contradictory assertions.
It is always better to say things explicitly in the content rather than to imply them from the structure or layout. I don't care what the article about the state is called as long as it makes clear to the uninformed reader what the state is called.
I don't want to dispute or rehash the same points others have made. A few points I have not seen made:
As Wikipedia:Ireland disambiguation task force/cross-usage table shows, this is currently a mess of inconsistencies and anomalies.
If it is decided the article Republic of Ireland is renamed Ireland or Ireland (state), it does not follow that Demographics of the Republic of Ireland or Category:Politics of the Republic of Ireland should move in parallel. Do those who dislike the use of "Republic of Ireland" in the main-article title also dislike it in the other article and category titles where it occurs? If so, do they propose such articles and categories undergoing a similar change of name, or a different change or name, to resolve this?
There are a fair number of articles with titles "Foo of Ireland" which are disambiguations linking to "Foo of the Republic of Ireland" and "Foo of Northern Ireland". This is appropriate in some cases (including some where it's not currently done) and not in others (including some where it is currently done).
There are a fair number of categories "Category:Foo of Ireland" with subcategories "Category:Foo of the Republic of Ireland" and "Category:Foo of Northern Ireland". Some of these have a lot of articles in the parent Category that should be moved to the subcategory. Of course, many articles will rightly belong in the parent category. Other overlapping-jurisdiction articles might better be put in both subcategories.
It's obvious that a wikilink should be to the island article when the island is being referred to and to the state when the state is being referred to.
In historical contexts, Kingdom of Ireland or Lordship of Ireland are, in theory, possible alternatives (e.g. "In the 1570s Edmund Spenser went to Ireland"), but in practice this is not done, and I think rightly so: those articles are specifically political-history rather than more general history.
There are three issues here:
Should towns, or rivers, be described as being in the state or the island? Should people born prior to independence but achieving prominence after it be described as from the state or from the island? Should people born in Northern Ireland but moving south at an early age and achieving prominence there be described as from the state or from the island?
When explicit text is required, what wordings should be used?
jnestorius( talk) 02:42, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
In the following, 'secondary source' means a published work that is not the text of the Constitution, a statute, an international or internal agreement, a court judgement or parliamentary proceedings (with the exception of a deliberate and unambiguous statement of government policy by a responsible government minister); 'reliable source' means a published work that is not a blog, the opinion of an individual journalist or a letter to the editor.
A number of assertions have been consistently made on this and related pages for which I have been unable to find any reliable secondary sources. It is my opinion that all of the following statements are incorrect. In order that I may see the light, can editors please provide reliable secondary sources to substantiate them:
Scolaire ( talk) 12:04, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
Don't know if you have read this paper before, but I found it interesting. [ [5]]
"By the mid 1960s, Britain was the only country not to refer to the state as Ireland. In his memoirs, Sir John Peck, British ambassador to Ireland 1970–74, who presented letters of credence addressed to President de Valera, noted that “even the title was significant, for if we called him the President of Ireland we recognized the Irish claim to the Six Counties whereas if we called him the President of the Irish Republic it was unacceptable to him as he would thereby be admitting our claim to the Six Counties. ‘President de Valera’ left the issue wide open.” British command papers described the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement— commonly known as the Hillsborough Agreement—as an “agreement between the government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the government of the Republic of Ireland,” whereas Irish official papers described it as an “agreement between the government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the government of Ireland.” This position did not change until the signing of the 1998 Belfast Agreement, which included a commitment by the Irish government to amend the constitution by deleting Articles 2 and 3, which they would replace with clauses affirming the entitlement of everyone on the island of Ireland to be part of the Irish nation. This recognized that a united Ireland would only be achieved by majority consent in both jurisdictions. Up to and including the year 1999, the Diplomatic List issued by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office referred to the Republic of Ireland. Since 2000 it has referred to Ireland, and the credentials presented by the British ambassador, Stewart Eldon, in 2003, were addressed to the President of Ireland. The Irish Diplomatic List continued to refer to Great Britain until 2001; since then it has referred to the United Kingdom."-- T*85 ( talk) 03:21, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps too much emphasis is placed upon not using Republic of Ireland as an unambiguous term. Indeed the Irish State seems to have zero worries about doing this in the most prominent link on the government website! Sillyfolkboy ( talk) 18:16, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
OK I first arrived at the Ireland pages a few days ago and have spent many hours trawling through all of these discussions. I'm not Irish, have never been to Ireland and I am blissfully immune to the nationalist heat that surrounds the issue.
Before continuing let me say that the terms "country" and "nation" are highly variable in meaning across the English speaking world. For this discussion I will use the terms "nation" and/or "country" to mean an "independent sovereign state, as recognised by the UN". (This is purely for clarity, I am well aware that many people would use these terms quite differently.)
I favour Ireland referring to the sovereign nation, and Ireland (island) referring to the land mass. Nothing I have read gives me any reason to change my perspective.
1 - This reflects current official usage by the UN and by the UK Government. The Government of the nation refers to itself as "Ireland", and not the "R/r epublic of Ireland".
2 - Numerous evidence cited above indicates that the most common usage of the term "Ireland" is in reference to the nation, and not the island land mass.
3 - Whatever various parties think *should* be the case is worthwhile discussing in the article, but not in the naming of the articles. Certainly there are people who believe that "The Country of Ireland" should include Northern Ireland, but for the moment that is NOT the case officially. The citizens of Northern Ireland are citizens of the United Kingdom, not Ireland.
4 - "Ireland (state)" only adds to the confusion IMHO. On first view I interpreted this to mean "Northern Ireland". This is because my usual (Australian) interpretation of the word "state" is a subordinate territory within a larger nation, such as California or New South Wales. Hence I thought it meant Northern Ireland, which is a subordinate territory of the United Kingdom. I am obviously aware that "state" can also be used in the sense of an "sovereign nation", such as in the phrase "head of state", but I am merely pointing out the usage pitfalls of the term "state' in an article title for a sovereign nation.
So the proposal: Ireland - article about the sovereign nation. Ireland (island) - article about the land mass.
Sorry to sound thickheaded, but I really can't see any problem with this. If anyone has a simple explanation of why this change is such a problem, I'd be glad to hear it.
For the record - if this change involved a substantial amount of link fixing, so be it. We've collectively undertaken much larger fixes in the past, and actually doing the work would take considerably less effort than the time we've spent arguing about it.
Manning ( talk) 09:38, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
People from Northern Ireland are entitled to be citizens of Ireland. And it strikes me that any Australian type confusion about the meaning of Ireland (state) can be accommodated by making it Ireland (sovereign state). Other than that, all your other points have been done to death on here, so I won't re-hash them. MickMacNee ( talk) 14:12, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
Re the Manual of Style (Ireland-related articles)/Ireland disambiguation task force - How does one join (in simple terms please!)...What page does one click on to etc. Many thanks. Regards. Redking7 ( talk) 02:25, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
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historical reference. Either the page is no longer relevant or consensus on its purpose has become unclear. To revive discussion, seek broader input via a forum such as the village pump. |
Working subpages |
The Ireland disambiguation task force is a workgroup of Manual of Style (Ireland-related articles), initiated for the purpose of centralising discussion on issues surrounding the use of the name "Ireland" in article names and within articles. A positive effect of this taskforce will be to free Ireland-related talk pages of much of the discussion and polling on 'Ireland naming issues' that has taken place on them over a long period, which can prevent discussion of other main-page issues. Problems have arisen because:
(re-named as a specific 'statement of the facts' by User:Scolaire, but edited by others beforehand, with some possible compromised content)
The word "Ireland" can commonly mean either;
1) Ireland the sovereign state, also known as Republic of Ireland.
2) Ireland the island, which contains the following two political entities;
3) Ireland the country which encompassed the entire island before 1801.
The use of the word "currently" below is not intended to signify that change is likely to occur, but is used in areas where change has been suggested.
The current approach on Wikipedia is to have an article for the modern state called 'Republic of Ireland', and have a separate article called 'Ireland', that covers all the entire island's geographical and historical/cultural/political information from pre-history to the present day.
The Republic of Ireland article has been consistently pipe-linked as the word "Ireland" over the last 6 months, although it unfortunately must be noted that many of these changes (though not all of them, by any means) were performed by one person acting under several 'sock puppet' accounts. The pipe-link change has been accepted in places, although in others it hasn't.
Republic of Ireland is currently the article name for the Irish state, and has been for five years. Although a change from this ' status quo' has been proposed at varying intervals in this period since the article's creation, no consensus has been found to move away from the existing approach.
Both 'Ireland' and 'Republic of Ireland' appear to fulfill the requirements for common names of the Irish state per Wikipedia's guideline on WP:COMMONNAMES. On the whole, more people globally use "Ireland" to refer to the state (which has been its official name since the new constitution in 1937), while “Republic of Ireland” is often used in the United Kingdom to disambiguate either from the island or from Northern Ireland, and is still the official legal name in UK domestic law.
In the Belfast Agreement of 1998, each government agreed to call the other by the name it calls itself, so the two states are given as "the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" and "Ireland". It must also be noted that "Republic of Ireland" is recognised and sometimes used within the republic of Ireland too, even though "Ireland" is the more official name within the Irish government. The national Irish football (soccer) team is known as Republic of Ireland as per a FIFA ruling on the name.
The Republic of Ireland article currently includes a "Culture" section that includes people who precede 1921, the date the state was formed.
Ireland is currently the name of the article for the island, as both a geographical entity, and a political entity: ie it covers the geography, politics and culture throughout the islands history. The name and purpose of this article is also often challenged.
There are currently many anomalies within the island of Ireland article and its sub-articles. While many of the "Main article:" links point to their respective ROI and NI sub-articles, some of the sub-articles clearly cover the island as a whole, while some are clearly ROI articles entitled "Ireland" - which may or may not have NI's information included. Some NI-only links lead to 'redirect pages' that seamlessly lead onto the equivalent ROI articles.
The meaning of "Ireland" often changes from state to island - often within a single article, and within templates too.
This Ireland disambiguation task force/cross-usage tables highlights the various naming anomalies that currently exist throughout the ROI, NI and island related articles.
Various phrases have been used to help disambiguate the term Ireland, both as an island and a state. As many people on Wikipedia are unhappy with the name "Republic of Ireland" for the state article, various options have been used to 'hide' it within an article's prose or text.
Pipe links hide the destination in the text (ie the word "Ireland" can be made to point to the "Republic of Ireland" article).
Note on Ireland-ROI pipelinking: Many editors have asserted the right to use the name "Ireland", as this is the name of country according to its constitution and is in common use there. Opinion is divided amongst editors on whether "Ireland" pipe-linking to ROI is acceptible: in some articles the change has been accepted, in others it hasn't. Many editors are happy the name "Ireland" being presented on the article page, including those who prefer the title "Republic of Ireland" for the state article (they are happy with the pipe-link).
Redirect links point to an actual page that immediately redirects to another article (ie the "island of Ireland" page currently redirects to the "Ireland" article).
Other encyclopedias, like Encyclopaedia Britannica, choose to use ”Ireland” for the name of their state article. This includes all stages of the country's history, and its geographical information too. Britannia use the phrase "republic of Ireland" (small 'r') for the modern Irish state. Its Northern Ireland article is fully self contained too, which includes having its own geographical information.
This opening proposal and its immediate discussion has been halted pending further taskforce-related discussion. Existing votes can be altered, but no new ones please. It is halted as an act of good faith to people who felt it was "forum shopping" (which is strongly denied by the proposer). It is possible that this proposal could become redundant, be re-started, or simply be re-opened from where it left off (with all contributors contacted). For the moment it is on pause, and is archived here.
The "Ireland" article is and should be an article about the whole country of Ireland, not just about the 26-county state. A country is not the same thing as a state (the wikipedia Country article notwithstanding). To me, Ireland is a country, and the country goes from Fair Head in Country Antrim to Mizen Head in County Cork i.e. the whole island. I mean this only in the sense that if I take the train from Dublin to Belfast, I don't feel as though I'm leaving the country, whereas if I take the boat to Holyhead – which is closer – I do. The geography of Ireland is the geography of the whole country – there is no great river or mountain range separating north from south. The history of Ireland is the history of the whole country, which was one country before the Norman invasion, and still one country after the Act of Union; the current two states are less than ninety years old, and even the famous "two nations" are barely 150 years old. The economy of the country is more or less the same north and south, albeit economic policy is directed by different governments. The same languages are spoken on both sides of the border, including Ulster Scots. In other words, an article about Ireland should be an article on the country of Ireland, not the state named "Ireland". To name the article "Ireland (island)" or similar, or to make it, as some have put it, a sub-article or "fork", is to make the whole less than the parts, and that, for an encyclopædia, makes no sense whatever.
On 17 September 2008, asked about plans for Fianna Fáil to organise in Northern Ireland, An Taoiseach, Brian Cowen said, "I am concentrating...on the strategic review of our own organisation within the Republic." [1] This was reported on the inside pages of the Irish Times. There was no comment made on his use of the term, nor was there any report of raised eyebrows at the Fianna Fáil party meeting, nor were there any letters to the paper to protest. This is ample evidence that the term "Republic of Ireland" is still common currency among Government ministers, politicians and people generally to distinguish the state of which Cowen is head of government from Northern Ireland. In all the discussions and debates I have not yet seen any reliable source showing where an Irish politician, or even a respected journalist, said straightforwardly that its use is unacceptable, objectionable or even debatable.
In a discussion on WT:IMOS there was a quote from Lord Dubs referring to "the welcome disappearance of one small but significant difference in practice between the British and Irish Governments" whereby the British Government had called the Irish Government “Government of the Republic of Ireland". I was (not unreasonably) accused of hair-splitting when I said that the quote applied only to the name by which the government was referred to, not the name by which the state was referred to, but in fact the distinction is important. Ever since the start of the Troubles the Irish Government had been trying to establish that it had a legitimate interest in determining the conduct of affairs in Northern Ireland. The use of "Government of the Republic of Ireland" by the British underlined their position that it was a "foreign" government, rather than an equal partner in the Peace Process. That attitude, and not the perpetuation of some "derogatory" name, is what changed after Good Friday. Here again I have yet to see a source that says that the British Government used, or was accused of using, "Republic of Ireland" to further a political agenda that was against Ireland's interests.
So, while I am on this task force because I know a significant number of Wikipedians object to this term, I still find the argument that it causes strife in the real world unconvincing. If we are going to change the name of the article, we need to be clear that we are doing it for a valid reason.
Note also: it is already accepted by everybody here that "Ireland" is used by most people most of the time when disambiguation is not involved, I'm pretty sure. Evidence of its use does not advance the argument against "Republic of Ireland", in my opinion.
Article 4 of the Constitution of Ireland says that the name of the state is "Éire, or, in the English language, Ireland." Unambiguous, you would say. But it has to be read in the context of the original Article 2, which said, "The national territory consists of the whole island of Ireland, its islands and the territorial seas." De Valera, in framing the constitution, was saying that the state was the whole country, and that its name was Ireland. The Republic of Ireland Act 1948 was an attempt to resolve the ambiguity created by the Constitution and the External Relations Act 1936 – de Valera had consistently said that the state was a republic but had declined to introduce legislation to give effect to that statement. Fianna Fáil opposed the 1948 Bill because "its enactment at this time would seriously impair the prospects of uniting the six counties of Northern Ireland with the rest of Ireland." [2] They believed that the Republic must be achieved by re-unification before it could be declared. They never objected to the term "Republic of Ireland" per se. Why did the Bill call it a description and not a name? Because it couldn't be called a name without a constitutional amendment i.e. a referendum, and the Taoiseach, John A. Costello knew well he couldn't carry a referendum; he could barely hold on to a majority in the Dáil! Costello explained the difference by saying, "If I say that my name is Costello and that my description is that of senior counsel, I think that will be clear to anybody who wants to know." But of course if you apply that reasoning to the wording in the Bill you will come up with the statements: "Mr. Costello is a senior counsel. Ireland is a The Republic of Ireland." The second statement is meaningless! So it wasn't that kind of a description that was intended at all – it was a name, by another name. The Constitution Review Group, established by the Irish government in 1995, "considered whether the Article should be amended to include ‘Republic of’ in the name of the State." It did not recommend it because it was "satisfied that the legislative provision (section 2 of the Republic of Ireland Act 1948), which declared the description of the State to be ‘the Republic of Ireland’, is sufficient." [3] There it is in black and white: the effect of that section is to add "Republic of" to the name of the State.
The Ireland Act 1949 was intended to deal with the consequences of the Republic of Ireland Act 1948. By it the British Government agreed that the term "Republic of Ireland" could be substituted for "Eire"(sic) in the UK. So the term was not foisted on the unhappy Irish by the British in pursuit of a political agenda, it crossed the water in the opposite direction. The 1949 Act caused a storm in Ireland because of its provisions regarding the status of Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom (thus fulfilling de Valera's prophesy). It's provisions relating to the term "Republic of Ireland" were wholly uncontroversial.
One of the most frequent arguments against "Republic of Ireland" in these discussions is that "it's not a name, it's a description." While I accept the sincerity and respect the obviously strong feelings of those who make the argument, in the end it's only an opinion, and it's not backed up by the sources.
In my view, in any restructuring of Ireland articles the country of Ireland (i.e. the whole island of Ireland) must remain the primary article. In any re-writing of that article, only that information that manifestly belongs in the state article alone should be removed. And the name of that article should be "Ireland". A disambiguation page should be named "Ireland (disambiguation)", and such a page would also include, for instance, the surname "Ireland". In naming the article on the Irish state, account must be taken of the objection of many Wikipedians to the term "Republic of Ireland", but at the same time, any assertions concerning objections to the term in the real world, or the lack of legal justification for its use, need to be backed up by reliable sources.
'In the English language the name of this State is "Ireland" and is so prescribed by Article 4 of the Constitution. Of course if the courts of the United Kingdom or of other States choose to issue warrants in the Irish language then they are at liberty to use the Irish language name of the State ... However, they are not at liberty to attribute to this State a name which is not its correct name ... If there is any confusion in the United Kingdom courts possibly it is due to the terms of the United Kingdom statute named the Ireland Act, 1949 ... That enactment purported to provide that this State should be "referred to ... by the name attributed to it by the law thereof, that is to say, as the Republic of Ireland" (emphasis supplied). That of course is an erroneous statement of the law of Ireland. Historically it is even more difficult to explain. There is only one State in the world named Ireland since it was so provided by Article 4 of the Constitution in 1937 and that name was recognised by a communiqué from No. 10 Downing Street, London in 1937.'
The objections to "Republic of Ireland" by Irish-nationalist editors on WP seem to be visceral (perhaps even irrational). Here, however, is an alternative nationalist view from the real world:
The claim that the "country of Ireland" is the whole island is not accurate, and that claim was abandoned by Irish nationalists as part of the Good Friday Agreement 10 years ago. Wiki claims that Northern Ireland is a "country"! If so, how much greater the claim of the South? The need to occasionally disambiguate the whole island from five sixths of it does not justify relegating the name of the Wiki article to a description used solely for disambiguation purposes. Ireland is a Republic, and the common, legal and internationally recognised name of the Irish Republic is Ireland. Calling the Wiki article 'RoI' is akin to calling the six-county article "The North"; a dab that Brian Cowen would also use in everyday speech without any fuss being raised. If Ireland the country were to expand to encompass the full extent of Ireland the Nation, it would add only half of the North; nobody seriously denies that the Protestant Unionist community in the North are not part of a different nation - least of all themselves! Sarah777 ( talk) 00:30, 26 October 2008 (UTC)
Anyway, to get back to the point. The arguments about the meaning of "name" and "description", are semantic. If my point above is rephrased to say that "Republic of Ireland" is not a statutory term, then perhaps it is clearer. Sarah777 claimed that "calling the Wiki article 'RoI' is akin to calling the six-county article "The North". My simple response was that "Republic of Ireland" and "The North" are not equivalents. "Republic of Ireland" is a statutory name/description/term. "The North" is a mere colloquialism. Mooretwin ( talk) 09:48, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
This is drawn from my personal experience, not from references etc., but in my experience if someone from England is visiting Northern Ireland, they will say "I'm going to Northern Ireland"; if they're visiting the Republic, they will say "I'm going to Ireland". It's certainly true that "Ireland" could, and sometimes does, refer to the whole island as opposed to the state, but in my experience the word "Ireland" is used more for the country than the island. "Ireland" is the most common name for both, which would imply disambiguation is the best course of action, with the articles being "Ireland (island)" and "Ireland (state)" or similar. If that's not to be the case, then Sarah's [now withdrawn] proposal to have "Ireland" being the state and "Ireland (island)" for the island makes much more sense to me than the current arrangement (provided of course there's a suitable dab link at the top of the Ireland article).
That's my view on the article naming. The usage of the term Ireland within articles is far more complex - for example the sentence "X is an organisation covering the whole of Ireland" isn't clear enough, and the "Ireland" there would have to be clearly qualified (and not just by a wikilink to the relevant article - the qualification should be in the text itself): "X covers the whole state of Ireland" / "X covers the whole island of Ireland" or similar. But we probably need to agree on the naming before we get into that kind of detail. Waggers ( talk) 09:29, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
commentMy experience is of English people refering to the whole population of the island as Irish whether they be Adams, Reynolds or Paisley, they're Irish.-- Peter cohen ( talk)
Having had my attention drawn to this anew after the withdrawn proposal to move Republic of Ireland to Ireland, I feel tis short statement and (semi-)formal proposal is in order here:
Thank you. DDStretch (talk) 12:17, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
I just wish IP accounts wouldn't get involved in these discussions. GoodDay ( talk) 15:43, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
Comment on the proposal itself: as you can see above, this task-force began with a proposal, the "non-forking" proposal, which almost caused the task force to be deleted. While DDStretch makes a good point here, which is worthy of discussion, in my view it is still far too early for proposals and votes. Once again we see that the proposal, while it has some merit, has generated more heat than light. I would prefer to see a format in which participants discuss the core issues - including whether "Ireland" should be a dab page - in a more formal and less adversarial manner. Scolaire ( talk) 09:45, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
Comment: The objections I have read so far really do not address the issue of why the guidelines as given in WP:DISAM should not be simply followed here in order to remove the ongoing unhelpfully heated disagreements that have gone on for far too long. nIntead, they merely restate either of the two rival positions that further illustrate that no one term for "Ireland" is the primary term, which, in turn, leads us to the almost inevitable conclusion that Ireland should be a disambiguation page. I find it interesting that so far no one has been able to directly address the argument that it should be, instead choosing to mostly restate the rival positions that merely confirm that the proposal I made has a great deal going for it. DDStretch (talk) 16:36, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
I would like too make the following statements
I believe this issue is an aside from the article location and the need to disambiguate or not. Would their be a consensus on this or has consensus ever been tested for this ? Gnevin ( talk) 18:39, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
Disagree, per my statement above. "Republic of Ireland" is not "only" a description - it is a name in all but name. The word "description" was used in the 1948 Act to avoid a constitutional referendum. A legally constituted review group stated that the effect of the 1948 Act was to add the words "Republic of" to the name of the State. Scolaire ( talk) 07:55, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
In all the history of this, has anyone ever proposed to settle this by mentioning all uses on the one Ireland article? Someone somwhere once mentioned the example of ambiguous or generalised articles such as China or Korea (and there must be others).
It strikes me that the great tapestry of information that is "Ireland" can be described in summary all on one article as:
All of this info in my view could be covered in summary style on an "Ireland" article, with the appropriate {Main} tags directing users to more appropriately titled pages elsewhere.
Any disputes about the content/scope/wording of the article should then be resolveable by a good faith acceptance and support by the majority of what the article "Ireland" is for, as described above. As ever, there would be die-hard opposers who make a fuss, but with majority support from a cross section of editors, and liberal amounts of DNFTT, I think it could work.
Ready, set, go! MickMacNee ( talk) 16:06, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
Not realy, I had intended that the Ireland article be made into a concise summary of ireland with sections as listed above, and the state and island articles to be full detail. i.e. the current Ireland article would be radically shorter, with merely summary sections. i.e there would only be a section on Geograpy, not flora, fauna etc. Cut down stuff like transport and energy into a single infrastructure section. The history section is about right length wise, but the recent partition/NI sections are way too long, and could be merged into a single contemporary Politics section. Things like economy could be radically trimmed, as much of it is state specific. Music and sport, while shared, seem massively overlong and recentist. MickMacNee ( talk) 13:13, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
Coming back to Mick's bluesky proposal, I think it could fly but either it would be a very long article or would need sub articles - and what would they be called? Don't they bring us back to square one? -- Red King ( talk) 00:18, 6 November 2008 (UTC)
Is any progress being made? -- Evertype· ✆ 15:57, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
The original principal motivation for setting up this "taskforce" seems to have been the manner of referring to the state and island within articles. However, the discussion seems to have drifted inexorably back to the names of the two main articles.
I would like to broaden the discussion again. As I see it, there are a number of issues:
To me this is the least important element, despite all the talk. We have a Names of the Irish state article which is quite good. It can always be improved and should form a major source of the factual data on which the debates here will rely, rather than different editors here making sometimes contradictory assertions.
It is always better to say things explicitly in the content rather than to imply them from the structure or layout. I don't care what the article about the state is called as long as it makes clear to the uninformed reader what the state is called.
I don't want to dispute or rehash the same points others have made. A few points I have not seen made:
As Wikipedia:Ireland disambiguation task force/cross-usage table shows, this is currently a mess of inconsistencies and anomalies.
If it is decided the article Republic of Ireland is renamed Ireland or Ireland (state), it does not follow that Demographics of the Republic of Ireland or Category:Politics of the Republic of Ireland should move in parallel. Do those who dislike the use of "Republic of Ireland" in the main-article title also dislike it in the other article and category titles where it occurs? If so, do they propose such articles and categories undergoing a similar change of name, or a different change or name, to resolve this?
There are a fair number of articles with titles "Foo of Ireland" which are disambiguations linking to "Foo of the Republic of Ireland" and "Foo of Northern Ireland". This is appropriate in some cases (including some where it's not currently done) and not in others (including some where it is currently done).
There are a fair number of categories "Category:Foo of Ireland" with subcategories "Category:Foo of the Republic of Ireland" and "Category:Foo of Northern Ireland". Some of these have a lot of articles in the parent Category that should be moved to the subcategory. Of course, many articles will rightly belong in the parent category. Other overlapping-jurisdiction articles might better be put in both subcategories.
It's obvious that a wikilink should be to the island article when the island is being referred to and to the state when the state is being referred to.
In historical contexts, Kingdom of Ireland or Lordship of Ireland are, in theory, possible alternatives (e.g. "In the 1570s Edmund Spenser went to Ireland"), but in practice this is not done, and I think rightly so: those articles are specifically political-history rather than more general history.
There are three issues here:
Should towns, or rivers, be described as being in the state or the island? Should people born prior to independence but achieving prominence after it be described as from the state or from the island? Should people born in Northern Ireland but moving south at an early age and achieving prominence there be described as from the state or from the island?
When explicit text is required, what wordings should be used?
jnestorius( talk) 02:42, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
In the following, 'secondary source' means a published work that is not the text of the Constitution, a statute, an international or internal agreement, a court judgement or parliamentary proceedings (with the exception of a deliberate and unambiguous statement of government policy by a responsible government minister); 'reliable source' means a published work that is not a blog, the opinion of an individual journalist or a letter to the editor.
A number of assertions have been consistently made on this and related pages for which I have been unable to find any reliable secondary sources. It is my opinion that all of the following statements are incorrect. In order that I may see the light, can editors please provide reliable secondary sources to substantiate them:
Scolaire ( talk) 12:04, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
Don't know if you have read this paper before, but I found it interesting. [ [5]]
"By the mid 1960s, Britain was the only country not to refer to the state as Ireland. In his memoirs, Sir John Peck, British ambassador to Ireland 1970–74, who presented letters of credence addressed to President de Valera, noted that “even the title was significant, for if we called him the President of Ireland we recognized the Irish claim to the Six Counties whereas if we called him the President of the Irish Republic it was unacceptable to him as he would thereby be admitting our claim to the Six Counties. ‘President de Valera’ left the issue wide open.” British command papers described the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement— commonly known as the Hillsborough Agreement—as an “agreement between the government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the government of the Republic of Ireland,” whereas Irish official papers described it as an “agreement between the government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the government of Ireland.” This position did not change until the signing of the 1998 Belfast Agreement, which included a commitment by the Irish government to amend the constitution by deleting Articles 2 and 3, which they would replace with clauses affirming the entitlement of everyone on the island of Ireland to be part of the Irish nation. This recognized that a united Ireland would only be achieved by majority consent in both jurisdictions. Up to and including the year 1999, the Diplomatic List issued by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office referred to the Republic of Ireland. Since 2000 it has referred to Ireland, and the credentials presented by the British ambassador, Stewart Eldon, in 2003, were addressed to the President of Ireland. The Irish Diplomatic List continued to refer to Great Britain until 2001; since then it has referred to the United Kingdom."-- T*85 ( talk) 03:21, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps too much emphasis is placed upon not using Republic of Ireland as an unambiguous term. Indeed the Irish State seems to have zero worries about doing this in the most prominent link on the government website! Sillyfolkboy ( talk) 18:16, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
OK I first arrived at the Ireland pages a few days ago and have spent many hours trawling through all of these discussions. I'm not Irish, have never been to Ireland and I am blissfully immune to the nationalist heat that surrounds the issue.
Before continuing let me say that the terms "country" and "nation" are highly variable in meaning across the English speaking world. For this discussion I will use the terms "nation" and/or "country" to mean an "independent sovereign state, as recognised by the UN". (This is purely for clarity, I am well aware that many people would use these terms quite differently.)
I favour Ireland referring to the sovereign nation, and Ireland (island) referring to the land mass. Nothing I have read gives me any reason to change my perspective.
1 - This reflects current official usage by the UN and by the UK Government. The Government of the nation refers to itself as "Ireland", and not the "R/r epublic of Ireland".
2 - Numerous evidence cited above indicates that the most common usage of the term "Ireland" is in reference to the nation, and not the island land mass.
3 - Whatever various parties think *should* be the case is worthwhile discussing in the article, but not in the naming of the articles. Certainly there are people who believe that "The Country of Ireland" should include Northern Ireland, but for the moment that is NOT the case officially. The citizens of Northern Ireland are citizens of the United Kingdom, not Ireland.
4 - "Ireland (state)" only adds to the confusion IMHO. On first view I interpreted this to mean "Northern Ireland". This is because my usual (Australian) interpretation of the word "state" is a subordinate territory within a larger nation, such as California or New South Wales. Hence I thought it meant Northern Ireland, which is a subordinate territory of the United Kingdom. I am obviously aware that "state" can also be used in the sense of an "sovereign nation", such as in the phrase "head of state", but I am merely pointing out the usage pitfalls of the term "state' in an article title for a sovereign nation.
So the proposal: Ireland - article about the sovereign nation. Ireland (island) - article about the land mass.
Sorry to sound thickheaded, but I really can't see any problem with this. If anyone has a simple explanation of why this change is such a problem, I'd be glad to hear it.
For the record - if this change involved a substantial amount of link fixing, so be it. We've collectively undertaken much larger fixes in the past, and actually doing the work would take considerably less effort than the time we've spent arguing about it.
Manning ( talk) 09:38, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
People from Northern Ireland are entitled to be citizens of Ireland. And it strikes me that any Australian type confusion about the meaning of Ireland (state) can be accommodated by making it Ireland (sovereign state). Other than that, all your other points have been done to death on here, so I won't re-hash them. MickMacNee ( talk) 14:12, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
Re the Manual of Style (Ireland-related articles)/Ireland disambiguation task force - How does one join (in simple terms please!)...What page does one click on to etc. Many thanks. Regards. Redking7 ( talk) 02:25, 17 January 2009 (UTC)