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Organisation of constituencies

A few months ago, I proposed a reorganisation/merger of specific constituencies, being those related to Kerry North–West Limerick (Dáil constituency) and Limerick (Dáil constituency). I did notify the this WT:IE discussion page, as it was not my intention to be disruptive or to make a series of edits that might be controversial and end up being reverted. There was no response on this page, and after waiting the customary week, I implemented the change. I later proposed the same for Dublin South-East (Dáil constituency). Although I didn't notify this discussion page on that second occasion, I did wait the customary week after the proposal. However, I may have been over-eager in making changes throughout other pages; for good reasons of WP:NOTBROKEN, I should not have changed the underlying link on pages where the modern name was not used, i.e., I should not have edited it read [[Dublin Bay South (Dáil constituency)|Dublin South-East]] on Garret FitzGerald's page. Whatever the decision here, I will revert those particular edits.

That said, on the Talk:Dublin Bay South (Dáil constituency) page, BrownHairedGirl has argued that these changes should be reverted. For that reason, I'll make the case generally.

• It makes the listing of elections more useful, so that looking at the result in 2016 can easily be compared with the previous election in mostly the same territory, and the outgoing TDs from DSE (apart from the retiring Quinn) all standing in DBS. This coherence was my main motivation for proposing these.
• In these cases, the Constituency Commission reports themselves used the term "rename", so it doesn't amount to WP:SYNTH to consider Dublin Bay South a continuation of Dublin South-East (I'll predominantly use the DSE to DBS example here).
• Dublin Bay South included more than just the territory of Dublin South-East as of 2016, as there was a transfer from Kimmage and Terenure; however, that's also true of Dublin Central or Dublin North-West at the same election. In fact, Dublin Central was even more of a different constituency, moving from 4 to 3 seats, making a comparison more difficult. Dublin South-East was also a different constituency by territory in 1997 to 1992, with transfers to and from other constituencies, but we do list them one after another in the page. An extreme example in Dublin: the 1969–77 Dublin South-Central didn't contain any of the 1961–69 constituency, yet we list them on the same page (for clarity, I wouldn't propose a split). The change between DSE and DBS in 2016 is minor in comparison to that.
• I proposed and implemented these changes after other work detailing the geographical definition of each constituency over time, so that it should hopefully be clear the extent of the change in these constituencies, whether at any name change, or any other time. I also hope it's clear in the introductions of the pages that they had different names over time. The different names are maintained in the election result boxes throughout the page, as of course they ought to be.
• Grouping by purely statutory name can mean like is not placed with like. Take the 2011–16 Limerick constituency. Listing its TDs and result under Limerick (Dáil constituency) meant that a constituency that was the western part of the county was listed with the 1923–48 Limerick which included the entire city and county; instead, given the continuity of candidates and representatives, and broad continuity in area, it makes sense to list it either with Limerick County or with Limerick West, if not combining all three names in use for the western part of the county.

From a process point of view, although I had planned to make more than one of these sets of changes, I didn't propose all these at the same time, as I supposed that the strength of the argument might differ between one instance and another. That said, it is worth having the general discussion now that an objection has been raised. If the consensus is to revert to the status quo ante, I will be as helpful as time allows in reverting my own changes, both to the constituency pages and any other affected pages. Iveagh Gardens (talk) 15:45, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

@Iveagh Gardens: the sooner this is reverted, the easier it will be to reinstate the status quo ante. So please revert promptly, then we can discuss your desire to udo the 17-year status quo of a one-to-one relationship between name and article, which was agreed in 2006 for both the UK and Ireland. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:29, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

I can commit to following through on this within the next week. I'm away over the weekend, so will have limited capacity to do so then. I was able to quickly revert Kerry North–West Limerick (Dáil constituency), however Kerry North (Dáil constituency) was more complex, given intervening edits, but will do so when I get the chance. I would propose revisiting the consensus, for the reasons outlined here above, but I'm more than willing to follow the proper processes in the mean time. Iveagh Gardens (talk) 16:58, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

Returning to this, I'll note that the pages in question post-date the discussion in 2006. I don't think the discussion then need stand for all time, if new considerations arise, or at least, the naming convention then can come with modifications or provisos. I understand the need to avoid synthesis of sources, this was based on the language of the Constituency Commission reports, which use the term "rename", so that calling DBS a continuation of DSE isn't my own work (the DBS page even discusses referendum results from DSE in a section on its politics). A different consideration might therefore arise if I was suggesting merging Dublin Townships into Dublin South-East, where there isn't AFAIK an external reliable body using the term "rename". Iveagh Gardens (talk) 06:31, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

Okay, I've taken a look at this topic and here at some takeaways:

BHG:17-year status quo of a one-to-one relationship between name and article, which was agreed in 2006 for both the UK and Ireland

IG:I'll note that the pages in question post-date the discussion in 2006. I don't think the discussion then need stand for all time

On this point, I'd note that WP:Consensus can change. I don't think it's wrong for IG to explore the possibility of a change to the previous consensus and it doesn't appear they are trying to steam-roll this through, they seem happy to discuss this matter when some push back was brought up.

As far as the broader proposal goes, I see where both IG and BHG are coming from; IG has some good rationale for wanting to merge these articles, but I imagine BHG's point will be to say well "On what basis actually decides these merges? Our guts?". I imagine BHG's viewpoint (although I'd like to see them state this themselves) is that we cannot merge these constituencies arbitrarily, there should be an underlying basis/sources for that, but even then, I imagine BHG is of the view they should be separate when possible.

I think in terms of Kerry and Limerick, it will be harder to argue for those merges regardless of the actual underlying "truth" of whether they are or are not simply continuations of previous constituencies because it will be hard to gather sources which support that claim.

However, in the case of Dublin Bay South vs Dublin South-East, it seems that we have both sources from the Constituency Commission and from RTÉ indication that DBS is a (near?) direct continuation of DSE. I think that could be a compelling case which we can discuss collectively. This case would be further bolstered if additional supporting sources were found.

@BrownHairedGirl: Could you outline your argument a bit more on this? Perhaps with specific mention of the Dublin Bay South/Dublin South East proposal? Can you give practical reasons why this merge would be a bad idea?

At this point, I'm not "committed" to one viewpoint or another, I'm just interested in hearing out each argument.

Finally, another editor who I think might be able to give insight into this matter is Spleodrach, who often edits Irish constituency articles. If they have the time, I'd like to hear their view on this matter as well. CeltBrowne (talk) 21:29, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

@CeltBrowne: thanks for your thoughtful comment, and for your thoroughly collegial tone.

I do want to reply at length, but am very busy right now, so I will have to give a shortish response for now.

I see four broad advantages of the one-to-one relationship between constituency name and article:

1. Follow the secondary sources. All the scholarly reference books I own on election results stick rigidly to a one-to-one relationship between constituency name and article. That's the en.wp gold standard for sources. Primary sources, such as those used by @Iveagh Gardens are discouraged.
2. One-to-one is clear and simple for editors.
   In a collaborative environment where editors will have different degrees of knowledge on constituencies, that is very important. It means that no editor or reader has to be a political history wonk like me or thee to know what article refers to which constituency. An editor whose expertise might be in a wholly different topic area can use these titles with ease. That's partly why the one-to-one relationship was been stable and uncontentious for 16 years: it's simple and it works.
   It avoids editors having to remember to pipe links or use a redirect: if Sean Murphy is listed as a candidate in 1943 in the article title "Ballyporeen South-Central", then a link to Ballyporeen South-Central will always be accurate. But if the Ballyporeen South-Central article actually lists Sean in a section on Ballyporeen West, then an error is likely: unless the edtor is very alert, they are likely to write wrongly that "Sean North was the 1943 Something Party candidate in Ballyporeen South-Central".
3. One-to-one is clear and simple for readers. Again, no spcialist knowledge is neded. Suppose a wholly apolitical teenager in say New Zealand hears about Richie Ryan TD, sees the YouTube clips of how he was lampooned on Hall's Pictorial Weekly, and googles their way to the Wikipedia article. Having soaked up the parody, they wonder "who on earth elected this guy". They see that he was a TD for Dublin South-East, but when they click on that they find themselves on a page with a different title. Maybe our reader will persevere into the small print, but on the web people speed-read. So a significant number of readers will mumble "WTF", and move on. That is not good.
4. Constituency names are just labels for wildly fluctuating gegraphical areas. I don't think that any Irish constituency has been quite as footloose as England's Newcastle upon Tyne North, whose pre-1983 and post-1983 territories share absolutely no territory at all. But many Irish constituencies have been highly mobile, esp in Dublin. E.g. Dublin South and Dublin West have both grown and shrunk and moved like something in Conway's Game of Life.
   It's not just Dublin; Sligo–Leitrim has also been a wildly mutable concept. It has at times included big chunks of County Cavan and/or County Roscommon and/or County Donegal. It started off with all of County Leitrim, but its 1977–1981 incarnation included only a wee sliver of North Leitrim.
   I think that Sligo–Leitrim is an extreme example, but since the 1961 Supreme Court ruling in O'Donovan v. Attorney General, the Electoral (Amendment) Act 1961 and its successors have been restricted to very small variations in the ratio of TDs to population, which has made for very unstable constituency boudaries.
   The result is that any attempt to second-guess the names used by the Electoral (Amendment) Acts is a recipe for mind-boggling dilemmas. It all reminds me of a plastic surgeon who told me that his work was like "knitting jelly".

I think that the lovely and commendably studious @Iveagh Gardens made two good faith conceptual errors here in his studies of the Constituency Commission reports. Of course it's great to work with scholarly editors who conscientiously study such things, but the first glitch in my view is that Iveagh Gardens didn't fully succeed in zooming back out again from that valuable research to look at how this detail relates to the task of producing an encyclopedia for general readers. "We decided to call it something else" is not helpful to the general reader, and it does not fit well with policies such as WP:COMMONNAME. We should not surprise our readers, and 2016 really did mark a change in the common name, as well as in the official name.

The second point where I think that Iveagh Gardens was mistaken is in their focus on 2016, noting the minimal boundary changes then. But the new name may persist for decades (or even for nearly a century, as with Sligo–Leitrim), and in that time there wil be many more boundary changes. Some may be radical changes, esp the current shakeup which will bring huge changes across the country, due to massive population growth, the post-1961 <5% variation rule, and the retention of the 3-5 seats per constituency rule (despite the recommedations of the Constitutional Convention for an increase in size to boost proportionality). A recent Irish Times Inside Politics podcast (https://open.spotify.com/episode/2qmGslDrrkXJlRHiNiYlEk) had two academics who explained in detail that the changes will be unavoidably radical; the word "carnage" was used. So in the long run, I think that the relative similarity in 2016 will be be much less significant.

Anyway, that's all much more than I intended to write for now. I do strongly oppose the change, but I hope I have also conveyed some hint of how much I value discussing this with conscientious editors who really are immersed in the topic. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:41, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

You know, I wrote out a whole long reply, but as I kept looking back over and over at the various articles and replies, I basically had to scrap it and start again. So let's try this:

Right now, and this might come off as arbitrary, but I feel like (after taking abroad both view points) that merging Kerry North–West Limerick (Dáil constituency) into Kerry North (Dáil constituency) was and is fine, but the others should be kept separate.

Because Dublin Bay South (Dáil constituency) and Limerick County (Dáil constituency) are "living, breathing" currently existing constituencies which may be around for decades to come as BHG said, muddling the waters by merging them with defunct constituencies which had their own histories may well be a bad idea, not least because it could be confusing for readers, particularly one's trying to research the Dublin South-East constituency or Limerick West (Dáil constituency).

However, in the case of Kerry North & Kerry North–West Limerick, both are dead and gone, and no major new information is going to be added to them in the future. So we know for a fact that Kerry North–West Limerick was an more or less an anomaly, it only briefly existed and realistically it was de facto a direct continuation of the former Kerry North. We see that with it retaining 2 out 3 of the exact same TDs from one election to the next. "Kerry North–West Limerick" is basically an Irish political history footnote and I don't know that it's distinct enough from Kerry North to warrant a separate article. If Kerry North–West Limerick had existed for 25 years I might have taken the opposite position, but a one election constituency largely overlapping with a previous one is sort of a blimp on the radar. I don't see many readers or researchers superficially seeking out Kerry North–West Limerick individually, but even if they do, a redirect and some clarifying text in the merged article will keep them on track.

Now in an ideal world, some sources to support the claim that Kerry North and Kerry North–West Limerick were de facto one-in-the-same would really help solidify that merger. That might be something Iveagh Gardens would need to look into.

That's my take after looking blankly at the articles for over an hour; I'll wait and see what others make of that conclusion. CeltBrowne (talk) 01:33, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

Y'know, @CeltBrowne, wishing for sources to assert a pre-determined conclusion does not seem to be in any way a great approach.

As to the Kerry constituencies, please do not assume that their lives are permanently over. Many Dáil contituencies have had multiple incaranations, and one or other of them may be reborn when the forthcoming set of "frankenconstituencies" splits Kerry again, as they will have to do in order to give it the required 6 seats.

I think that any gains from such a merge are minor. It's quite common for TDs to represent a succession of constituencies, and in any case comparisons between elections can be misleading due to both demographic changes and boundary revisions. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:53, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks to both of you, BrownHairedGirl and CeltBrowne, for your considered responses (and I note the commendation on my studiousness amidst this!). On a prognostication sidenote, I'd agree with BHG that we can't assume Kerry North is dead. My instinct is that it won't return this time, but may return again; I do expect Tipperary to be split this year, bringing the return of a once dormant consituency. But that's merely to say that I wouldn't make the decision based on what ones we'd call historic.

I do understand what BHG says, that we need to consider the general reader, who may have little knowledge of Irish political history, or the editor who has some knowledge but not enough to always know the differences instinctively, as I think we might be closer to being. Ensuring that redirects are always active can certainly assist with the latter, but I accept we need to have a system where we keep that editor in mind.

As to the general reader, it was in part for them that I proposed this. To use a more recent example, if simply because it crosses over the change in name, if someone read about Eoghan Murphy, saw that he was first a TD for Dublin South-East and then for Dublin Bay South, they'd might ask themselves "Oh, why did he move around?" The current text, "representing the Dublin Bay South constituency (previously named Dublin South-East)" makes it clear that he stayed where he was, but with a different name for the constituency. And if they had instead clicked through on the constituency, it would also show that he or any of the others hadn't moved around, or even been forced to consider what new constituency to consider contesting, as with wholly new constituencies (think Dublin Mid-West on its first outing).

To some extent, given the changes in boundaries between all constituencies, comparisons between constituencies can be misleading in any case, whether there's been an name change or not. I mentioned before that in 2016, there was a more significant geographical change in Dublin Central than in DSE/DBS.

As I know Spleodrach has interacted with some of these pages since I implemented the changes, their view would be valuable, as CeltBrowne indicated. It's good to have this discussion now, ahead of what BHG alluded to in relation to the upcoming changes, with a report expected at the end of August. A lot of my work last year adding historic definitions and references from the Constituency Commission reports was in anticipation of the upcoming Electoral Commission report, to have the pages in a good state for the new body's proposals. So one way or other, this question will be settled by then (if not within the next week!). Iveagh Gardens (talk) 14:43, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, @Iveagh Gardens. I'm enjoying this discusion

Kerry North tangent

On Kerry North, the problem is that the current 2016-onwards Kerry constituency is a maxed out at 5 seats, but needs another one due to population growth. The only ways of doing that are either to a) split Kerry, or b) to cede part of Kerrry to to a Cork or Limerick contituency. Kerry voters in a Cork constituency would cause uproar, and the alternative of putting Tralee and the Dingle Peninsula in Limerick would be little less contentious. That famous 2016 Sligo–Leitrim vote spoiled with "I live in Cavan" would be nothing on the fury in The Kingdom. It's even possible that the two brother TDs might feel goaded out of their usual sunny and placid "que sera" demeanour . If I'm wrong, I will owe Iveagh Gardens a barnstar.

It's great that IG has done so much work on the historic boundaries. From 1961 onwards, the <5% variation rule meant that county boundaries were crosed nearly everwhere. I started that many years ago to document the wild shape-shifting of Sligo–Leitrim, but I didn't take it much further. It's one of the two most important parts of a constituency article (the others being election results), so it's a huge boost to have that brought up-to-date by an editor who we can rely on to use the sources with scrupulous care.

With that done, one of the most valuable additions would be maps of the historic boundaries. The use of obscure and historical county subdivisions to define the boundaries maks this a non-trivial task, which requires a lot of expertise in Irish historical geography as well as graphics skills. Any ideas on how and where we might find someone willing to do some of that?

I don't think that the "why did he move around?" question is a reason to merge. The 1961-onwards instability in constituency boundaries means that a high proportion of multi-term TDs represented more than one constituency. See e.g. Richie Ryan (4 constituencies in 23 years) or Seán Doherty or Frank Cluskey. An expectations of stability will be regularly disappointed.

But suppose we did merge Dublin South-East (DSE) to Dublin Bay South (DBS). What impact would that have on the article Eoghan Murphy? The only way that the "why did he move around?" question could be avoided is if Eoghan Murphy was rewritten to pretend that Murphy was elected in 2011 for a constituency called "Dublin Bay South". That would be simply untrue and the Murphy question seems to me to be a scary illustration of the historical falsities which can arise from losing the one-to-one relationship between constituency nmae and article title. I realy hope that we never go anywhere near that. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:14, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

For clarity on the last point, I'm not at all suggesting we write in the Eoghan Murphy article that he represented Dublin Bay South from 2011, but that if it were one article, it would include Dublin South-East in brackets unlinked, and that being in the same article, it's clear to anyone coming in to Dublin Bay South from his article that one constituency was a near-continuation of the other. For comparison, Murphy's ministerial office is titled Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government, but someone clicking on that link would get to Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage. For Heather Humphreys, we give each of the separate ministerial titles in her page of Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Minister for Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs and Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, even though they each link to the same page.

[Kerry tangent: I don't see enough for a full two-constituency split, without substantial transfers from other counties (I could be wrong, this is my recollection from the time of the submissions), so I am anticipating outrage as the Beara Peninsula is all contained within Cork South-West!]

On maps, they are difficult to source. I've done my best to find what's available on Oireachtas Library Digital Collections, but to limited avail. There are admittedly blurry maps for the 1918 constituencies from the 1917 boundary report, I'm stumped with the first part of our own legislative history of constituencies. Dublin Historic Maps has constituencies maps for Dublin up to 1969 and also Dublin ward and DED boundaries; that is limited to Dublin though. The owner of that site is part of the OpenStreetMap community, which has some constituency maps. I think most of its most recent ones are actually the 2016–2020 boundaries, rather than the very most recent ones. It does have one for Dublin Townships, which I've added to that page. Iveagh Gardens (talk) 06:55, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks again, @Iveagh Gardens. I just did what I should have done much earlier in our discussions, i.e. compared the electorate totals:

• Dublin South-East 2001: Electorate = 58,217
• Dublin Bay South 2016 : Electorate = 73,066

That's a 25% increase, which is well-beyond being a minor change. If it wasn't for population growth in the rest of the country, it would have given DBS 5 seats instead of DSE's 4 seats.

Some of that 25% increase will be due an increased density of housing, esp in the South Docks area, but a significant chunk of the increase must be due to the addition of Terenure and Harold's Cross. Such a big change seems to me to be a big dent in the argument for continuity.

Well done finding the Dublin Townships map. That's a helpful addition.

The comparison with Govt Departments is weaker than it first seems. The Depts are knitting jelly on steroids, as the many dozens of functional units of the civil service are combined in an endlessly changing set of permutations. (This is common to many countries; when I was a lobbyist in London, I worked for five years with the same team of civil servants, but in that time they were shuffled between five govt departments, and reported to many more teams of ministers. There was often not even a chage of phone number, even tho there were at least four moves between buildings, and each building had its own amusingly different policy on biscuits for meetings. It became a standing joke that with each change they would first give me a business card on which they crossed out the name of the old Department, and wrote in the name of the new one. In a few weeks, they'd give me their new printed cards. Repeat a year or so later.).

I think it's was @Spleodrach's good work which drew my attention to the weirdness of the legal basis of Irish Govt Departments. AFAICR (and pls correct) any errors, the last new Department to be created was back in 1977, when the Department of Economic Planning and Development was created for Martin O'Donoghue. Through 4½ decades of changes (see the list), that same legal department is now -- wait for it -- the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media. The Economic Planning functions were removed entirely within three years of the Dept's creation, and relaced initially with energy. I think we can safely assume that not only is there zero commonality of function between the 1977 Dept and the 2023 Dept, but that there was also zero commonality of function between the 1977 Dept and the 1980 Dept.

By contrast, the constituencies are legally very straightforward. Each round of constuencies is enacted by an Electoral (Amendment) Act, which is usally a simple standalone Act that lists the constituencies and defines their boundaries. As far as I can recall, each Act makes to distinctio between A) a constituency name that was used before and B) a new or revived name. Each new list makes no reference at all the old list, other than to repeal the previous Act. See e.g. the 2017 Act at https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2017/act/39/ or the 1995 Act at https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/1995/act/21/

So if we were being legally purist, we woud treat each new Electoral (Amendment) Act as creating a wholly new set of constutuencies. That would usually mean that in the last 5 decades, each constituency would cover only one or two elections with the exception of the 1981/82 set of three general elections wwithin 18 months.

Mercifully, both the academic psephologists and the political journalists don't do that; they treat constituencies with the same name as being a continuation. Since 2006, en.wp has followed the reliable secondary sources (per WP:V, WP:RS and WP:NOR), and done the same with Irish and British constituencies.

That spares us the horror of the legal purist route leading us to have e.g. Dublin West (Dáil constituency) being a disambiguation page for:

1. Dublin West, 1981–1987 (Dáil constituency)
2. Dublin West, 1987–1992 (Dáil constituency)
3. Dublin West, 1992–1997 (Dáil constituency)
4. Dublin West, 1997–2002 (Dáil constituency)
5. Dublin West, 2002–2007 (Dáil constituency)
6. Dublin West, 2007–2011 (Dáil constituency)
7. Dublin West, 2011–2016 (Dáil constituency)
8. Dublin West, 2016–present (Dáil constituency)

In summary: the reliable secondary sources lead us to consolidate under a shared name, as we have done. They do not support consolidation of constituencies with different names. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 13:42, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

To ensure we're properly comparing like with like, to avoid the unknown combination of general increase and addition, we should compare the figures from the same dataset. The 2012 Report gives the 2011 population figures for the existing constituencies at p. 84, and proposed constituencies at p. 65:

• Dublin South-East 2011: Population = 103,833
• Dublin Bay South 2011: Population = 116,396

This is a more modest increase of 12% from the additional 5 Kimmage/Terenure electoral divisions. Now, I'd have to acknowledge that both of us taking out our calculators to assess this is veering on WP:OR! I'd come back to the report using the term "rename", so it's not simply my own assessment that there's a continuity. There's a subtle distinction between the use of primary sources and original research, and I'd argue we're just about on the right side of it, and that it is helpful for the reasons given above. I can see that you're not with me, but I did think it worthwhile to have the population analysis on record here for the posterity of this discussion.

The most recent new department was actually the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science! There have been a few recent creations, Department of Rural and Community Development (2017) and the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (2011), each of which required a fresh Act amending the Ministers and Secretaries Acts. I had actually done a bit of work tracing each of these, e.g. at Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth#Alteration of name and transfer of functions, to take another Ship of Theseus example. It was after doing a bit of work on all of those that I found the history of constituencies as another good project.

However, I do acknowledge the legal distinction here: however different the departments have ended up, there is a formal legal chain, with a succession of orders made under section 6 (1) of the Ministers and Secretaries (Amendment) Act 1939 maintaining the link between changes in name and transfers of functions. Whereas, as you say, each new set of constituencies replaces all constituencies with an entire new schedule, so that even though the Electoral (Amendment) Act 1983 made only two minor changes affecting four constituencies, there was an entire new schedule, defining the constituencies afresh.

A lot of where my disagreement comes to is that once do we acknowledge that legally every new set of constituencies is distinct with each new electoral act, but that we group them together for simplicity and clarity, grouping changes in names together is one further small step for simplicity and clarity. However, I have found value in the discussion, I always do when there's meaningful engagement, even if falling on the unsuccessful side of a proposal to find a new consensus. Iveagh Gardens (talk) 16:07, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks again, @Iveagh Gardens. I too have found this valuable as well as enjoyable. It has done me good to have such scrupulously honest and well-informed challenges to my own thinking, and to be prompted to take time to review all the issues. (Back in 2006 a lot of Wikipedia was like this; I recall many lengthy discussions with lots of editors bringing to the table a lot of directly topical experience and scholarship, and applying rigorously critical thinking. That seminar vibe was a huge contrast to a lot of what I encounter nowadays, where even pointing to the plain English meaning of words is shouted down as "uncivil").

I have been surprised to find that my support for one-to-one has become significantly stronger. I don't query the diligence of your research, and it has been hugely informative. But for me the crucial point is that per WP:Verifiability#Original_research, we should "Base articles largely on reliable secondary sources. While primary sources are appropriate in some cases, relying on them can be problematic".

Analysing primary sources with you has been stimulating and educational. It has helped to restore some of my very dented faith in Wikipedia. I can't thank you enough for that.

In the end, it seems to me that the crucial issues here are that:

1. unless I have missed something huge, those reliable secondary sources point almost entirely to maintaining the one-to-one relationship between constituency name and article.
2. If were to strictly follow the primary sources, then statute law would take precedence over recommendations to ministers, because these law set out with unusual clarity what actually happened. That would take us in the opposite direction to what you want: it points us to a system of one name to many articles.

I hadn't realised that you had also done so much of the work on the departments. Thanks again for that wonderful set of contributions. It's a helpful reminder of how a good Wikipedia article can show even wonks how our assumptions can be a long way from the reality.

I think we have covered a lot of ground, but remain in disagreement. Thoroughly amicable disagreement, but still disagreement. Is that right? BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:35, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

To respond to your last query, I think so!

I am sensitive to the WP:OR or WP:SYNTH, it's something I generally try to edit out of other articles if I notice them. There certainly are some areas of Irish history and politics where they've been added which are inappropriate for an encyclopedia coming from a NPOV, or have got facts wrong, such as calculating dates for the length of a Dáil, so I agree that we need to be vigilant in that regard.

I know what you mean about how Wikipedia seems to have changed in its culture. While I did edit back then, it was not as much as I do now, and I didn't get involved in any of the editorial discussions. But I do think there can sometimes be a sense of stasis or lack of discussion about how it might develop, with a certain rigidity, set since that time.

I'm reasonably happy to bring this conversation to a close, and in a day or two (in case the conversation stimulates thoughts from other editors in the mean time) declare that there was either no consensus, or consensus not to move. I look forward to more discussions with you, as we learn from each other in this continuing mission. Iveagh Gardens (talk) 07:28, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Somehow I completely missed this until now! FWIW, I would agree with the current consensus and wouldn't favour moves/merges. I also have a related issue I want to raise, but I'll do that in a new section! Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 10:46, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

I've read the whole discussion and I'm sympathetic to what Iveagh Gardens says but think it would be the wrong approach. When I created articles on the short-lived 1977 creations like Dublin Artane (Dáil constituency) I did consider the alternative route of just including them in existing articles but I thought that was taking things into original research territory. Also, from a global point of view it would raise a consistency issue. Where US constituencies, for example, are designated simply by numbers but cover totally different areas, the logic of choosing that route would mean we'd have to have separate articles for each incarnation, which is not current practice. There are also examples like The Hartlepools (UK Parliament constituency) and Hartlepool (UK Parliament constituency), which cover an almost identical area but have separate articles. Accordingly, I'd favour maintaining the status quo of articles matching the constituency name. Valenciano (talk) 14:00, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Pronunciation requested

Hello. The article Muirchertach Mac Lochlainn needs a pronunciation recording or review of its IPA. If someone can work on it that would be great. Cheers! Thinker78 (talk) 23:25, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

Not familiar with IPA but I'm an Irish teacher by trade and am happy to record a pronunciation. No idea how to though. Xx78900 (talk) 12:23, 11 June 2023 (UTC)

Irish railway station naming

Hello,

I was just wondering if the naming on articles on Irish railway stations need to be made more consistent. There is Sligo Mac Diarmada railway station or Cork Kent railway station (town name + station name), but Galway railway station or Waterford railway station (town name only). For stations in Dublin, it misses 'Dublin' at the beginning (Heuston railway station, but Connolly station).

The descriptions also vary slightly. Some read '[town] railway station...', others just '[town] station...'. Some mention that the station is a railway station followed by the town it serves, others go straight to the town it serves (some of these were changed by me before I was aware of the inconsistency).

Which of these is best:

• [town name] [station name] railway station
• [town name] ([station name]) railway station (as it appears on Iarnród Éireann)
• [station name] railway station
• [town name] railway station (won't work for Dublin)

Thanks, EthanL13 (talk) 19:27, 11 June 2023 (UTC)

Hi. When you say "Which of these is best[?]", what do you mean? Best for what? Best for a list article somewhere? Or a transport navbox? Or best for article titles? If the latter, I would note that article titles are typically based on WP:COMMONNAME. While WP:CONSISTENCY has a role in article titling, it doesn't typically override COMMONNAME. (For example, Connolly station is typically referred to as just that. "Connolly station". I'm not sure if it's what you're proposing, but I don't think it would be appropriate to change it to "Connolly railway station" just because other station articles have "railway" in their official or common names...) Guliolopez (talk) 19:58, 11 June 2023 (UTC)

@Guliolopez Best for article titles, yes. But with common name vs. consistency I understand now. And for Connolly Station that was what I was proposing. Why is it that it is Connolly station, but Heuston railway station, but Dublin Pearse railway station? With all these they are just known as [name] station.

I have come across WP:IRLSTATION. It seems then that the naming is suitable for Connolly (common name + served by Luas). Heuston is distinguished from "Euston" or "Houston" yes, but it is also served by Luas. I am still left unsure as regards to Pearse and Sligo. EthanL13 (talk) 20:32, 11 June 2023 (UTC)

Hi. I appreciate that another user "sent you here", and I feel bad "shunting you along" elsewhere, but I wonder (given your reference to WP:IRLSTATION) if it might to raise any questions/concerns at the related talk page. Namely at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Irish stations). Which seems to be somewhat active. And perhaps WP:PINGing the editors who contributed to the related RfC. Like Cuchullain and Djm-leighpark and Bastun. Who appear to have had a specific discussion about Connolly. Including during that RfC which resulted in the proposal being firmed-up.... Guliolopez (talk) 23:37, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

Combatants in historical military conflicts in/involving Ireland

I note that the topic/concern raised in May by Asarlaí, appears to be ongoing. With wholescale changes across multiple articles (spanning the 1798 rebellion, Williamite wars, Nine Years War, etc). In each case the editor making the changes (seemingly the same one previously acting from a different IP/range/ranges) has not explained the rationale for any of the changes made. While I note that some of these changes, for example to the Battle of the Boyne article have been reverted, other changes remain. For example, the article on the Battle of Carrickfergus (1597) now pipes Gaelic Ireland to the term "Rebels". As if the concepts are synonymous. And the "result" parameter changed from "Scots-Irish victory" to "Rebel victory". Personally I have questions/concerns about some of this type of piping. (As noted in Asarlaí's original thread/note, these things were not "black and white", and some consistency or clarity is probably required. But I'm not sure that the changes/pipes introduced, like changing [[Kingdom of Ireland]] to [[Kingdom of Ireland|Irish Government]] or [[Gaelic Ireland]] to [[Gaelic Ireland|Rebels]] is especially helpful in this regard.) Other thoughts? Guliolopez (talk) 23:26, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

Guliolopez, I went through the articles recently and undid any changes I thought were wrong. However, another IP editor has continued the mass changes, again without any explanations. This has been going on since April: an IP editor changes the combatants in dozens of Irish battles, many are undone, the IP stops editing, then another IP comes along and does the same thing. Sometimes their changes aren't even the same. They seem to be running amok on these articles. I think the only solutions are either to warn and block each IP, or to protect all of the articles from IP edits. Has anyone else any thoughts on this? – Asarlaí ^(talk) 09:30, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Hi Asarlaí. I had noticed the same thing. I'm not sure what the solution might be. Perhaps a thread at ANI or a more "empowered" forum would prompt suggestions? Guliolopez (talk) 09:35, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

I've undone most of the problematic changes again. In my edit summaries I've told them not to change the combatants without consensus and left a link to this discussion. If the mass changes continue after that, I think we should formally warn the IP editors and they'll probably end up being blocked for disruption. – Asarlaí ^(talk) 14:39, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Review of new article

Hi all, I'd love to get a few more people involved in reviewing an article with declared COI on the Outhouse LGBTQ+ Centre. Would anyone be willing to take a look? Thanks! Smirkybec (talk) 09:24, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

Use of "the three kingdoms" as a term outside of the 1639-1651 wars

Hello WPIreland, I noticed Jacobitism has a rather prominent section describing various movements "in the three kingdoms", referring to England, Scotland, and Ireland together, and I wanted to ask around on the project pages to see if such a use of the title is actually backed up outside of the context of Charles I of England and the Wars of the Three Kingdoms.

Three Kingdoms (disambiguation) seems inconclusive on the subject and in general this style of terminology seems like it shouldn't be employed without something in the text to back it up, as titling a section "in the three kingdoms" rather than "in the British Isles" or "in England, Scotland, and Ireland" implies it to be an established term the reader can already be presumed to be familiar with. Orchastrattor (talk) 17:19, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

A popular history of Ireland (1864) uses "the three kingdoms" several times, from James I up to the end of the eighteenth century. John Mitchel's History of Ireland, Volume 2 uses it several times while talking about the 19th century. This 1906 journal article uses it 27 times in a contemporary context, and the 1895 report of the Royal Commission on the Financial Relations between Great Britain and Ireland (which I can't link to) uses it repeatedly in the same context. I'm sure I can find more. Scolaire (talk) 16:43, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Daithi De Nogla#Requested move 13 June 2023

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Daithi De Nogla#Requested move 13 June 2023 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Captain Jack Sparrow (talk) 16:47, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

Irish police officers by county

The proposal at WP:CFM here may be of interest to the project. Laurel Lodged (talk) 11:53, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

Local councillors by city categories

I'm minded to nominate all the city councillor categories (e.g. Category:Local councillors in Cork (city)) to "Members of Foo City Council". It's not like the members can be members of town councils but not members of the County Council. There's only one council in the city. What say you? Laurel Lodged (talk) 20:24, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

I'd agree. It's a clearer and much more natural description of members of the category. Iveagh Gardens (talk) 13:39, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

@Iveagh Gardens & @Laurel Lodged that doent work in all cases. In Dublin at least, there were Urban distrct councils until (I think) 1929, including Rathmines and Ehe Pembroke townships. Those areas were then in County Dublin, but are now within the boundaries of Dublin city, but their councilors were not memeers of Dublin Corporation.

I can't recall whether there similar issues in other cities, but in the counties there were Rural Districts Councils unti they were abolished in the 1930s.

So renaming would be a bad idea. Any categories for specific councils should be created afresh as subcats, and popualted by carfeful manual selection. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:35, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

In this case, Laurel Lodged, were all the members of this category members of Cork City Council? BrownHairedGirl is right that we'd want to be certain of that. There also might be a value in keeping that consistent when we consider the Dublin ones.

In Dublin, any members of the RDCs and UDCs (in the case of Dublin, abolished in 1930, except for Howth) should be in the category Category:Local councillors in County Dublin; although the territory of most of the UDCS and some of the territory of the RDS is now part of Dublin city, this was not the case at the time they were district councillors. Iveagh Gardens (talk) 14:51, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

People from Northern Ireland by occupation

The proposal at WP:CFM here may be of interest to the project. Apparently Northern Ireland is a "nation" and so entitled to "by nationality" categorisation; I thought that, at best, it was a "constituent country". Laurel Lodged (talk) 11:53, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

Population of towns

Earlier today, in the latest release of the 2022 census, the CSO published the population of 867 towns, or what it now defines as built-up areas (BUAs). They're available at table F1015 from the Data section of the CSO. We can begin adding this population to articles for each town and village in this list, as well as articles such as List of urban areas in the Republic of Ireland by population. I'd recommend including a link to the current census page anywhere we add the new figures, i.e. (as of 2022 census). That way, when we're doing the same in 2028, we can easily find any pages that use the 2022 figures. Iveagh Gardens (talk) 13:51, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Funny linking on Lena Rice

Hi all, I just noticed on the article on Lena Rice that the wikilink for 'country' in her infobox brings you to the Irish Rugby team. The reason I'm flagging it here and not just on the article is I'm just wondering if this could be an issue on other sports people's pages? It's not an area I edit on, so I'm not sure where to start looking. I also haven't corrected the error, as I'm not sure what to link to, and suspect there is an answer beyond just delinking. Thanks! Xx78900 (talk) 16:00, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

Someone recently decided to go in and remove the British sporting nationality section and replace it with an Irish one. In credit they tried to use the correct Ireland flag and it seems an old rubgy union template was the only way they could think to do it. I've reverted it all back. While yes she was Irish, due to the setup and the way the sporting nationality was done at the time she had the British sporting nationality (this is for sports representation only), not an Irish one. All references are to her having British sporting nationality. I've also reverted said editors other alterations elsewhere on the same topic. Canterbury Tail talk 12:14, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

IMOS COUNTIES cleanup

Input sought on a possible big cleanup of a widespread minor issue: breaches of MOS:IMOS COUNTIES.

For the last ~7 weeks, I have been working intensively on categorising Irish biographical articles. So far, I have made tens of thousands of edits in that ongoing task. (That's by way of background. If anyone wants to discuss that work, I'd be very happy to do so, but please start a separate thread).

Along the way, I have been mildly irritated to find that a significant minority of those pages use the abbreviated form of the word "County", e.g. "Co. Offaly" instead of "County Offaly". Sometimes it's unlinked, but more often it's linked, usually in the piped form e.g. [[County Antrim|Co. Antrim]], or sometimes using a redirect such as [[Co. Kildare]].

This is deprecated by MOS:IMOS COUNTIES, for good reason. It is unclear to many readers, and the abbreviation saves only 3 chararacters in the rendered text. The loss of clarity hugely outweighs the tiny gain. And when the piped form is used, it adds unhelpful verbosity to the wikitext: [[County Fermanagh|Co. Fermanagh]] adds 14 chararacters to display Co. Fermanagh instead of the clearer County Fermanagh.

(Please note that I do not mean any reproach to the editors who added these abbreviations. I AGF that they were unaware of MOS:IMOS COUNTIES, and I can see that in many cases the sources use the abbreviated form).

After a few manual fixes (e.g. [1]) I eventually thought that manual cleanup woukd be tediously slow, but maybe I could tackle this at scale using WP:AWB. Some tests showed that my regex was basically sound, at least in simple cases such as this one which I actually saved.[2]

So I made some lists using WP:Petscan: All articles tagged with {{WikiProject Ireland}}, {{WikiProject Northern Ireland}}, {{WikiProject Gaelic games}}; all articles which link to any of the 32 traditional counties, whether as "County Foo", "Co. Foo" or "Co Foo"; all categories for Irish people by place or by ocupation.

That gave me a list of 94,695 unique article titles. For technical reasons, I used a crude filter as a first pass. That left me with a list of 6,111 articles which use "Co. Foo" or "Co Foo" somewhere in the wikitext.

This 6.5% hit rate is a lot higher than I had expected. (I had reassured myself that I had probably been encontering unrepresentative clusters, so I hoped for <1% in a wider trawl).

However, it includes a lot of false positives, e.g. where the "Co. Foo" abbreviation is used

1. in quoted text, whether an inline quote or a blockquote or a quote in a ref, or
2. inside <ref> .. </ref> tags, usually as the title of the cited work, or
3. in one of the appendices, e.g. a list of works, or of sources

Types 2 and 3 are easy to code for. My next rounds of filtering will skip them, and hopefully make a big reduction in the numbers. (I don't yet have an estimate of how big).

The quotes are hard to reliably detect in software, so I will just have to watch for them as I review each edit.

The feedback I am looking for is where my approach is sound. There may be concerns in principle, and if so, I'd like to hear them. But my main uncertainty is whether I am right in my selection of which uses of the "Co. Foo" abbreviation to replace. My overall principle is that MOS:IMOS COUNTIES should be applied only to the text originated by Wikpedia editors, whether that's in body text or an infobox. How does that sound? BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:49, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Some examples:

Article	Issue	Proposed action
1521 in Ireland	"Co. Dublin" in two inline refs	No change
Greyhound (1747 ship)	"Co. Sligo" in title of external link	No change
1539 in Ireland, and Young Social Innovators	multiple "Co. Foo" in bodytext	"Co. Foo" → "County Foo"
A42 road (Northern Ireland)	"Co. Antrim" in image caption	"Co. Antrim" → "County Antrim"
A. Martin Freeman	[[Co. Cork]] linked in bodytext	[[Co. Cork]] → [[County Cork]]
Storm Eva	[[County Mayo|Co. Mayo]] pipe-linked in bodytext	[[County Mayo|Co. Mayo]] → [[County Mayo]]
Young Farmers' Clubs of Ulster	multiple, linked "Co. Foo" in table headers	"Co. Foo" → "County Foo"

Hope this clarifies what I intend. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:31, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

• Notifications : I have notified WikiProject Northern Ireland [3], and WikiProject Gaelicgames.[4] --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:31, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

I had no idea it was quite this bad. As the original proposer of what eventually became MOS:IMOS COUNTIES I do clean them up when I come across them, and I agree with your proposal. Basically anything that isn't a direct quote (titles of referenced articles would be a direct quote) should be cleaned up to state County rather than "Co." or "co". Canterbury Tail talk 21:27, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

I wasn't aware who had proposed MOS:IMOS COUNTIES, @Canterbury Tail, but thanks for initiating it. It was a useful addition.

Until a few weeks ago, I too had no idea that it was this bad, and even i didn't get the full picture until i did my scan, tho i stress that my initial tally is definitely an overestimate. The final number of pages to be cleaned up will definitely be lower, but I dunno whether it will be 20% of that 6,111, or 80%. I will post updated numbers when I have them.

Your phrase anything that isn't a direct quote is a good summary of my understanding of the suitable scope of cleanup. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:46, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Request for peer review of Victorian era

I've been working on the article about the Victorian era a great deal this year and have recently got it to good article status. I'm hopping to get it to featured article status over the next few months which would be my first featured article. What kind of changes do you think would be needed to get their? The article mainly covers Great Britain but some parts relate to Ireland.

Link to peer review page: Wikipedia:Peer review/Victorian era/archive1 Llewee (talk) 00:26, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the notice, @Llewee.

I left a lengthy comment[5] at WP:Peer review/Victorian era/archive1, in which I explain some of the reasons why the article needs a complete rewrite. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:21, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

TD and MEP articles and the 's-par' template

Prompted by the discussion above on organisation of constituency articles, can we also look at the {{s-par|ie/oi}} template used in articles for TDs or people who were TDs. (ACtually, this also applies to MEPs and councillors!)

We have multi-seat constituencies, yet many politicians' biographical articles, using the parliamentary succession template, suggest that Bob replaced Alice, as if there was only one seat up for grabs, or that Ted inherited the Whatever Party seat from Alice. Technically, this might be the case where there was a by-election (especially given the feudal nature of Irish politics!), but it is the exception rather than the rule.

Usually, there are three, four or five TDs, who either get re-elected or who are replaced, individually. It is not correct to do as we're doing on - for example - the Michael Healy-Rae, Dermot Ahern, Catherine Murphy (politician) or Simon Coveney articles (where there wasn't a by-election). We should instead be doing what's on the articles for, e.g., Eamon Ryan, Jim O'Callaghan or Eoghan Murphy articles.

I am not in any way well versed in template creation or editing. Would this be best achieved by amending the s-par template? Or coming up with an entirely new template, for Irish Dáil, European and council elections? Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 14:31, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

@Bastun, I agree that it is wrong to use the templates to pretend that there was an office of "FooParty TD for Somewhere". Sadly, there's a lot of articles using that, so thank you for challenging it.

However, existing templates can be used for multi-seat constituencies, as was the norm for county seats pre-1885. I applied it to most of the Dublin South-East TDs, which you found and linked above. See also e.g. Eoin Ryan Jnr#External_links.

I didn't perevere beyond Dublin South-East, 'cos it's slow work and I had other things to be doing.

But since then i have occasionally pondered wheter there is an easier way, and the idea I keep coming back to i to take the eistong table of the TDs from the constituency article, and make it into an auto-collapsing template. uick, easy, and much mor informative than the succession box. The templates which make those tables were built by me donkeys years ago, and all the constituencies have an uptodate list: see e.g. Dublin South-East (Dáil constituency)#TDs.

I'll rustle up a example to show what I mean. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:22, 10 July 2023 (UTC)