Talk:Ireland

British Isles

The topic as to whether Ireland is part of the British Isles is controversial, as referenced in the page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Isles_naming_dispute. Referring to Ireland as the second largest of the British Isles stems from a colonial view of the area and is not supported by the majority of the inhabitants of the island. The sentence should just read "Ireland is the the third-largest island in Europe, and the twentieth-largest on Earth — Preceding unsigned comment added by D8player (talk • contribs) 12:13, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

There was a discussion about this less than a year ago at Talk:Ireland/Archive_15#"British_Isles"_RfC and the decision then was it was fine. Have you got new information or a good reason why the decision might change now? Dmcq (talk) 12:45, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

Hi Dmcq, thanks for drawing attention to the discussion, I had not seen it before. I indeed do not have any new information other than a dissenting opinion. The main points raised by the opposers of the change was that the term "British Isles" is well recognised and hence accepted. The point I would raise is that it is not a term that is in any significant way accepted by the majority of the population of the island, nor indeed by the government of the south.

Responding to questions from TheJournal.ie, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) stated that the two islands are commonly called “Britain and Ireland”. In the same article, the then Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs was quoted as saying "The British Isles is not an officially recognised term in any legal or inter-governmental sense. It is without any official status. The Government, including the Department of Foreign Affairs, does not use this term." http://www.thejournal.ie/is-ireland-british-isles-northern-ireland-europe-islands-1140112-Oct2013/.

In addition, I would argue that adding that it is the second largest of the British Isles is both unnecessary and inaccurate, as the island of Ireland is not British. — Preceding unsigned comment added by D8player (talk • contribs) 12:32, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

For an unrecognised term, they sure use it often enough search on main site. And this used to be higher, there are lots of links in the archives of Irish government use that have unfortunately been redacted and altered over time. Canterbury Tail talk 13:33, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

I think you are mixing geography with politics, bit like the Irish Sea is not all Irish. MilborneOne (talk) 12:44, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

It's a geographic term not some political term. Before the Good Friday Agreement the Irish government was trying to deny any UK involvement in Ireland and the UK was refusing to acknowledge the name of the state and the government statement is just left over action from all that. Wikipedia is based on world figures but if you can provide some reliable source showing some decent proportion in Ireland actually care about this I'm sure it could be changed. (Though the government phrase 'These islands' might not be the most appropriate substitution!) But just your statement is not enough evidence. Dmcq (talk) 13:07, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

Image caption

ImprovedWikiImprovment insists on changing the caption on the infobox image form "Satellite image of Ireland, October 2010" to "The island in October 2010" (here and here). This is presumably because he thinks that calling Ireland "Ireland" is wrong, though his pretext is that "people know it’s a satielite [sic] image of Ireland". The changed caption is ludicrous, (a) because it makes it sound like a little offshore island and (b) because it suggests that it changes from year to year. The earlier caption was fine and was stable for over four years. Disrupting Wikipedia to illustrate a point is against policy. Scolaire (talk) 14:28, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

@Scolaire:You presumed wrong; obviously the island is called Ireland. The point is that people know that the lead image of the article “Ireland” is going to be a picture of Ireland. My point per WP:CAP is that the information I removed is obvious. IWI (chat) 14:33, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

I’m not sure how you get that idea. How does it make it seem little? Subjective opinion<Policy. Take a quick read of this essay. IWI (chat) 14:39, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

Actually, four years was a gross undertatement. Some variation of "image of Ireland" has been in the caption since 16 January 2005. I think consensus trumps one person's subjective interpretation of WP:CAP. Scolaire (talk) 15:27, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

So you’re saying that it isn’t obvious that the lead image would be a picture of Ireland and not some other island?? It’s not subjective; “clearly identifies the subject of the picture, without detailing the obvious“ - WP:CAP IWI (chat) 15:47, 26 October 2018 (UTC) Why do we need a date at all as (as you said) the island doesn’t change. This is why no image is needed at all (like Great Britain). IWI (chat) 15:53, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

• Oops “caption” not image. IWI (chat) 15:56, 26 October 2018 (UTC)″

The “it’s been like that for years” argument is not valid; vandalism can stand for years if unnoticed. IWI (chat) 16:03, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

Not on an article like this one, with 1,315 watchers. Scolaire (talk) 16:13, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

And anyway, how can you be sure that all readers would recognise the picture as a satellite photograph? It could be an artist's rendition of a map. And how is "the island" more informative than "Ireland"? Scolaire (talk) 16:31, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

That’d be one hell of a rendition. Neither is more informative than the other it’s just one states obvious information. EEng explains it in WP:ASTONISHME. IWI (chat) 16:47, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

So a caption saying "the island" under a picture of an island is not stating the obvious? EEng's edit was reasonable. Yours was not. Hopefully the matter is now closed. Scolaire (talk) 17:11, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

Good. WP:CAP does not mean that all redundant words have to be eliminated as in the "Fresh fish sold here today" joke. Dmcq (talk) 17:33, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

• Lucky I looked on the talk page before replacing the satellite image. I can't find the old talk....and I mean old 2005 or so....but I remember it was about how the image should show the political divide..... this is to match the text in the lead. Does anyone else think the map should representative of the text right beside ? it's a bit odd to have a statement then have to search the article to figure out what the Divide is. Satellite image is nice but this isn't a geography of ....article.--Moxy (talk) 15:55, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

It's pretty clear to me. The first paragraph tells you it's an island and the satellite image shows you that. The article is about the island and not about the politics, so that information is not the primary essence of the article. Do we really have to show a political division image in the WP:LEDE? I don't think so. ww2censor (talk) 20:46, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

Change BC to BCE

Some of the date references use "BC" and some use "BCE". I suggest changing all of the "BC" to "BCE". Edsall57 (talk) 21:29, 6 November 2018 (UTC) edsall57

I have the single occurrence of BCE changed in BC. The Banner talk 21:40, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Agree BC and AD is the standard obviously used in this article. Dmcq (talk) 10:32, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

British Isles again

Putting the independent nation of Ireland under dominion of Britain in name is a political act. Usage as a geographical term is incorrect, just because something is commonly done does not make it right (consider widespread use of the word irregardless). Your main evidence listed above refers to an article with an editing history of people interested in the British Isles, who are a distinct category from people interested in Ireland. The incorrect usage of British Isles is so popular because of the colonial legacy that England′s brutal and violent history as well as the small ratio of people who care about the correct usage of the word compared the vast majority of people who do not care. Why is it incorrect? Well, Great Britain refers to England, Scotland, and Wales (*SPECIAL NOTE* Great Britain does not even include Northern Ireland). British means of Britain and referring to an island as British is simply incorrect. Furthermore, insisting to call Ireland a British Isle is identity erasure and obviously NOT NEUTRAL. Given the mission of Wikipedia to spread knowledge and not misinformation, it is a moral imperative to make this page factual. The very repetition of the argument is evidence towards its innaccuracy. Lucyimhom (talk) 04:21, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

You confuse the political status with the geographical term. This article is about a geographical island in its geographical context. The Banner talk 10:05, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

An acceptable compromise would be removing it from the initial paragraph and adding a section about British Isles, explaining the controversy. Some analogies to further illustrate my point: Korea and Japan are located in physical proximity. Similarly, Japan had used violence to control the people and land of Korea. If Japan and the rest of the world began to refer to Japan and Korea together as the Japanese Imperial Isles and published widely used maps, that would not make it correct or accurate. Another, more tenuous connection but obviously related if you are familiar with the Pyramid of Hate: the US constitution once listed slaves as 3/5ths of a person. This was a highly regarded, widely used document denoting a fact about the legal (not political) designation of slaves.Lucyimhom (talk) 04:42, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

You confuse the political status with the geographical term. This article is about a geographical island in its geographical context. The Banner talk 10:05, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

Here is an article from the Irish Post. In this article both an Irish newspaper and Cambridge Professor acknowledge that many Irish disagree with the term. While the paper seems to acknowledge term it worth noting, that the paper′s source is a representative of the British Mapping Agency, further underscoring my claims that calling Ireland a British Isle is a form of neocolonialism. Additionally, the first and last paragraph of the article point out the controversy of using the term; while the newspaper is attempting to be unbiased, it shows that the Irish press is dedicated to presenting counterpoints to their explanation of the word. Another Irish Times article (widely read newspaper in Ireland) discussing how an Irish atlas company began removing the word from its publications in 2006 after complaints to the Ministry of Education. A 2017 web article about outraged caused by a different article by the non-Irish author calling Ireland a British Isle. In this article he asks, ẅhat should the collection of islands be called?

In order to keep the incorrect information, I would like someone to find Irish based evidence that the term is a respected geographic term, as claimed above. Lucyimhom (talk) 05:13, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

Not sure it works like that here you have to make your case and then gain consensus to change it other editors dont need to support the status quo which already has consensus. MilborneOne (talk) 09:27, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

@Lucyimhom: Wikipedia has an article on the British Isles naming dispute. It wouldn't be appropriate to rehash it in the Ireland article. The sentence in the lead was the subject of this quite lengthy discussion a year ago. The participants were all well aware of the arguments. As you can see from the close (the box in the top right-hand corner), there was a consensus not to change that sentence. It was discussed again only two months ago, and no new consensus emerged then. While there is no harm in you raising the question again, in the absence of any sudden rise in support for change, there would be little point in pushing it. Scolaire (talk) 16:51, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

Interesting that the only publication from Ireland went and quoted Wikipedia for anything about there being a problem in Ireland! It seems people outside Ireland go on about that or the Famine a lot more. But they do make a point, Wikipedia should reflect views from around the world not just in Ireland. Dmcq (talk) 20:41, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 14 December 2018

As an Irish Native am offended that it says Ireland is part of the British Isle, this is a colonial view, its political and it should be changed... its not a British isle but simple an Irish Isle. Ailín MacAmhalaí (talk) 19:52, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

This was discussed extensively in this discussion earlier this year. The consensus would need to change (likely with another such well-publicized, extensive discussion) in order to reach a consensus to make a change. ‑‑ElHef (Meep?) 20:17, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

British Isles (plural) is the commonly used term for these piles of rocks off the coast of Europe. Not likely to change any time soon.Charles (talk) 22:08, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

Climate

The table of record high and low temperatures is pathetically laughable. How do records give anyone a good idea of the month by month expected temperature? They don't. I can only conclude that most likely their presence is intended to mislead. If you're going to have a table of monthly temperatures, you should (obviously) have average lows & highs and preferably average temperatures.72.16.99.93 (talk) 13:24, 18 December 2018 (UTC)