Wikipedia:WikiProject Ireland Collaboration/Poll on Ireland article names/Position statements/Rannpháirtí anaithnid

Ireland as a term is ambiguous and thus requires some form of disambiguation on Wikipedia. The question thus is how do we disambiguate between the two Irelands: Ireland-the-state and Ireland-the-island. As with skinning a cat, there are more ways than one to disambiguate a page on Wikipedia. We have three options:

• Don't disambiguate
• Have a straight-up disambiguation page
• Have one "Ireland" as the primary topic and the other "Ireland" at an unambiguous article title

Each of these options is perfectly acceptable under policy. The question is one of choice, with no clear and definite answer, and each method has different merits as a solution. The current solution is to have Ireland-the-island as the primary topic and to have Ireland-the-state at an unambiguous title ("Republic of Ireland").

Options to disambiguate

Don't disambiguate

• Option A: Merge Ireland and Republic of Ireland into one article at Ireland.

There is a strong case to be made from simply merging the two "Ireland" articles. Both have an enormous overlap. Indeed, it is unsuitable for a general encyclopedia to deal comprehensively with the state alone - thus both articles (Ireland and Republic of Ireland) currently deal with Irish history, politics, culture, sport, geography, transport and so forth. The article on Northern Ireland on the other hand makes for a good separate article, mainly because of the more in-depth treatment required for the Troubles in the recent past.

The Encyclopedia Britannica for example has only one "Ireland" article. Ostensibly that article deals with Ireland-the-state, but on reading it you can see that it deals with all of Ireland in one. A problem for us on this encyclopedia if this option is selected will be striking a balance between treatment of Ireland-the-state and Ireland-the-island in a single articles. While other encyclopedias, like Britannica, have an editorial staff to enforce balance and direction, we do not. Achieving the balance required by a single article may lead to more conflict in future.

It should be noted however that this is how the two "Ireland" articles began life: the article on the state being originally spun out of the main Ireland article. If we choose to merge them again, we will be going back to where we started and in time the article on Ireland-the-state may be spun out again.

Straight up disambiguation page

• Option E: A disambiguation page at Ireland. The island at [Ireland (island)]. The state at Ireland (state).

It is possible place a simple disambiguation page at Ireland and link to individual articles on Ireland-the-island and Ireland-the-state. This is the only option that I am truly against. My reason for being so is because the current disambiguation page get so little traffic. The site traffic for the three relevant pages in June are as follows:

• Ireland: 281,147
• Republic of Ireland: 135,751
• Ireland (disambiguation): 1,606

The disambiguation page gets 0.6% of the traffic of the article on Ireland-the-island. And the article on Ireland-the-state gets less than half the traffic of Ireland-the-island. The current solution works well (issues with the title of the article on the state aside) and there is no compelling argument to turn things upside down when there are other ways (possibly more suitable ways) to disambiguate.

Another reason is because, I believe, there is a logical main article. The article on the Ireland-the-state can be seen as a sub-article of the main Ireland article, dealing with a subset of its history, geography, people, culture, cuisine, sport, art and so forth. Indeed this is how the article on the state started of: first as a part of the main Ireland article before then being then spun out to its current location.

For these reasons, I believe that a primary topic exists and thus a disambiguation page is not the most suitable option.

Use an unambiguous article title

• Option B: The state at Ireland. The island at Ireland (island).
• Option C: A general "all-Ireland" topic at Ireland. The island at Ireland (island). The state at Ireland (state).
• Option D: The island at Ireland. The state at Ireland (state).
• Option F: The island at Ireland. The state at Republic of Ireland.

Options C, D and F are effectively the current solution, but with the possibility that the article on the state could be moved to Ireland (state). Option B reverses the current solution: placing the state at Ireland and the island at Ireland (island).

I am in favour of either of C, D or F - either keeping the state at Republic of Ireland or moving it to Ireland (state) - but feel that B would reverse the natural arrangement of the articles. The article on the state can be seen as a natural sub-article of the main Ireland article. It is almost impossible to treat Ireland-the-state separately from Ireland-the-island: the state being a natural subset in terms of history, politics, culture, people and everything else of the island. Reversing this arrangement, and making the article on the state the primary topic, would be counter-intuitive and be practically clumsy. See also the site traffic statistics above: the article on the island currently gets twice as much visitors as the article on the state, one of the things to bear in mind when deciding if a primary topic exists.

The choice then, I believe, is between using:

• another term that is equally clear and unambiguous (i.e. "Republic of Ireland) per point 1 here
• a disambiguating word or phrase can be added in parentheses (i.e. "Ireland (state)") per point 2 here

If it is to be another term then "Republic of Ireland" is the commonly used means to distinguish Ireland-the-state from Ireland-the-island. If it is to be a disambiguating word or phrase then "Ireland (state)" would be the solution since "Ireland" is the official (and common) name of the state. See the potted history of these terms below.

Background

Page histories

• 14 October 2001: Ireland created as an article on Ireland-the-island (including Ireland-the-state).
• 15 November 2002 (a): Content on Ireland-the-state is moved to Republic of Ireland.
• 15 November 2002 (b): Most of the content is removed from Ireland, which essentially becomes a disambiguation page between Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland.
• 18 January 2003: New content added since 15 November 2002 means that Ireland is a full article again dealing with Ireland-the-island.

Potted history of terms Ireland/Republic of Ireland

Main article: Names of the Irish state

Some editors have made some controversy over the term "Republic of Ireland". There is no such controversy in real life. There has, however, been controversy about the term "Ireland".

Ireland

When the Irish Free State declared its full independence from the United Kingdom in 1937, two aspects of its new constitution were not internationally accepted:

• The name of the state "Ireland"
• The state's territorial claim over the entire island

As can be appreciated, the issue with the state's choice of name was related to the state's claim to sovereignty over the entire island of Ireland (about one fifth of which is part of the United Kingdom).

Over time, the state's choice of name became near universally accepted. By the late 1960s, the only state not to recognise the Irish state by that name was the United Kingdom. The reason why the UK would not recognise this name is quite obvious:

1. The name was ambiguous with the territory that encroached on the UK's national territory.
2. The Irish state claimed sovereignty over that same part of the UK's national territory.

Over the course of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, some incidents brought this "dispute" to a head. One of the most well-known examples, was the refusal of the Irish state to recognise extradition requests for suspected terrorists that were addressed to anything other than "Ireland".

The dispute came to an end with the 1998 Belfast Agreement when the Irish state dropped its territorial claim to Northern Ireland.

Republic of Ireland

Although having declared itself a sovereign state in 1937, the Irish state continued to be in personal union with the British monarch. The new constitution, however, did not mention the monarch and thus the opportunity lay open that in future an Irish government could simply legislate for an Irish republic.

In 1949, the Government of Ireland enacted legislation declaring a republic and removing the few remaining roles assigned to the British monarch in relation to the Irish state. Part of that legislation allowed that the state be described as the "Republic of Ireland".

The legal name of the state did not change. To do so would have required a referendum that the government would not have been guaranteed of winning (and which would have been very embarrassing). Nonetheless, "Republic of Ireland" began to be used as a name for the state - though "Ireland" remained the sole formal name for the state and remained the most common name for the state also. One of the attractions of "Republic of Ireland" as a name is that it serves a very practical utility: to distinguish Ireland-the-state from Ireland-the-island.

Use of "Republic of Ireland" in this way has never been controversial (except indirectly, though the UK's refusal to call the Irish state by the name "Ireland"). Use of the term remains common and uncontroversial today - both in Ireland and abroad.

References

Users who endorse this perspective

• Scolaire
• BritishWatcher

Alternative perspectives

• HighKing
• Sarah777