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Discussion moved from Talk:Ireland (which was too big for people to edit)

Is this seriously from the CIA factbook??. I had to change the stuff about Northern Ireland history cus it was wrong.Should it be noted that the peace agreement signed 10 April 1998 was not between the UK and Irish governments but rather was a ceasefire between the various terrorist groups operating in Northern Ireland? (Actually between political parties in Northern Ireland, only some of which were the "political wing" of terrorist organisations, though that term is now no longer so popular with those parties (some of the Irish media describe the relationship as having "an insight into the thinking of" the particular paramilitary organisation)).

The UK and Irish Governments are friendly and work together on the Northern Ireland situation.

I fixed the name of the country (Obviously De Valera picked the name to confuse the northern unionists). "The name of the country is Eire, or in the English language, Ireland..." Actually, that's the English translation of the constitution, and it all gets horribly self referential and tricky when you try to translate text that talks about what language it's in - but that's a whole other article...

I have recently spoken to several people from both sides of the 'divide', and the result is this disambiguation page. NPOV has, in my opinion, now been restored. Renata 18:35 Nov 15, 2002 (UTC) What's the thinking behind having this article here [at 'Republic of Ireland (Irish state)'] rather than simple Republic of Ireland? --Camembert 19:10 Nov 15, 2002 (UTC)

I could not redirect to 'Republic of Ireland' as that page already existed. The software would not let me. I would have preferred redirecting to 'Republic of Ireland' and having 'Irish state' as a redirect page to the Republic.Renata 19:18 Nov 15, 2002 (UTC)

I've deleted the former Republic of Ireland page, which never had much content to speak of, and moved the big one back in place. --Brion 19:37 Nov 15, 2002 (UTC)

I wish you had put this up for debate before moving, Renata. I'm not yet convinced we should move the article to "Republic of Ireland". Though "Republic of Ireland" should in places be used to distinguish the two parts, the anglophone Irish themselves call their country "Ireland" and I believe that most people would associate that word with the country and not necessarily the island, or perhaps with a mixture of the two. Compare this with the debate on Talk:China. Also, you will want to take a look at this page to see what links may need to be changed to the disambiguated pages, which also indicates what "Ireland" is most commonly expected to refer to. I would suggest to move back and add a disambiguating note at the top. If we do keep it here, shouldn't we also move all the subpages? Scipius 23:34 Nov 15, 2002 (UTC)

I'm certain that this is the right name for the page - Ireland is the name of an island which is divided into the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, which is a part of the United Kingdom. This article is about the country, not the island, so this is the right name. If links pointing to Ireland need to be changed, well, they need to be changed - but at a quick glance, it seems a lot of them don't need to be (the division into the Republic and Northern is not such a recent thing, you know). The case of China I don't know about - I'm not knowledgable enough in that area to comment - but I do know that to stick an article on the ROI under "Ireland" is politically dodgy to say the least. As for moving subpages - I've not looked at it closely, but it seems that they shouldn't necessarily be moved - Politics of Ireland, for example, lacks a good opening paragraph, but if you scroll down, you find a section explicitly on Northern Ireland - it isn't just about the ROI. --Camembert
We have agreed that the conventional short form of a country's name should be used for the article name. As such, Ireland's should be at "Ireland". It is by far the most used name for the country, in references, maps, etc. I will move the article back in several days time if there are no objections --Scipius 15:10 Nov 17, 2002 (UTC)
I object strongly - the convention is to use the most common non-ambiguous name of something - "Ireland" is clearly ambiguous, as it is also used to refer to Northern Ireland, which is part of an entirely different country (the UK). Moving this to Ireland would be a very bad thing, in my opinion. I would, incidentally, be very surprised indeed if there was a decent map in existence which labelled the country, as opposed to the island, "Ireland" rather than "Rupublic of Ireland". --Camembert
And I object too. The Republic of Ireland has a history of less than 100 years; the land of Ireland has a history going back thousands of years. The two articles should be split, just as the Britain/UK articles are split and for the same reasons. -- Derek Ross 15:22 Nov 17, 2002 (UTC)

I agree with Camembert and Derek, for the same reason that made me split the pages in the first place - see above. YOU CANNOT REFER TO IRELAND AND MEAN THE REPUBLIC. IT GIVES GRAVE OFFENCE TO THE PEOPLE OF NORTHERN IRELAND. AND VICE VERSA. I cannot stress this enough! It also reflects extremely badly on Wikipedia, as I was told by my Irish friends. Renata 16:02 Nov 17, 2002 (UTC)

I hate "me toos", but me too! I am entirely convinced that you have to keep separate the idea of Ireland, the island, and the two different political entities on it, the Republic and Northern Ireland. To shift it back to Ireland would just muddy things which is surely the opposite of what an encyclopedia should do? And this is not a political point, it's a practical one. :) Sorry to jump on the bandwagon, but hey ... Nevilley 16:21 Nov 17, 2002 (UTC)

I'm sorry guys, but this has more or less already been decided. Our policy is to put country articles at their most common name. I think we all agree that most commonly "Ireland" refers to the Republic and it is the short form that is predominantly used to the country. Take a look at the CIA Factbook, the US State department or Britannica, three sources we use extensively, all refer to the country primarily as "Ireland". With a clear disambiguating note at the top of the page, separated from the main article by a line, there will be no real ambiguity in that it will be immediately apparent that this article is about the Republic and links are then readily available to those who seek the other "Irelands". I realise there are all sorts of nuances involved that relate directly to the Northern Irish conflict and it is exactly because of this that we should use the most common English name in the interest of neutrality, even if some feel that this acknowledges one claim more than another. Most non-Irish anglophones would refer to the country as "Ireland" IMO. --Scipius 16:25 Nov 17, 2002 (UTC)
Policy isn't that rigid Scipius. Our policies are intended as guidelines, which can only be broken if there's a valid reason. I think the reasons referred to above are quite valid. DanKeshet 16:39 Nov 17, 2002 (UTC)
In this case it is, I'm afraid. Compare it with China, which is also an ancient culture that is currently divided over two different political entities. We put the most common interpretation of China, that of the People's Republic, at the article "China". The same should go for Ireland. Using a thing's most common English name as the article title is not restricted to country articles, but is general Wikipedia policy. I will put the disambiguating note at the top as a demonstration, though perhaps the article should have one even if we laeve it where it is now. --Scipius 17:00 Nov 17, 2002 (UTC)
What do you mean "In this case it is, I'm afraid". That's not for you to decide alone. See Wikipedia talk:Ignore all rules for a somewhat long discussion where almost everybody agrees. As Axel put it "ignorance of rules isn't okay, breaking them is". Now, you've made many valid arguments for why it should be at Ireland. "Policy says, so we don't have to discuss this" is not one of them. DanKeshet 17:08 Nov 17, 2002 (UTC)
This is inevitably an exceedingly vexed question and maybe it would be best resolved by the following intermediary solution: Create a disambiguation page in which it is clearly stated that frequently in usage the word "Ireland" refers explicitly to the Republic, also that the term Ireland can also refer to the entire island, encompassing the political divide. Further the disambigiation page should state unequivocally that the whole usage and provenance of this word is a vexed term. The page should point at the NI & Republic pages; also a third page should be created which deals with the island as a neutral geophysical entity. No-one, not Dr Paisley, nor the Dail could argue with such an entirely neutral resolution of their in-house difficulties. user:sjc
In fact, Ireland already is a disambiguation page, which is how it should be. --Camembert

I repeat - the policy is not simply "use the most common name" but "use the most common unambiguous name". To quote from Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(common_names): "Use the most common name of a person or thing that does not conflict with the names of other people or things." It is clear that "Ireland" does conflict with other things - both with the name of the island as a whole, and with Northern Ireland. Furthermore, I am unconvinced that when people talk of "Ireland" they really do mean only the Republic. When one speaks of "Irish writers" or "Irish music", for example, one means not only music and writing from the republic, but from the whole of Ireland. Yes, "Ireland" is probably used to mean specifically the Republic at times, but it's used to mean N.Ireland or the entire island just as often, I should think. If China really is comparable in every way to Ireland (which I doubt) then it's the China article that is badly named, not this one. --Camembert

Then we already have the correct solution in situ and the status quo should be maintained. user:sjc

Also note that Scipius mentions two publications of the American government and one of an American publisher as authority for his preferred naming. I'd rather hear what an Irish organisation, or at least an Irish Wikipedian, has to say on the naming issue than rely on what Americans think before making any changes, although sjc's idea seems quite reasonable. -- Derek Ross 17:21 Nov 17, 2002 (UTC)

What threw me is the redirect from the Ireland talk page. The disambiguation page in my view does need more clarification and a spelling out of the issues which have been outlined in the course of these discussions.user:sjc
That redirect is there because the discussion on this page, and the article currently at this title, were both originally at Ireland until Renata moved them. I'll delete that redirect so that people can discuss these issues at Talk:Ireland if they want to. --Camembert

To DanKeshet: What I mean is that I represent the established consensus we reached on Talk:China (e.g. read mav's post at the bottom). I feel that this case is very similar. The WikiProject Countries has resulted in a consensus or policy that we should use the conventional short form as article titles. If we are to change this for Ireland, then we open ourselves up to all sorts of potential name changes, in that we would be acknowledging certain political sentiments, rather than basing our naming policy on the most common interpretation of a word, which could be a dangerous thing. Also note that I'm in fact the one that started this debate, it was Renata who didn't feel the need for discussion. I'm just informing you of a related previous debate and the consequences it could have.

To Camenbert: We regularly put disambiguating notes on articles that have a title that can be used for many things, but is predominantly associated with one thing, which is then the topic of the rest of the article. This would also be the case here. I think you're trying to downplay the common use of "Ireland" as the country name, but it really is the most common interpretation and I seriously doubt that "Ireland" is used just as often to refer to Northern Ireland as it is to the Republic. I realise that "Ireland" can sometimes be a vague reference to a mixture of the island, the culture and the country, but even then the country is the primary inheritor of that concept.

To Derek Ross: The Irish constitution in fact defines the name of the country in English as "Ireland". Other sources that name the country "Ireland" include the BBC and the UK Foreign Office. --Scipius 17:55 Nov 17, 2002 (UTC)


To Scipius: Firstly, I did not start a discussion because there was nothing to discuss, as anyone who ACTUALLY LIVES amongst Irish people would realise. Instead I gave my reasons for the moves in the Talk pages. I was in Manchester the day the IRA destroyed the city centre. I have both Ulstermen and Irish Republicans amongst my students and also friends. The subject of "Ireland" is often on our lips. Secondly, it is you who seems to be in a minority in opposing the NPOV solution to this vexed question. Thirdly, at Wikipedia one is encouraged to "be bold". I wasn't even mildly bold when I put right something which had been blatantly wrong for a while. Renata 18:22 Nov 17, 2002 (UTC)
I'm in the minority here in terms of participants, but I've clearly demonstrated that several very credible sources agree with my interpretation. Are you going to write letters to the Irish government, the BBC, the UK Foreign Office, the CIA, the US State department and Britannica demanding they change their pages as they are gravely insulting some portion of Irishmen? Just because it is easy to change something on Wikipedia doesn't mean we should bow to everyone who dissents from what is believed to be a common interpretation and "being bold", while a useful guideline in most cases, can and has regrettably been used by people who are trying to impose their POV on an article. Is your group of friends really a more credible and unbiased source for determining this than the sources I gave? And what on earth does the IRA bombing Manchester have to do with this? --Scipius 18:56 Nov 17, 2002 (UTC)

Two major problems here: 1) "Republic of Ireland" does not appear to be an official title of this country. According to the Factbook there is no conventional long form for the title of this nation. That leaves us with only Ireland. 2) It is the responsibility of the person making a disambiguation page to fix all misdirected links.

Therefore that leaves us with the ugly Ireland (republic) for disambiguation (which I don't like but could live with). But the country is commonly called "Republic of Ireland" to distinguish between Northern Ireland and the Island. I would like to know just who uses this type of disambiguation and why. It could very well show a POV in favor or Northern Ireland (which is bad). If this is a POV-based disambiguation then we can't use it and must return this article to simply Ireland or Ireland (republic). If this article is not returned to Ireland then the person who did the move is responsible for fixing all the links the the non-article disambiguation page (or at least write a decent stub about the Island and its geography with a prominent mention that a republic called Ireland is on the island along with Northern Ireland). --mav 19:23 Nov 17, 2002 (UTC)

mav - there are indeed a lot of links pointing to the disamb page at Ireland - however, something had to be done about this article being there, because many of those links were referring to things before the Republic even existed, and this article, however you look at it, is about the Republic, and not about the island. "Ireland" is the official name for the southern five-sixths of the island now, but it hasn't always been so. So I think this article is in the right place (although I could live with Ireland (republic)), but Ireland should contain what Island of Ireland currently has (plus a lot more, of course) rather than being a disambiguation page. That's the short version of my long thesis below - I got a bit carried away... --Camembert

Scipius: I'm aware that "Ireland" is frequently used to mean the Republic, and, OK, maybe I'm overdoing it a bit by saying that N.Ireland is referred to as "Ireland" just as often. However, I do stand by the assertion that the entire island is referred to as "Ireland" just as often - you have to remember that the Republic is a relatively new political entity, and the history of Ireland (the island) goes back far further than the history of the republic. If you're talking about Jonathan Swift, for example, you're going to say that he was from Ireland - you don't mean the republic in that case, the republic didn't even exist as it does now.

Besides China, we have articles like India or Greece or Egypt where we find a normal article on a modern country that in its history goes far beyond what the present day country resembles. The Republic is the primary inheritor of the history of the island of Ireland, much like e.g. India-the-country is the main inheritor of India-the-subcontinent, and as such would "deserve" the main article "Ireland", because that's the way we treat other cultures.

Now, ordinarily, context will make it clear what you mean when you say "Ireland" - if you say it in relation to Swift, then, as I say, you must mean the island, not the republic. If, on the other hand, you say "Ireland and France are in talks about the trade of carrots", then its clear you're talking about the republic. Those BBC, CIA and other sources you cite do have a kind of context in this way, which makes it unnecessary to call the country anything other than simply "Ireland" - the CIA Factbook, for instance, is a gazeteer of current countries, so it must be referring to the republic. However, here at the wikipedia, we have no such context.

I would wager that a large majority of links on Wikipedia that point to "Ireland" refer to either the modern Republic or to a location on the island that is now within it. I believe that even on Wikipedia "Ireland" is primarily a country, and should have the article "Ireland" (as Britannica has BTW, a full encyclopedia).

If you want to bandy around third party sources, then here are some I picked up from xrefer.com - all are from the opening of the articles: "Ireland: an island of the British Isles, lying west of Great Britain" (Oxford English Reference Dictionary); "Ireland: The second largest island in the British Isles ... Since 1920 Ireland has been politically divided, the NE part forming Northern Ireland in the UK and the remainder comprising the Republic of Ireland." (Macmillan Encyclopaedia); "Ireland: An island of Western Europe" (Oxford Companion to the English Language); "Ireland: an island of the British Isles, lying west of Great Britain" (Oxford Paperback Encyclopaedia).

The OED is a dictionary, and as it befits a dictionary it gives the various interpretations all together. Wikipedia is not a dictionary and currently the page Ireland looks very much like a dictionary article. We are an encyclopedia and the article should contain the topic most people would expect to find there.

Some of these then go on to talk about the country as well, but our article talks exclusively about the country. If our article was more like those, then Ireland would be a decent enough place to put it, but it clearly isn't like those. It gives a lot of information specific to the republic and hardly any relevent to the whole of the island. To put it at "Ireland" would be perverse.

I take it this is the reason why no-one complained about the pre-template version of "Ireland", which contained info on both. The problem here is that we have started a WikiProject Countries that will create a uniform template for all countries of the world. This template is fairly strict in that it is sectioned into various topics that do not readily allow for what you want here, nor should we do so if it could since the page would quickly become too big with both topics. However, it is very far from "perverse", as we have a note right at the beginning of the page that directs to the other concept. It is likely the first thing people read and so any ambiguity would be only minimal. I think a link to the island and NI articles at the top makes it sufficiently clear that we recognise there are other concepts of Ireland, like we do for China.

There are two articles on xrefer which talk exclusively about the Republic as we do here; they are both called "Republic of Ireland" - they are from the Oxford English Reference Dictionary, and the Oxford Paperback Encyclopaedia. Unfortunately, I don't have reference to any Irish sources (at least not right now), so I don't know how they'd handle the issue. It'd be interesting to know.

As I said, the Irish constitution defines the country name in English as "Ireland". I would be very much surprised if they did not generally refer to themselves as "Ireland", except for certain diplomatic cases of course (read: Northern Ireland related).

Now, all that said, I do agree that a disambiguation page at Ireland is not very satisfactory, so let me make an alternative proposition: Ireland will be an article about the history of the island, and the culture of pre-Republic Ireland (as Island of Ireland is now). It will have a disambiguation block at the top to Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland (or, if it's preferred Ireland (republic)), and will make it clear at the outset that Ireland is now divided in two, and there is political dispute over the matter. However, it will not provide detailed demographic info, and detail of the governmental structure of the Republic - that will remain here, as it is now. It will, in short, be more like those articles at xrefer or our own article at History of Ireland (which could probably redirect there). What do people think?

As you can probably guess, I would be against ;). Mainly because we would be making an unnecessary exception for Ireland that goes against our "most common" naming policy. But it could also complicate the template by spreading info over two different political entities, though that depends on what the changes are. However, if the change is to be permanent, then the two pages should be Ireland (country) and Ireland (island), because both are primarily known as "Ireland" so that should go first, and (country) because (republic) is too specific and there is no other state called "Ireland".

I am prepared to do all the required work to put this plan into action, by the way, but I don't want to do it and then have people say "why have you done this? this is wrong". So I'm not touching it for the time being. --Camembert 20:31 Nov 17, 2002 (UTC)

If the consensus goes against my argument, then you can be assured I won't protest it further. But there is no telling when this topic may be brought up again. I take it none of us is from the Republic, but I can imagine that we could have this debate all over again when someone from that country disagrees with the exception we're making, and we can't really claim that the naming is based on policy.

I think what you have suggested is a good compromise. I had been planning something similar myself, but as soon as I started moving pages about, all hell broke loose, and there did not seem much point to continue sorting the pages out. By the way, I have just re-read the Belfast Agreement on the website of (and I quote!) "The Irish State", and there is much mention of the "island of Ireland" as well as the "Republic of Ireland" and "Northern Ireland", not to mention a "united Ireland". I wish they would get on with it, then we would not have to wrestle with thi! :-)) Renata 21:08 Nov 17, 2002 (UTC)

That certainly would be the easiest solution ;) However, I am afraid that we may be acknowledging a primarily Northern Irish sentiment here by moving the Republic away from "Ireland", or that it at least can be seen as such by someone from the Republic. Regretably, your talk of "grave insults" and IRA bombings doesn't help in this regard. Again, I feel we are making an exception here, based primarily on the assumption that some group is being offended. The clincher for me is the UK Foreign Office link above. If the government of the Northern Irish doesn't have a problem naming the country "Ireland" (even calling it their "Full name"), then why should we? Also consider this: When Korea was split we got North and South Korea. Even in a case of unequal parts, we got West and East Germany. But we don't have Northern and Southern Ireland, we have Northern Ireland and Ireland. (Wrong, Scipius. The 1920 Better Govt of Ireland created a Northern AND Southern Ireland. The latter became the Irish Free State (1922), became Éirea (1937), became the Republic of Ireland (1949). JTD )
The Republic is the primary inheritor of the name "Ireland" and IMO is recognised as such by most anglophones (and other languages I would think) Though this understandably can be upsetting to Northern Irishmen, it's just the way the language has developed. Changing "Ireland" to a format we don't have for related cases makes it seem we could be appeasing a certain group and though most wouldn't have a problem with it (I don't have a fundamental problem with renaming this particular topic), it could open Wikipedia up to all sorts of similar debates. The only way to remedy this IMO is by sticking to the "most common" naming policy, since that is a neutral position to take. --Scipius 00:03 Nov 20, 2002 (UTC)

I'll try to put my case briefly, but I must admit there are other areas I'd rather be working on, so I'm probably going to let it drop after this.

First of all, I don't see this as something primarily of concern to N.Ireland residents, and I don't think it would be offensive or whatever to residents of the Republic to not call an article on their country "Ireland". You're right that I'm not Irish myself, but I have talked to a couple of Republic residents, and the impression I got from them is that they would expect an article on their country to be under a less ambiguous name than "Ireland", given that we are wanting to cover the island in a more general sense as well. If we put an article about the island at Ireland, I don't see how anybody could have anything to complain about, whatever side of the political divide they might be on.

The question of the Irish constitution fixing the country's name as "Ireland" is, I think, not quite as simple as it might appear. My understanding is that the name is fixed in the constitution as "Éire", and "Ireland" just gets used as an English language equivalent of that. The name "Ireland" does, apparently, feature in the constitution, but it isn't very clear whether it has the same official statue as "Éire", or even if it refers to the state or the island. The phrase "Republic of Ireland" is set in statute law (we have a little bit about this rather complex issue at Éire).

On the question of Britannica having its article under "Ireland" - I haven't looked it up, but I would guess that their article covers the history of the island before the division into Republic and Northern came about, as well as info on the Republic itself. As I said before, such an article would be fine to put at Ireland, but I think we agree that such an article would be too long. So we can't follow Britannica (of course, I may be wrong about the Britannica article - if I am, and their "Ireland" article is just about the Republic, then I think Britannica is wrong).

Now, as far as I can tell, you're now advocating that this page be moved to Ireland (country) and that we have another page at Ireland (island). This would presumably leave Ireland itself as a disambiguation page, which I think would be undesirable (although its certainly better than moving this article to Ireland). A lot of links point to Ireland at the moment, and it is reasonable to assume that people will continue to link there. Why not give them some info on the island when they get there?

Honestly, I can't see anything wrong with Ireland being a page about the island, with this page remaining where it is - I could just about live with this page being at Ireland (country) (though I'd prefer it not to be, because I still think that people say "Republic of Ireland" when being careful about referring to the country, not the island), but when we have such a good natural disambiguator with "Republic of Ireland", I don't see any need for it. Finally - I don't have much interest in the WikiProject template - those things are OK for importing info from the Factbook or some other source, but I strongly believe that we shouldn't feel compelled to stick to them as articles grow and evolve.

I hope all that makes some sort of sense. I haven't spent too long writing it, I must admit, but I have been thinking about this a fair bit. I'll look at what's going on here in a week or two, but until then, I'm leaving it in the hands of others. --Camembert

Well, I've been giving it some time too, but I remain of the opinion that we are unnecessarily making things difficult for ourselves. Our "most common" policy has another great benefit beside neutrality and that is usability. Most people, worldwide, would expect to find at the article "Ireland" that topic that they associate most with that name. For most non-Irish that would be the Republic IMO, as evidenced by the sources I gave. This is likely also the reason Britannica starts their article called "Ireland" with "country in Western Europe".
I just don't buy this Britannica thing. Britannica organises its info in a very different way to us. Its articles are far far longer - it has paragraphs longer than some of our longer articles. Maybe they start by saying its a country, but I'll bet they say it's an island very early on also, and I'll bet they cover the island, as well as the country, under the same heading. I find this comparison wholly unconvincing. --Camembert


Our article does this as well. Check out its definition paragraph and the history and geographics sections. If you want, you can expand it is a bit more. It's a pity none of us can apparently read the entire article, but since the very first words of the article involve the country, it would seem at the very least that Britannica has an article on "Ireland" that deals chiefly with the Republic. -Scipius 18:19 Dec 7, 2002 (UTC)
I'm not advocating we move it to the titles I suggested, just that should we decide we're making an exception for Ireland and not follow convention, then we should at least move the differing topics to these pages. What I'm advocating is that we move this article back to "Ireland". --Scipius 21:58 Dec 1, 2002 (UTC)
Could you please make clear what convention you think we wouldn't be following if we don't have this article at Ireland? I don't see any convention that would be contravened by that. The "most common" convention says "use the most common name where there is no ambiguity" (I paraphrase) - there is ambiguity here, so that wouldn't seem to apply. Furthermore, the most common name for the island is also "Ireland", so I can quite easily argue that an article on the island should be at that title. My point (or one of my points) is that in "Republic of Ireland" we have a great natural disambiguator, which can be linked to quite easily. It is a more precise name for the country, and one with official status, just like "Ireland". On the other hand, there is no more precise name for the island than "Ireland". --Camembert
Again, we use the "conventional short name" for the article title. The CIA Factbook lists these beside the official and long forms, but the short forms are of course well known usually. This is primarily done for simple usability; people can be assumed to be familiar with these names and would therefore expect the country article to be there. As for ambiguity, you'll have to admit that these two concepts of Ireland are not wholly different from one another, but are very intimately related. Therefore it would be best to use the present most-common meaning (that of the country) and deal with the lesser meanings in separate articles. Finally, we cannot use the title "Republic of Ireland", as we do not call any country by its full name. If we do move, it should be to Ireland (country).-Scipius 18:19 Dec 7, 2002 (UTC)

I have no wish to prolong this debate. So I'll just add a few small points as a historian, a political scientist and an Irish nationalist.

1. To use Ireland to describe the political entity that is the 'Republic of Ireland' is plain wrong, ludicrous, insensitive to the complexities of Irish politics and would undermine this encyclopaedia's reputation as a reliable source of information. 'Ireland' is a geographic entity, an island. It has two states, two constitutions, two civil administrations. Imagine how Portugal or Canada would react if the geographical terms 'Iberia' and 'America' were used to describe an entire landmass including them, but which were applied in a manner that really meant 'Spain' or 'The United States'. No credible publication would get away with that. This one can't do either.

Well, I'm assuming your letters to the BBC, the UK Foreign Office, the CIA, the US State department and Britannica are in the mail. Please let us know what they have to say on the matter. Fact is, most people worldwide unfamiliar to Irish politics refer to the Republic as "Ireland". While it's certainly true that in many cases the Irish cannot allow themselves such a generalisation, we are not an exclusively Irish encyclopedia. Again, we have to be usable encyclopedia if we ever want to be "credible".
As I have said before, the BBC, the Foreign Office, the CIA and the US State Dept are not comparable to our situation, because they do not have to also have pieces ("articles" if you like) about the island. There is no chance of people reading their material confusing the country with the island, because they know they are dealing with works which only concern themselves with countries. Britannica I have dealt with above - that comparison is also unconvincing. --Camembert

2. Referring to the fact that the Irish [republic's] constitution talks about 'Ireland' is irrelevant, because the gaelic version of the constitution takes precedence, and it names the state 'Éire'. DeV's analysis of what Ireland was is largely disowned by both parts of the island today, and was ditched from his constitution by a vote of the people and the Good Friday Agreement.

We are also an English encyclopedia (that is, this part of Wikipedia) and as such, if "Ireland" is the translation of "Éire", then it would seem acceptable to use that name as the title for the article on the country. It may not be the exact name of the country, but we do not use the exact names of countries for their article titles, we use their general, conventional English names. I realise you're new here, but this ties in to a whole debate we've had previously.
We also use the "general, conventional English names" for islands, so I don't see how your point strengthens your case. --Camembert

Therefore, a proper encyclopedia needs to feature definitions of the various names & descriptions applied to both parts of Ireland in the twentieth century; many had different constitutions, borders or status; [32 counties] Irish Republic (1919-22); [26 counties] Irish Free State (1922-37); Éire [new state replacing IFS 1937]; Republic of Ireland [Éire as a republic] (1949- ); Northern Ireland (1921- ), 'Ireland' doesn't clarify whether you mean north or south, republic or free state, 26 or 32 county. User:Jtdirl

You're absolutely correct that we could use articles on all of these and I've noticed you've been adding many excellent articles on Irish politics. Please continue to do so. Don't misunderstand me, there's nothing wrong with using "Republic of Ireland" within articles to refer to the country and I would say it's even highly desirable and necessary in articles on Irish politics, as it is for China related articles to differentiate between the PRC and the ROC. But there are also many articles that do not need to make this distinction, where "Ireland" is used as a simple synonym for the Republic.
There are many articles already that point to "Ireland" and there will be more in the future. Currently we only have a dictionary-like disamb page and I think we all agree "Ireland" is too popular a topic to remain at a disamb page, as it would harm our usability. If we put an article on just the island there, then people (likely the majority) who expect to find info on the Republic have to follow yet another link.
But one could just as well say: "if we put an article on just the country there, then people who expect to find info on the island have to follow yet another link". The thing is, if people expect to find info on the Republic, an article on the island will still be of interest to them. But if people want to find info about the island, then a page of info such as this article, with detailed demographic and governmental information, is not only useless, but also potentially misleading. --Camembert
Just what scope would an article on just the island have? Will it be strictly geographical? How much of it will be duplicated across the pages for the Republic and NI? This is why I advocate putting the Republic article on "Ireland", with a prominent link at the top to the other two instances of Ireland. --Scipius 21:58 Dec 1, 2002 (UTC)
The scope of an article on just the island would extend far beyond geography. There are hundreds and hundreds of years of Irish history to cover before we get to the division twixt north and south which we have now. There would, no doubt, be a small amount of duplication between articles; that will happen, whatever articles names we use. But it won't be much - the Republic article will cover everything specific to the Republic, the Northern article everything specific to NI, and Ireland will cover everything else. --Camembert

As such, I will move this page back to return to the status quo. If any of you wish to continue this debate, then I do feel we should do this at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countries, since this would effect all countries and I don't think we should be making exceptions based only on local political sensitivities. However valid they are, we are an international English encyclopedia and for the sake of usability we should use as title the name most international readers would associate with the Republic: Ireland. It's very well possible that we will decide at the WP Countries to return the Republic article to "Republic of Ireland", but until then we return to the way things were. --Scipius 21:58 Dec 1, 2002 (UTC)

I will move this page back to return to the status quo. This seems like a very odd turn of phrase to me. In what way is this the "status quo"? With all due respect Scipius, several people have spoken out against moving this page back to Ireland, and (forgive if I'm mistaken), I've not seen anybody other than you argue for it. As for where to discuss this: I don't see how this debate affects any other countries, to be honest, and would rather continue it here, as I have no interest in the WikiProject, and doubt that many people who care about where this page ends up do either (likely many people interested in the WikiProject much care about the Ireland page, either).
I really don't like the page being moved back, I think it's a very bad thing. I will probably work on the island of Ireland page, try and pad it out, and maybe that will convince you that my solution is the better one. I live in hope. --Camembert
It's the status quo in that we should never make changes that can considered controversial without some discussion. Also, many links point to "Ireland" and they can't be changed until this is resolved, therefore it is better we have actually have a usable article at its place. I appear to be the only one currently actively involved with the WikiProject Countries, but that doesn't mean I or the project don't matter; the idea is to create actual usable articles rather than stubs for topics that are very significant. The previous pre-template article on Ireland (which contained only geographical info on the island beside slightly more extensive info on the country) became an impossibility because we had to greatly expand the country info, pushing the strict island info to another page.-Scipius 18:19 Dec 7, 2002 (UTC)

What do you suggest we do with links like this one from C. S. Lewis:

He was born in Belfast, Ireland?

It's incorrect as it stands, as Belfast is not in the Republic of Ireland, which is what Ireland currently describes. But saying Northern Ireland is not good either, as it suggests that he was born after partition. Thoughts? Matthew Woodcraft

It's probably best to move it to Belfast, Northern Ireland, as that is the current geopolitical situation and the place most people associate it with anyway. We appear to use the current names and country locations for cities (see many former German, now Polish towns) and references to them in articles can and often have a note giving their new or former name and location.
Larry's suggestion below could also work, as "Irish" denotes ethnicity more than strict nationality. Note however that currently our Irish article does not even mention Northern Ireland. Compare this with Chinese or Greek or German.-Scipius 18:19 Dec 7, 2002 (UTC)
How about: "He was born in the Irish city of Belfast," and let "Irish" link to whatever page we have about the island of Ireland. If we do not have a page about the island of Ireland, we should! --Larry Sanger
We do, it's Island of Ireland - I'd like for it to be simply "Ireland" and the republic page to be "Republic of Ireland", but I get the impression that Scipius disagrees... --Camembert

I(Camembert) am going to try and sum up Scipius' main reasons for wanting this page at Ireland rather than some other page, and briefly respond to each in turn (expanded versions can probably be dragged out of the above). If I'm misrepresenting you, Scipius, please put me straight. I feel this discussion is getting a bit out of hand, and a summary might be useful:

1. A disambiguation page is undesirable: the Ireland page has many links pointing to it. It is likely that more links will be made to it in the future. Therefore, a disambiguation page at that location is undesirable.

My response: I agree. But Ireland should be about the island, not the country.
LMS's $0.02: I don't have a clear view on this but I don't see anything terribly wrong with a disambiguation page. If people are making articles that point to "Ireland," they might not have thought about whether they mean the island (and everything on it of course) or the Republic.
I think the consensus here is that a pure dictionary like disamb page is not wanted, since the name "Ireland" is reasonably accurate in many contexts. Compare with something like America, which is too general to point to any one topic. We should really avoid a simple unusable disamb page in this case. We only disagree on what the main concept of "Ireland" is.-Scipius 18:19 Dec 7, 2002 (UTC)

2. The naming convention: The most common name for the country which makes up most of this island is "Ireland". Therefore, following the "use the most common name" convention, the article on the country should be called "Ireland".

My response: The policy applies only when there is no ambiguity attached to the name; but there is ambiguity in this case: the most common name for the island is also "Ireland".
LMS's $0.02: In many contexts when one refers to "Ireland" it's understood what is meant--either the Republic or the island. But in speaking about Irish traditional music, as I do a lot (since I play it and teach it), I'm never aware of using "Ireland" or "Irish" to mean just the Republic. That would be silly. The point is, the common name convention seems silent in this case, because, though people might indeed use "Ireland" for the political unit, that's because it's usually clear what they mean. If it's important that they distinguish the Republic from Northern Ireland, they will use "the Republic" or "the south" etc.
I would say there's a difference between "Ireland" and "Irish". Again, look at the larger picture; a Chinese is not necessarily someone from the PRC. Ethnicity is not wholly the same as nationality, but as is the case for China, and cases like Indian, Greek, Egyptian or German, where the present country does not wholly cover the entire culture and history, we do point to the present country. I fail to see why Ireland would be an exception. The Republic, whether we like the consequences it has had or not, is by far the most dominant part of the older "nation of Ireland", and therefore its primary successor, just like the above cases are of their respective cultures. Naturally the island is also called Ireland, but is a lesser meaning, especially as so far Wikipedia has only treated it as a purely geographical entitiy. -Scipius 18:19 Dec 7, 2002 (UTC)

3. User expectation: Most people would expect an article called "Ireland" to be about the country, not the island.

My response: I'm not convinced this is true, but even if it is, I think the number of people who would expect an article on the island is significant enough that we can't just ignore them. Furthermore, an article about the island is useful to somebody seeking info about the Republic, but an article specifically about the republic, which contains little or no info about the island on the whole, is both useless and misleading (for example, talking about "The President of Ireland" could be rather misleading).
LMS's $0.02: I'm also not convinced this is true. The history of Ireland, for example, certainly is not the history of the Republic of Ireland. The Irish language, for example, is not a language that necessarily is spoken only in the Republic and even though it is far more prevalent in the Republic, that doesn't make it any less Irish, period. Irish literature, music, and culture generally, for example, is definitely not restricted to the Republic. Remember, when people refer to "Ireland" meaning "the island of Ireland" they don't just mean the geographical entity, they mean that plus everything that's on it and has gone on on it for millennia.
Of course the history of Ireland is also the history of the Republic. How else could one understand what the country is about? I fully realise that when people refer to "Ireland" it can often be to a vague mixture of the country and the island (see the archive), but the point is that the Republic is the primary inheritor of that concept and IMO to most people the two are nearly the same in a general context.
If you want to argue that country histories should only deal with the history of the current state, then that is possible, but it will require a great deal of changes across the whole of Wikipedia. -Scipius 18:19 Dec 7, 2002 (UTC)

4. It's what other sources do: The BBC, the US and UK governments, the CIA World Factbook and the Encyclopaedia Britannica all call the country simply "Ireland".

My response: the specific examples you cited above to demonstrate this are from very different sources of information to the wikipedia, and cannot be usefully compared to it. They call the country "Ireland" in contexts where there can be no confusion over whether the island or the country is meant. In cases where such confusion may arise, they will use a more specific name. We should do this also.
LMS's $0.02: I'm skeptical as well. In what contexts do they call the country simply "Ireland"? --Larry Sanger
You can find all the links to the relevant pages in the archive above. The UKFO, CIA and State dep. use "Ireland" troughout their articles to refer to the country. The BBC is more than just a country listing of course, but generally does use "Ireland" as the country name, though their audience of course makes it necessary for them to disamb when dealing with Irish matters. Even then though they often call it just "Ireland" or "the Republic" and not only "Republic of Ireland". In short, they consider "Ireland" to be an accurate enough name for the country and disamb only when dealing with local matters in articles where confusion might be immediate, as should we. -Scipius 18:19 Dec 7, 2002 (UTC)

In my view, having the Ireland article about the island, and the country at Republic of Ireland is the right thing to do. Hopefully, the above makes it clear why I think this. I hope that if I've got your views wrong, Scipius, you'll put me right. And of course, if anybody else wants to chip in, they should do so. Finally, I'm fully prepared to be convinced that I am wrong on this, but I don't feel convinced yet. --Camembert

Scipius & Co: Interesting Fact No1: One top US encyclopedia is so unreliable on 'Ireland' its CD-ROM version plays the wrong anthem. Fact No 2: The UK and the Republic spent 50 years disputing the relative merits of titles Éire, Republic of Ireland, Irish Republic and United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. (I've put or am putting entries in for all of these to clarify which means what to whom. JTD

I've followed this discussion with great interest since I did the disamb page and renaming. Having weighed each argument and having spoken to Irish friends again, I still feel I was right in creating the disamb. It's the safer option. And it's not so much about "not offending" anyone, but about historical and poitical accuracy which I thought is what Wikipedians are striving for? I live in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, but my personal sympathies lie with the nationalist cause. But a united Ireland seems a long way down the road, and a lot more blood may have to be shed to bring it about. Renata 09:23 Dec 3, 2002 (UTC)

Again, some concessions to usability have to be made. In fact, I have in the past argued in favour of accuracy, but unsuccesfully. Wikipedia does not appear to use accurate names unless the common name is wholly inaccurate. Why would Ireland be an exception? -Scipius 18:19 Dec 7, 2002 (UTC)

I look forward to seeing the article on the Netherlands being renamed to Holland in line with Scipius policy of not deviating by one iota from Wikiproject policies even when everyone apart from himself seems to think that it would make good sense to do so. -- Derek Ross

I was waiting for someone to bring that up ;) The truth is of course that the two cases are dissimilar. First, it's no longer apparent that "Holland" is more common than "Netherlands". Search Google for the two terms for instance. There is a difference between a conventional name and a colloquial one. Secondly, Holland and the Netherlands are two unequal topics, though related. It is identical to calling the United Kingdom "England". -Scipius 18:19 Dec 7, 2002 (UTC)
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