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Gaeilgeoir

I've created the above basic article, and would like some input. Also, could some nice person remind me how to make a category for it? Fergananim (talk) 12:51, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

This article is total OR (the list part), it should be nominated for deletion. Snappy (talk) 17:54, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

What is the real name of Ireland?

Famously, Shakespeare's Irish character in "Henry V", Captain MacMorris, asked "What ish my nation?" I sometimes feel the same way.

It may or may not help conversations about the name of Ireland to have as a resource, here, for the record, my attempt last year to have the Irish government pronounce on the matter. I e-mailed the Protocol Section of the Department of the Taoiseach:

From: Odea
Subject: 1937 Constitution, or 1948 Act?
To: protocol@taoiseach.gov.ie
Date: Thursday, 13 May, 2010, 10:38

Dear Sir or Madam,

Although I am Irish I find myself suddenly confused about the formal name of the country in English.

Heretofore, I have argued, per Article 4 of the 1937 Constitution, that "The name of the State is Éire, or, in the English language, Ireland." I have always maintained that the "Republic of Ireland" was simply a name for the football team invented by the world football authority, FIFA, to distinguish us from Northern Ireland.

However, today I read Article 2 of The Republic of Ireland Act, 1948 which says, "It is hereby declared that the description of the State shall be the Republic of Ireland."

I see no evidence that the Constitution was amended to reflect the name promulgated by the 1948 Act. So what is the official name of the country, in English: Ireland, or the Republic of Ireland? One may point to the newer 1948 Act, but does not the Constitution stand above the law, as final arbiter? There has been no referendum to change the definitive constitutional name.

If the 1948 statement is to have Constitutional force, does not Article 4 of the Constitution require amendment? This situation seems to me to be a kind of legal deadlock arising from the failure to amend the Constitution in line with the

Act. What are your thoughts?

I received the following reply:

From: Protocol@taoiseach.gov.ie
Subject: Re: 1937 Constitution, or 1948 Act?
To: "Odea"
Date: Thursday, 3 June, 2010, 7:31

Dear Odea

I refer to your email below and apologise for the delay in responding to you.

Article 4 of the Constitution provides "The name of the State is Éire, or, in the English language, Ireland". Section 2 of the Republic of Ireland Act 1948 provides "It is hereby declared that the description of the state shall be the Republic of Ireland". The official name of the State is Ireland or Éire but the State may be described as the Republic of Ireland. The 1948 Act does not change the official name of the State. Such a chance [sic] would not be possible without an amendment to the Constitution.

I hope this information is of assistance to you.

This is interesting and perhaps a little bit subtle, but I interpret it to mean that the name of the country is Ireland but that it may be described as the Republic of Ireland (my emphasis). The Protocol Section also stated clearly, "The 1948 Act does not change the official name of the State." The Constitution is definitive while the 1948 Act is merely descriptive. So, "the Republic of Ireland" has an optional and non-binding quality to it, but the official name is obligatory, and it is "Ireland", as Article 4 of the Constitution insists quite clearly. In conclusion, I quote the Department of the Taoiseach: "I hope this information is of assistance to you." — O'Dea (talk) 01:32, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

I don't see that that email tells us anything that we didn't know before, or that hasn't been stated endlessly in the "naming dispute". I have some issues with the interpretation, though. "A little bit subtle"? Hardly! It's as straightforward as can be. "The official name is obligatory"? What is the penalty for speaking of the country and failing to use the name "Ireland" - a fine or a prison sentence? Is the penalty the same for using the name "Ireland" when speaking in a language other than English? The 1948 Act is not "descriptive", it merely contains the word "description". Nor does it have "an optional and non-binding quality to it": it's a statute like any other. And even if "Republic of Ireland" has an "optional quality" to it, and Wikipedia "opts" to use it, so what? Scolaire (talk) 19:59, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Well, the big "so what" is the underlying "why". For me, the arguments to use the official British legal name don't stack up (as per UK 1949 Ireland act). What's with that? --HighKing (talk) 15:41, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

HighKing, what point are you making? It's not clear to me. What is the official British legal name, and what does it matter, anyway, since British legislation cannot define the name of another nation? I am sure Britain has no interest in naming Ireland; they have enough to worry about. — O'Dea (talk) 18:46, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

The point I'm making is that under UK legislation, the official name of the state is "Republic of Ireland". You say British legislation cannot define the name of another nation? Well go and read the 1949 act - they did. So for me, while I'm happy to acknowledge and accept that some sort of disambiguation is required between the island and the state, It's grossly wrong that we're using the official British name of the state as the article title (especially given the history of the "naming" disagreements between the two states for the past 90 years), thereby propagating on Wikipedia the nonsense that "Republic of Ireland" is fine as a name, and not just for disambiguation. In fact, I'd be happy to have the article on the state at *any* other title (within reason), and continue to use "Republic of Ireland" to dab in articles. --HighKing (talk) 11:40, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

firstly nothing new has been revealed to us with the response to odea and secondly what use does it serve us? We already know what the constitution says and emails cant be used as sources as its original research instigated by an editor. Mabuska ^(talk) 16:38, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

I realise perfectly well that my contribution is original research, nevertheless, it is useful as a government department statement on the matter, to emphasize the reality of the name of the country, which has been disputed, almost literally, ad nauseam (I find the wrangling nauseating, anyway). Where there is one state name in the constitution and another in a government Act, an official statement of resolution can bring clarity to a potentially confusing reality. If anyone wants to confirm for himself the State position on the matter, he is free to e-mail the government as I did. The e-mail address is above. — O'Dea (talk) 18:37, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

there is one state name in the constitution and another in a government Act - no. This is wrong. --HighKing (talk) 11:44, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Does the Republic of Ireland article not made it clear anyways in the opening sentence? Though obviously certain editors campaigned hard to ensure officially was omitted. Mabuska ^(talk) 11:45, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

No, the opening sentence is a model of unnecessary confusion that muddies rather than clarifies things for the uninitiated (think of the interested reader in Bolivia). In an article entitled "Republic of Ireland", the initial bold headword is actually "Ireland", not "Republic of Ireland" (contradiction there), and the sentence continues, "described as the Republic of Ireland" which suggests that the latter is the official name. It is a pig's mickey of an introduction. It is explained in the following section called Name, but the opening sentence is as twisted as the aforementioned organ. — O'Dea (talk) 20:21, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Agree. --HighKing (talk) 11:44, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

"It is a pig's mickey of an introduction." It's a pigs micky of a situation further confused by changes in statute and constitutional law, as well as common practice both at home and abroad, over time. I rewrote the Name section to clear thing sup but didn't dare touch the introduction. I thought it was too much of a hot potato. Part of the chilling effect this issue has fostered.

I am happy that renewed discussion here and on WP:IECOLL have been cordial and focused on the project. Rather than re-hashing the debate over whether to rename the Ireland and Republic of Ireland articles, maybe we should agree to keep that issue to one side and put our energies into improving the current situation and the (ill) feelings between editors over this issue? --RA (talk) 13:13, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

I adjusted the explanation of the name for clarity by changing this text,

The term Republic of Ireland (Poblacht na hÉireann) is derived under Irish law from the Republic of Ireland Act 1948...

to this,

The term Republic of Ireland (Poblacht na hÉireann) is a description of the state but not its official name, and is derived under Irish law from the Republic of Ireland Act 1948...

I left the opening sentence alone for now because modifying that would be like igniting a keg of gunpowder. — O'Dea (talk) 16:06, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Always a nation

With thanks to the above redoubtable Odea and the good Captain MacMorris (surely originally a Prendergast?), I draw attention to the fact that, though we may have been without a soverign, independent state or country for much of our existence, we (the Irish people) have always been a nation:

• Broadly speaking a nation may refer to a community of people who share a common territory and government; and who often share a common language, race, descent, and/or history.[1] It can also refer to the inhabitants of a sovereign state irrespective of their ethnic make-up.[2][3] In worldwide diplomacy, nation can refer to a country or sovereign state.[1]

Which rather puts paid to the Wolfe Tones confused notion that we are (will be?) a nation once again ... But I digress. Fergananim (talk) 06:38, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

WP:NOTAFORUM and WP:SOAPBOX spring to mind here. Mabuska ^(talk) 16:31, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

A nation? says Bloom. A nation is the same people living in the same place. — from Ulysses, James Joyce. — O'Dea (talk) 18:53, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

A Prendergast, Fergananim? — O'Dea (talk) 18:49, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Surely MacMorris could mean son of any Morris, not necessarily Maurice de Prendergast? Opera hat (talk) 18:56, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Usher - my own research indicates that the {Mac}Morris family of Connaught, and the FitzGeralds of Mayo, are indeed descendants of that most chivilric of knights, Maurice de Prendergast. I cannot answer for Morris's elsewhere in Ireland. Fergananim (talk) 00:16, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

The last time I spoke to the Mayo-Prendergast branch of my family was at a funeral where the talk (following my inquiry) was about the Apollo astronaut they're related to. "What's he like?" I wanted to know. A sound man, by all accounts. They have never talked about Mossy Prendergast in my hearing, however. — O'Dea (talk) 17:55, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Lads, this is not a chat room. Can you swap email addresses or something? Scolaire (talk) 20:45, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Infobox bot issues

This edit tells the story of the editing trail taken by SelketBot as it has suddenly moved to replace all instances of "Infobox place Ireland". As I was doing a thorough audit of each Irish settlement article prior to last night, the editor Plasticspork spotted this and left me the note: "Unfortunately, the bot made many many errors, since it was not supervised. I have been doing my best to check them all for obvious errors (see this list), but since you were doing such a great job, I thought I would see if you were interested in checking them as well."

The most obvious issue left which requires attention is that the bot indiscriminately calls each place "Town" without regard to what it actually is. Plasticspork is writing a follow-behind bot to repair some of the other damages, but the settlement type needs to be checked manually. Will members of this project please keep an eye on these edits made by SelketBot? Thanks – Sswonk (talk) 15:19, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Confused...

Please see Saoirse - a disambiguation page. Clicking on the talk page link brings you to Talk:Saoirse Irish Freedom - which is the talk page for an article on the newspaper. To correct this, do I just delete the redirect? Or does something need to be moved? Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 20:38, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

I've changed the talk page to use the {DisambigProj} template. Snappy (talk) 20:45, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 22:26, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

MV Saoirse

The article on the MV Saoirse is attracting quite some non-Irish interest, for a small article on a small Irish ship. Could possibly do with adding to some watchlists. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 13:15, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

RfC notification

A new discussion on wording changes to the current guideline to clarify the use of diacritics for subjects whose native names contain them has been initiated. It can be found at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English)/Diacritics RfC Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 08:38, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

'To do' section of IWNB

The page Wikipedia:Irish Wikipedians' notice board/to do, which updates the "to do" section of IWNB, has only been updated very infrequently. Further, if any work has been done on any of these, they have not been struck through, so there is no way of knowing if they are still to do or not. Some articles, e.g. DS&ER, Irish railway clearing house, Patrick Galvin "(author of the Raggy Boy books recently filmed)", Wanderly Wagon, East Point Business Park, Leaving Certificate and The Late Late Show "- dePOVing needed", have been on the list since September 2004, the month it was created! Seven items have been added in the last twelve months, viz.:

• GoCar
• GoCar (not a typo, it's there twice)
• Gaeltacht quarter - this is a redirect to Neo-Gaeltacht
• Illicit drug use in Ireland
• Motorway service areas of Ireland
• Four Star Pizza
• John Rocha (fashion designer)

The thing is, if you look at these seven on their own, they don't really look like the seven most pressing Ireland-related issues on Wikipedia, do they? But after twelve months, any or all of the others might have reached FA by now for all we know. Though I suspect they haven't, because I suspect nobody even looks at the list any more. I recommend that the entire list should be purged and, if somebody is willing to put in the time, a more realistic to-do list be substituted, to be updated if and when articles are tackled. Scolaire (talk) 12:57, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Two weeks and no objections. I have purged the list. Scolaire (talk) 17:34, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Proposed moves on several articles relating to Ireland's foreign relations

There is currently a centralised discussion at Talk:Denmark – Republic of Ireland relations that could probably do with input from more editors. RashersTierney (talk) 19:42, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Bonfire Night move discussions

You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Bonfire Night (disambiguation)#Requested move. Trevj (talk) 23:33, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Bonfire Night#Requested move. Trevj (talk) 23:33, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Two strange articles! I've never heard the term "Bonfire Night" used in Ireland, but maybe it is in some places. Scolaire (talk) 08:17, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

All down the west coast of Ireland (at the very least). Come up to Sligo some post-summer solstice and you'll see plenty of them. ^Mac Tíre _Cowag 10:45, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

I've seen plenty of bonfires in the east. I'm wondering which night of the year is called "Bonfire Night" in Sligo. Scolaire (talk) 11:24, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

23rd June. Though usually kids like to set bonfires on the nights leading up to it too.^Mac Tíre _Cowag 11:50, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Cool! I've learned something, then. Scolaire (talk) 15:19, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

May Eve in Limerick and yup, Bonfire Night was the usual name. Not sure if it's as big as it was in my youth but still going... (err, the tradition, not the fires :). Not that I ever got to go to one.... damn my sheltered childhood! :) FlowerpotmaN·(t) 19:03, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

I thought Bonfire Night was the eleventh of July ;) WikiuserNI (talk) 00:14, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Only one of many WikiuserNI :) ^Mac Tíre _Cowag 06:26, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

In Leinster we have bonfires on Hallowe'en and/or Guy Fawkes, but it is all about fireworks from Newry, getting rid of old mattresses and tractor tyres, and testing the neighbour's new batch of poitin against the night chill; nothing at all to do with politics or religion.Red Hurley (talk) 13:26, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

New county intros.

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

I have a couple of points, the first I am raising because I have a genuine concern regarding the wording. The second is a modified repost of a comment I left at the talkpage of User:Laurel Lodged (talk · contribs) but which I feel requires attention:
1) "Kildare County Council is the local authority administrative area that now covers the county." Since when do boards, organisations, etc. now constitute geographic areas? It is a council after all?
2) If these county articles are referring to the former administrative areas then a lot of information in, and related to, the counties needs to be changed.

i) The Co. Co. crests can no longer be permitted and so must be removed as they now no longer refer to the same administrative unit (apart from the fact that the crests, for the most part, lack the appropriate image tags - e.g. the Meath Co. Co. crest is a copyrighted image but it has been given the wrong licence tags in Commons, but that's a separate issue).

ii) Secondly, the websites need to be removed as they refer to the Co. Co. area and not the former administrative county.

iii) Also, each of the county towns need to be changed as those towns are no longer county towns of Co. Meath, Co. Longford, etc. as the counties don't exist (a town can not be a county town of a non-existent county - perhaps something along the lines of "Navan is the county town of Meath County Council and the former county town of County Meath" - they are, after all, two completely separate things.

iv) The information regarding population and area (km²/mi²) is not relevant to these county articles any more, as they now refer to historical entities - and those entities have never had the same area throughout their entire existence. Perhaps mention the area and population, but a specific point in time needs to be selected for this.

v) These county articles also mention "government type" and suggest they are governed by "county councils". However the lead states these "counties" no longer exist - you can not have a government type for something that does not exist. This must also go.

3) On a further point, may I ask as to why only those counties in the Republic of Ireland have had the lead changed while those counties in Northern Ireland have not, considering the areas in Northern Ireland have been entirely replaced with completely different boundaries (except Fermanagh which has only had minor alterations) while those of the Republic have only had a status change (except a minority which have been subdivided, and a further minority with minor boundary changes)? ^Mac Tíre _Cowag 21:41, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

I have given up following this rigamorle about the counties. I notice Laurel Lodged has made another set of large-scale changes across articles relating to this topic. What is the "Option 3" that these changes relate to? Where did the apparent discussion the preceeded these changes take place?

For my 2¢, I believe we should have three classes of articles:

1. 32 articles dealing with the traditional counties of Ireland (e.g. County Mayo) in a geographic and cultural sense
2. Articles dealing with the local authorities in the Republic of Ireland (e.g. Mayo County Council), including information about the areas under their jurisdiction as relevant
3. Articles dealing with the local authorities in Northern Ireland (e.g. Down District Council), including information about the areas under their jurisdiction as relevant

In many cases these will cover the same geographic area, however in other cases they will not (e.g. Cork city is in County Cork in a geographic and cultural sense but is not in the area administered by Cork County Council). In this case, I believe material relating to the local government should be removed from the "geographical/cultural" article to the "local authority" article.

With regards to arms, there is an argument that a geographic area such as County Mayo cannot bear arms, only an body such as Mayo County Council can. However, there is a strong tradition in Ireland of geographic areas having arms attributed to them e.g. the provinces. --RA (talk) 23:33, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Regarding the arms - the vast majority of the county councils had arms or logos redesigned. Take Meath for example. The previous arms for the traditional county was the same as the GAA arms - the high king seated on the Royal Tara throne. The current logo/crest/arms is a copyrighted image, yet here on wiki not only do we not have the proper licence and attribution given to it, but with the county article's downgrading it is now used on a page that it no longer belongs to. Other images that I have gone through have fair use rationales applied but no licence, or licences but no fair use rationales, and in some cases nothing whatsoever! ^Mac Tíre _Cowag 05:45, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure about "the vast majority" (certainly a lot did) - but definately your substantive point about fair-use rationale for in-copyright images is correct and is a very important thing for us to consider. --RA (talk) 07:38, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Regarding the crests/logos/arms, the following counties need to have them removed: Co. Cavan (incorrect arms used - wrong ratio), Co. Clare (©1986 Clare Co. Co. - refers to Council, not County), Co. Galway (arms are © Galway Co. Co. - refers to Council, not County - refers to the current administrative division, while the article refers to the entire county including Galway city), Co. Kerry (©1984 Kerry Co. Co., refers to Council, not County), Co. Kildare (arms refer to council, not county), Co. Kilkenny (arms refer to the council, not the county and refer to the current administrative division while the article refers to the entire county including Kilkenny city), Co. Laois (©1998 Laois Co. Co. - refers to Council, not County), Co. Leitrim (©1980 - refers to council, not county), Co. Limerick (© Limerick Co. Co. - refers to Council, not county - refers to the current administrative division, while the article refers to the entire county including Limerick City), Co. Longford (© Longford Co. Co. - refers to council, not county), Co. Meath (© Meath Co. Co. - refers to Council, not County), Co. Monaghan (©1984 Monaghan Co. Co. - refers to council, not county), Co. Offaly (©1983 Offaly Co. Co. - refers to Council, not County), Co. Sligo (refers to council, not county - refers to the current administrative division, while the article refers to the entire county - current arms of council adopted 1980, prior to that the arms of the Borough of Sligo were used), Co. Waterford (©1997 Waterford Co. Co. - refers to council, not county - refers to the current administrative division, while the article refers to the entire county including Waterford City - arms adopted 1997 prior to which the arms of the city were used), Co. Westmeath (©1969 - refers to council, not county). These are the problems regarding imagery used on the "traditional" counties as WP now stands. I have not gone into the details of the other divisions. However, having just read over some of the other divisions I did notice that the divisions in Dublin (Fingal, South Dublin, DLR) all begin with "X is an administrative county in the Republic of Ireland" while the traditional counties begin with "X is a former administrative county in the Republic of Ireland". There is a little bit of a problem here. I understand the whole discussion that was conducted previously, but the problem lies with the wording - we are now treating the "geographic" area of the Dublin-based areas as administrative divisions while we give the same distinction to elected representatives and their organizations outside of Dublin. (At least the last time I checked you can definitely say "Balbriggan is a town in Fingal", but you certainly would not say that "Slane is a town in Meath County Council" which is what the current wording now requires us to do).^Mac Tíre _Cowag 09:25, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Regarding the previous discussion - that can be found here. ^Mac Tíre _Cowag 14:56, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

I can't see anything in either the discussion MacTire linked to or any previous discussions that would justify the addition of that sentence to the lead of County Kildare, or any of the fiddling round that's being done on other articles. Those leads have been stable over time, and any edits that don't have an obvious consensus ought to be immediately reverted, pending proper discussion. Scolaire (talk) 16:55, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

I agree with RA's proposal above. We need three sets of articles each dealing with one entity:

• one set of 32 articles dealing solely with the traditional 32 counties
• one set dealing solely with the county councils and city councils (ROI)
• one set dealing solely with the district councils (NI).

~Asarlaí 17:23, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. --HighKing (talk) 18:01, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Loath as I am to say it, but I think we need a proper vote on the issue of the wording. The last "consensus" was so obfuscated by bickering over the RoI/Ireland piping issue that I feel many people (including myself) at the time simply switched off. We need to keep this as much in topic as possible. The concept of piping should be left as agreed upon in the IMOS. I agree with RA's proposal above but I fail to see how we can continue to state that an elected body is somehow a geographic entity (it would be akin to suggesting that Dáil Éireann is a geographic entity - after all, both are elected and both are responsible for the administration of their respective territories). The sentence "X County Council is the local authority administrative area..." just does not make sense. X County Council may be the local administrative authority, but it can not be the area too - that's not what the word council means in any stretch of the imagination (or at least the last time I checked the Meath County Manager didn't have any rivers running through him or mountains protruding from him)! ^Mac Tíre _Cowag 20:49, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

I think the key is to get our heads out of a space where we fret over the existential consequences of the 2001 Local Government Act. While under the 2001 act, Cork city ceased to be the largest settlement in the county of Cork, this is verifiably not the case. The apparent contradiction between the 2001 Act and other reliable sources can only be resolved if we accept that there is such a thing as a "county" according to the 2001 act and another things that is a "county" according other verifiable sources.

Thus, I would suggest wordings like the following:

County Cork (Irish: Contae Chorcaí) is one of the 32 traditional counties of Ireland and one of the 26 traditional counties of the Republic of Ireland. ... [Insert relevant stuff here.] ... Two local authorities are responsible for serving the county, Cork City Council is the local authority for Cork city with Cork County Council being responsible for all other parts of the county.

The article, I would suggest, should continue with geographical / cultural content about County Cork (the one that contains Cork city), whereas material to do with the local authority should be given in Cork County Council. --RA (talk) 21:10, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

The current wording of the county intros is seriously flawed and needs to be changed. Also, in what sense were the counties of Ireland abolished? I was looking at the Electoral (Amendment) Act 2009 recently and the Dáil Éireann constituencies are defined mostly in terms of counties:

"Mayo - The county of Mayo." The Act also uses electoral divisions in former Rural districts,

"Louth - The county of Louth; and, in the county of Meath, the electoral divisions of: Julianstown, St. Mary’s (part), in the former Rural District of Meath." Rural Districts were abolished in 1925, so hence the user of former in the Act but the Act does not refer to counties as former or former administrative counties, simply county of X.

Looking at the Local Government Act 2001:

Section 2 states: “administrative area” means an area which continues to stand established under section 10 for the purposes of local government and which is—

(a) a county in the case of a county council,

(b) a city in the case of a city council,

(c) a town in the case of a town council;.

In section 10.2: "The State continues to stand divided into local government areas to be known as counties and cities which are the areas set out in Parts 1 and 2, respectively, of Schedule 5." (Schedule 5 lists the 34 current Counties and Cities).

In section 11.2:

"(2) For each county or city set out in Schedule 5 there continues to stand established under this section a body for the purposes of local government and each such body is a local authority and each such county or city is its administrative area."

"(3) The local authorities referred to in subsection (2) are the primary units of local government and shall be known as—

(a) in the case of a county set out in Part 1 of Schedule 5, the name of such county followed by the words “County Council”, and

(b) in the case of a city set out in Part 2 of Schedule 5, the name of such city followed by the words “City Council”."

"(6) For the purposes of functions conferred on it by or under this or any other enactment—

(a) county council has jurisdiction throughout its administrative area except for such functions as are by law vested in any town council, the administrative area of which is situated in the county concerned, but without prejudice to section 70."

I'm not a legal person and correct me if I'm wrong but I think the acts says that the State is divided into local government areas (counties & cities), and for counties, these counties are the administrative area of the relevant County Council. So they still appear to exist in some legal sense. Snappy (talk) 21:46, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

That was indeed my entire point Snappy. The idea that the assembling body of people was somehow a geographic entity just seemed ridiculous to me. Regarding the wording in what you have placed here, I think it was section 11.2 (3) that caused the changing in the wording of the county articles. However, and correct me if I'm wrong, it states that "the local authorities...are the primary units of local government and shall be known as...the name of such county followed by the words "County Council"..." This, to me, suggests the name by which the administrative body should be known - not the administrative area. The local authorities here refers to the group of elected representatives, their offices and departments, their responsibilities, rights and duties, etc., but not the actual geography. Geography in the case of county/city councils is incidental and is simply a territorial delimiter placed on the geographic extent of those activities necessary for the fulfilment of the roles as outlined in the previous sentence.^Mac Tíre _Cowag 22:04, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Coincidentally, today's featured article is about Somerset, a county in England. Worth a read. Snappy (talk) 20:45, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Geographic is where a county is. Geographic is not what a county is. What is the function of a county? Is it to be a set of co-ordinates on a map? Webster's dictionary defines it as "one of the territorial divisions of England and Wales and formerly also of Scotland and Northern Ireland constituting the chief units for administrative, judicial, and political purposes". So it's clear that county is a twin: territory and administration. You can't have one without the other. While the above interpretation of 11.2(3) is correct, the corollary drawn from it is incorrect. Administration does not occur in the abstract; it occurs in a given geographic area. One cannot say that Mayo CoCo administers without saying where or what territory it administers. It administers the area formerly known as the "administrative county of Mayo". That entity no longer exists. Only Mayo CoCo exists. Prior to the "administrative county of Mayo" you had the County of Mayo and prior to that again you had tribal 'tuatha' and petty kingdoms. The territory always existed; only for a limited time was it the county of Mayo. The territory is now that part of Ireland that is under the jurisdiction of Mayo CoCo. It has no twilight zone existance apart from the CoCo. This is not so much an existential question as a definitional one. To try to separate the territory from the function of judicial and political administration is deny the very definition of "county". Absent judicial and political administration and what are you left with - a set of co-ordinates. Who would want to read about 53|54|N|9|15|W ? That's what Google maps is for. You don't need an encyclopedia for that. Laurel Lodged (talk) 22:59, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

And yet, I can "discover" County Tipperary despite there being no Tipperary County Council for over a century. Or is it an example of more cute hoorism that the Government will direct us to Citizens Information Centers in "County Dublin", knowing full well that there is no such place?

Laurel, you think about this matter both too much and too little. --RA (talk) 23:18, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

I think WP:COMMON has some applicability here too. And the fact that our national postal service still asks you to search for your local office by county, or that Government websites still list their offices by county shows that there is a separation between the administrative areas, and the common geographical regions. --HighKing (talk) 00:26, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

I think Laurel would have us believe that human beings are inhabited by other human beings, and that rivers, mountains, coastlines, etc. are now all features to be discovered in the human body. I'm afraid Laurel you are wrong. Read Section 2(a) "[an] “administrative area” means an area which continues to stand established under section 10 for the purposes of local government and which is...a county in the case of a county council." Do you see that? "[an] “administrative area” means an area which is...a county in the case of a county council". Apart from anything else, not one single piece of evidence has been put forward which suggests the Irish government has changed the meaning of the word "council" in the English language. A "council" is a body of people - it is NOT the territory over which they govern. That is analogous to saying that "Dublin is in the Oireachtas" simply because the Oireachtas governs Ireland and Dublin is in Ireland. Laurel states that we are trying to "deny the very definition of "county"". I would counter by saying he is denying the very definition of "council". Even in Irish the county councils themselves do not recognise his definition. Take Meath Co. Co. - In Irish the co. co. is rendered as "Comhairle Chontae na Mí" or in English the "Council of County Meath". This exact phrasing emphasises that county and council are two separate but related things. If it were to be a single non-divisible entity the Irish would be "Comhairle Contae na Mí", but it's not! This means, according to Laurel, that not only are there no geographic entities in Ireland any more, but that even the political divisions themselves don't recognise their own existence!!! ^Mac Tíre _Cowag 06:00, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

As an aside, by the same definition, there are no cities in Ireland - there are simply City Councils. Therefore Dublin is not a city - it's a City Council. So Kiltimagh is in Mayo County Council. Bective is in Meath County Council. Swords is in Fingal County Council and Cabra is in Dublin City Council. Trim, Navan, Ballina, Naas, etc. no longer exist and are instead Trim Town Council, Navan Town Council, Ballina Town Council, Naas Town Council! ^Mac Tíre _Cowag 06:16, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Further to the topic at hand. Meath Co. Co. describes the area as a "county" and not a "county council" in its "County Development Plan 2007-2013" (note: if the county no longer existed then already that is wrong and should read "County Council Development Plan"). In its 2013-2019 County Development Plan the Council "...[encourages] people to think about County Meath...". In the council's own tourism literature it describes "County Meath [as] Ireland's Heritage Capital". The Council also has information related to "Affordable Homes for sale across County Meath". I could go on. And that is only from Meath County Council's own website, never mind the websites of other County Councils or any other literature from said organisations. Laurel stated "Geographic is where a county is. Geographic is not what a county is. What is the function of a county?" Well function is not what a county is either. According to the Macmillan dictionary, a county is "a region that has its own local government in some countries such as the UK and US". In the case of Ireland this means a region that has its own local government (read: County Council). According to Collins, a county is "any of the administrative or geographic subdivisions of certain states, esp. any of the major units into which England and Wales are or have been divided for purposes of local government". As Laurel correctly stated, Merriam Webster gives "one of the territorial divisions of England and Wales and formerly also of Scotland and Northern Ireland constituting the chief units for administrative, judicial, and political purposes". All emphasis in those definitions is my own, but what can be observed from that is that a county is a territorial, or geographic, unit established for the purposes of administration and governance. In order to fulfil these responsibilities a County Council is established (Cambridge gives "an elected group of people which forms the government of a county" as the definition of County Council). For County, Cambridge gives "a political division of the UK or Ireland, forming the largest unit of local government, or the largest political division of a state in the US" and gives the following sentences as an example of usage: "A county usually consists of several towns and the rural areas which surround them." "Rutland used to be the smallest county in England, but in 1974 it became part of Leicestershire." In other words, a county is indeed established for governance, but then so is a country. If you want to describe Co. Meath as Meath County Council, then logic follows that you can describe Ireland (the state) as An tOireachtas, the Isle of Man may now be described as Tynwald. Dublin is no longer Dublin - it's Dublin City Council. Saint Petersburg is no longer Saint Petersburg, it's the "Legislative Assembly of Saint Petersburg". After all, a council is an assembly!!^Mac Tíre _Cowag 11:20, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

In 1975, in which county would you have found the town of Oakham - Rutland or Leicestershire? Laurel Lodged (talk) 11:33, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

You would have found it in Leicestershire, that British county governed by Leicestershire County Council. You would not have found it in Leicestershire County Council. What you are saying Laurel makes no sense. Answer me this - what is the longest river in Meath County Council - answer: a stupid question because you can not have a geographic feature in a social construct. You may also want to take a look at these: CSO 2011
In its background report the CSO mentions that "...the country is divided into 29 Counties and five Cities. In Dublin, four areas are identified separately, i.e. Dublin City and the three Administrative Counties of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, Fingal and South Dublin. Outside Dublin there are 26 administrative counties (North Tipperary and South Tipperary are separate counties for administrative purposes) and four Cities, i.e. Cork, Limerick, Waterford and Galway" (report here)
Welfare.ie (2011) also mentions administrative counties as well as services in County Meath, County Laois, etc.
Environ.ie (2008), the Department responsible for local government, even mentions County Donegal, and not Donegal County Council when referring to a location within the county, as it does with County Meath (2011), and reserves usage of X Co. Co. for the organisation responsible for the administration of County X. It NEVER uses X Co. Co. to refer to the history, culture, sporting traditions, people, demographics, sociology or geography of a county. ^Mac Tíre _Cowag 11:43, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

You are correct. In 1975, the town of Oakham was in the county of Leicestershire. You are also incorrect. It was still in the traditional county of Rutland. It was in both, when you use different definitions. If the question is, "In which county for the current purposes of local government is Oakham located?", then the answer is Leicestershire. If the question is, "In which former county used for the purposes of local government prior to 1974 was Oakham located?", then the answer is Rutland. The same is true for Clonmel. If the question is, "In which county for the current purposes of local government is Clonmel located?", then the answer is South Tipperary. If the question is, "In which former county used for the purposes of local government prior to 1838 was Clonmel located?", then the answer is Tipperary. During each period, the county (whether Rutland or Leicestershire) was a county. During each period, the county (whether Tipperary or South Tipperary) was a county. The problem is to align the county to the correct period. That's why it's correct to speak of Tipperary in the past tense (..."is a former administrative county of Ireland.) and why it is correct to speak of South Tipperary in the present tense (..."is an administrative county in Ireland"). I have never said that Mayo CoCo is the county; I would say that Mayo CoCo has jurisdiction over the area formerly known as the judicial county of Mayo less Ballaghaderreen and Edmondstown EDs, plus part of the judicial county of Galway (Ballinchala, Owenbrin EDs) plus part of the judicial county of Sligo (Ardnaree North, Ardnaree South Rural, Ardnaree South Urban EDs).Is that your understanding of Mayo? Or would you wish to leave those electoral districts of Sligo in Sligo and those electoral districts of Galway in Galway? Going back to the Oakham analogy, where, today, in your opinion, is Ballinchala? Is it in Mayo or Galway? Laurel Lodged (talk) 21:00, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

1) How does a council not constitute a geographical area? If they don't they how can they be represented on maps depicting boundaries etc.? 2) The county crests and county towns are still valid as they are still the crests and county towns of those former counties. The websites however i agree with. The govenrment type i agree with. 3) Northern Ireland is in a different country to the Republic. It doesn't suffer from the same problem as the Republic of Ireland, though NI county articles should state that for all intents and purposes they are former adminsitrative units.

Overall the ledes before Sarah777 instigated a new discussion to remove RoI unpiped were agreed to as a way of trying to solve the issue of former and modern administrative countries. But everything is trial and error and nothing is ever perfect.

On RA's proposal:

County Cork (Irish: Contae Chorcaí) is one of the 32 traditional counties of Ireland and one of the 26 traditional counties of the Republic of Ireland. ... [Insert relevant stuff here.] ... Two local authorities are responsible for serving the county, Cork City Council is the local authority for Cork city with Cork County Council being responsible for all other parts of the county.

I prefer words above numbers, but otherwise go for it if you can get consensus for having RoI unpiped. Mabuska ^(talk) 21:20, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

@ Laurel - Ballinchala is situated in County Mayo.(Mayo Library, MyHome.ie, Griffiths Valuation, National Archives of Ireland, Focal.ie). You have dodged pretty much every single point and question I have raised. I have provided references which state that counties such as Meath, Mayo, Monaghan, etc. are administrative counties. Can you please provide a reference which states otherwise? Until you answer the points I raised rather than simply argue with random "examples" and until you provide such a reference I will cease to discuss with you any further.

@ Mabuska - regarding 1) A council is not a geographic area. It administers a geographic area. It is the geographic area which is represented on maps, not the council itself. A council is a body of elected and unelected officials, representatives, employees, their responsibilities etc. and is entirely a social construct. A county is a geographic area over which responsibility for administration was formerly held by a count and now held, for the most part, by councils or other such bodies. 2) For the most part, county crests in the RoI were granted to the council and not the county. In these cases we can not use the crests to depict anything other than the county council.

As a final note, with the current wording we are stating that there are more types of administrative unit in Ireland than actually exists. For example, we are stating that "South Tipperary...is an administrative county in Ireland...[and that] South Tipperary County Council oversees the county as an independent local government area". Other counties don't get this treatment - for these counties it is stated that the administrative county does not exist and that the County Council is the local government area. There is a serious contradiction here considering Meath Co. Co. is legally equal to STipp Co. Co. I understand boundaries change, but that does not mean, for example, that HM Government is any less or more important than the government of San Marino - SM's boundaries have not changed since inception, whereas the UK's boundaries have. In other words, we are stating that, for administrative purposes, there are 25 county councils (Meath Co. Co., Mayo Co. Co., etc.), 5 administrative counties (South Tipperary, North Tipperary, Fingal, South Dublin, DLR) and 5 cities (Dublin, Waterford, Limerick, Cork, Galway). In reality however there are 30 county councils administering 30 administrative counties and 5 city councils administering 5 cities. ^Mac Tíre _Cowag 06:23, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

There are 30 administrative counties in Ireland? I thought it was your position that there were 32 in Ireland and just 26 in the Republic? Which is it? Anyway, your maths is a bit off - it's 24 + 2 + 3 = 29 (not 30). If you're attempting to say that there are 29 local government bodies in Ireland with jurisdiction over their respective areas (a.k.a. the county), then I would agree. I also agree that there are 5 local government bodies in Ireland called city councils with jurisdiction over their respective areas (a.k.a. the city). Unfortunately, Wikipedia has decreed that only 24 of these areas is entitled to call themselves a county in the article title. The remaining 2 + 3 must get by without the prefix of "County" in their article name. While entities that have been abolished (e.g. County Dublin) are allowed to retain the prefix, other entities (e.g. Fingal) on the same legal standing as the other 24, are not allowed to use the prefix. Does this seem right or just to you? Where's the consistency? If the territory of Meath is a county in virtue of the Local Government Act and the territory of Fingal is also a county by the same act, then why is Meath allowed the prefix while Fingal is not? To deny Fingal the prefix is to deny that it is a county. Laurel Lodged (talk) 21:12, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Addition is not my strong point! I have throughout the discussion adhered to the position that there are 32 traditional counties in Ireland (26 in RoI) and 29 administrative counties in RoI which are also supplemented with 5 cities. You said "If you're attempting to say that there are 29 local government bodies in Ireland with jurisdiction over their respective areas (a.k.a. the county), then I would agree. I also agree that there are 5 local government bodies in Ireland called city councils with jurisdiction over their respective areas (a.k.a. the city)." - well that is exactly what I was saying. But naming is a separate issue. Whether or not Fingal is known as Fingal, Co. Fingal, or Fingal Co. is a naming issue that is governed by WP:COMMONNAME. As far as I know, no one refers to it as County Fingal. It is simply Fingal. But that is common naming and in no way reflects the legal status of the county. Sure we have an article here called Republic of Ireland despite that entity's official name of Ireland, and France despite that entity's official name in English as the "French Republic". To deny Fingal the prefix is not, in my opinion, to deny that it is a county. Cumbria gets by quite well without a prefix, as does Sussex. But that issue is a separate, in my view, matter.^Mac Tíre _Cowag 21:44, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Laurel, Wikipedia is not the place for reasoning like the above. Doing so, we would very quickly say that 27 counties left the United Kingdom in 1922 and that there is no longer any such place as Country Down, County Fermanagh, etc.

Reliable sources say otherwise. Whether Dublin County Council — or Tipperary Country Council, or Armagh County Council, or any other such council — was abolished or not, reliable sources say that County Dublin, County Tipperary, County Armagh, etc. still exist as places — and that they are significant topics for Ireland. In fact, I would suggest that the primary significance of the counties of Ireland is today as places, regardless of their origins or original purpose, or the current arrangement of local government in Ireland, north and south.

You've had a fair run at this but your view is a fringe one at best (more likely, an an original view). The points you raise — about the origins and development of local government over time and that the 26/6 traditional "counties" of Ireland are no longer congruent with local government in Ireland — are important. They need to to be stated. But they need to be stated with due weight to reliable sources. --RA (talk) 22:05, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Straw poll

There seems to be fairly broad support for the suggestion above on how to re-organsise county-related articles: That proposal is that there would be:

• one set of 32 articles dealing solely with the traditional 32 counties
• one set dealing solely with the county councils and city councils in ROI
• one set dealing solely with the district councils in NI

The introduction to the set of 32 traditional county articles would be changed (as appropriate per article) so something like the following:

County Cork (Irish: Contae Chorcaí) is one of the thirty traditional counties of Ireland and one of the twenty-six traditional counties of the Republic of Ireland. ... [Insert relevant stuff here.] ... Two local authorities are responsible for serving the county, Cork City Council is the local authority for Cork city with Cork County Council being responsible for all other parts of the county.

Cities would presumable be handled similarly. --RA (talk) 22:05, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

• Support --RA (talk) 22:05, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
• Support ~Asarlaí 22:35, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

• Comment - this would leave substantial territorial divisions such as Fingal, STipp, etc. out though. We would obviously have articles about the county and city councils in the RoI and another set dealing with the district councils in NI. I would suggest we have the following:
• Newsflash The articles for the 3 sets above already exist. Plus it's missing a whole set - articles dealing with the non traditional counties (e.g. Fingal) Laurel Lodged (talk) 08:25, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes they alredy exist, but currently the 32 county articles deal with both the traditional counties and the county councils. ~Asarlaí 08:11, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

My own suggestion

Obviously the wording can be tweaked in these, but here are what I would suggest:

• Traditional counties with boundaries coterminous with those of administrative counties (19 in total - if my maths is correct):

County Meath (Irish: Contae na Mí) is one of the thirty-two traditional counties of Ireland, and one of the twenty-six traditional counties and twenty-nine administrative counties of the Republic of Ireland. ... [Insert relevant stuff here.] ... Meath County Council is the local authority responsible for serving the county.

• Traditional counties no longer used in any capacity for administrative purposes (2 - Co. Dublin, Co. Tipperary):

County Dublin (Irish: Contae Bhaile Átha Cliath) is one of the thirty-two traditional counties of Ireland, and one of the twenty-six traditional counties of the Republic of Ireland. ... [Insert relevant stuff here.] ... For local government purposes the county is divided into three administrative counties (Fingal, South Dublin, and Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown) and Dublin City.

• Traditional counties where the succeeding county council is still responsible for the majority of the traditional county (Co. Galway, Co. Limerick, Co. Waterford, Co. Cork):

County Cork (Irish: Contae Chorcaí) is one of the thirty-two traditional counties of Ireland and one of the twenty-six traditional counties of the Republic of Ireland. ... [Insert relevant stuff here.] ... Two local authorities are responsible for serving the county, Cork City Council is the local authority for Cork city with Cork County Council being responsible for all other parts of the county.

• Purely administrative counties (NTipp, STipp, Fingal, SDublin, DLR):

Fingal (Irish: Fine Gall) is one of the twenty-nine administrative counties of the Republic of Ireland, one of the three such counties formed from the former County Dublin in 1994.... [Insert relevant stuff here.] ... Fingal County Council is the local authority responsible for serving the county.

• Not a bad start. Don't have time to tweak it just now. But I think that the overall Counties of Ireland needs to make this fourfold division explicit. Each of the individual county articles also needs to make it explicit (perhaps in the lead of the History section of each article). Just to be technical, there are no administrative counties in Ireland. A synonym will have to be found for it to distinguish them from the 1898 entities that were explicitly devised as such (but which are now all abolished). (e.g. "non traditional", "modern") Laurel Lodged (talk) 08:33, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Regarding "there are no administrative counties in Ireland" - perhaps we should inform the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government, the Department of Social Protection and the Central Statistics Office then! If indeed this is the case then perhaps we could amend "is an administrative county" to "is a county council area"? As I already stated we can not say it is the council, but we can say it is a "council area". What do you think? ^Mac Tíre _Cowag 09:21, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Comment (Support) Sounds good. For clarity though, how about something like: "... from the former County Dublin in 1994 ..." → "... from the former administrative country of County Dublin in 1994 ..." Laurel suggestions are good too. Personally, I don't mind "administrative counties" but there are plenty of alternatives e.g. "local authority counties". --RA (talk) 09:44, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Another point of view

I don't want to simply add my vote or my comment to the above as I think the whole basis for this discussion is wrong. When this was first discussed in June 2010 I voted to remove the word "traditional", and at the time the majority agreed with that. In the meantime it seems not only to have got consensus among this little group but to have become a fetish. Laurel Lodged is right about one thing: there are no "administrative counties" in Ireland. Neither are there "traditional counties". You can search all day and you won't find a single reliable source that says unambiguously that such things exist. The Republic has 26 counties, period. Other administrative areas have been created that have a County Council, a County Enterprise Board etc., but no statute, statutory instrument or bye-law ever said "these are counties". Therefore we cannot say that on Wikipedia. It fails WP:V. The intro to county articles should state the verifiable fact: it is one of the 32 counties of Ireland. This should be followed by "It is served by X County Council" or "It is served by two (or three) local authorities:..." Having two separate articles for the "traditional" county of, say, Wicklow and the "administrative" county of Wicklow makes no sense. There is only one County Wicklow. Having separate articles for Tipperary, Tipperary North and Tipperary South makes some sense, but to me it is still overkill. Scolaire (talk) 10:24, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

I agree. The terms traditional and administrative are Wikipedia neologisms which violate the stricture against original research. — O'Dea (talk) 10:48, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Disagree with both of you. Both terms are in use by the government and various state agencies as well as by the population in general. I've provided a list below outlining use of "administrative county". If you want I will find examples of "traditional county" such as this one by the Department of the Environment. I'll deal with Scolaire's comment in two parts - the first is directed at him because of one of his concerns, the second addresses the point brought up by the two of you:

• First off, no one is suggesting we would have one article for the administrative county of Wicklow and one for the traditional county of Wicklow. As I stated above, we would have one single article dealing with those counties whose boundaries are coterminous with the current administrative entity defined for local government purposes. That means one single article for Wicklow, one for Meath, one for Mayo, etc. But we would have 5 for Dublin - one traditional Co. Dublin (all of Fingal, DLR, SDublin and city), one for the city, and 3 for each of the other entities), 3 for Tipperary (Co. Tipp as well as NTipp and STipp), etc.
• Secondly, I already provided references for the usage of the term "administrative county" unless somehow providing references is now considered Original Research?!? For clarity, the references are here: Dept. Of Social Protection and the CSO. Other references could also be used such as: the National Botanic Gardens (1980), HSE (2011), CSO report hosted on RTÉ (2011), Logainm.ie (2009), CSO hosted on galwaycity.ie (2011), European Election Database (2011), Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown Co. Co. (2007), UCD Report on alcohol which mentions the administrative counties, StatCentral.ie (2007), CSO (again), another CSO, S.I. No. 214/2001, S.I. No. 106/1994, S.I. No. 561 of 2009, Louth County Council, Clare County Council, Sligo County Council, Wexford County Council. And they are just a few examples. How then is it original research? ^Mac Tíre _Cowag 11:04, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

It's hardly original research anyways as what was the point of the county's on the first place? Administration. What do county councils do? Administrate. We aren't creating neologisms, we are simply stating what are former administrative or modern adminsitrative counties which is not OR.

This issue is highly emotive for some editors who adhere to the traditional sense of there only being "thirty-two" counties ever, but it is an issue that's arisen due to the fact the Republic has changed the administration of the area the counties made up. The use of "traditional" was agreed upon instead of "historical" to appease those that didn't want to have their hearts broke by making it sound like the counties didn't exist at all anymore to any degree (yes they still do outside of government to tradtionalists and the GAA etc.).

The above suggestions i don't think are bad. A tweak or two maybe i don't know, but if it helps settle this endlessly recurring issue then by all means. Mabuska ^(talk) 11:48, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Also disagree with both of you. The terms traditional and administrative are not Wikipedia neologisms. The are supportedable by reliable sources.

Mac Tíre's refenence to the logainm.ie (© Rialtas na hÉireann 2009) is quite definitive: "Administrative counties: Subdivisions of pre-established counties which were formed for administrative purposes in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. / Counties: Administrative units larger than baronies and originally established by the British administration in Ireland between the twelfth and the seventeenth centuries. Some of these were subsequently subdivided into smaller administrative county units."

For "traditional counties", this phrasing is supported by referecnes such as the following:

"The term 'All-Irish' is in common use for many cultural, sports, and other purposes, and many events, competitions, and organizations are 'All-Irish', that is, they cover the entire area of the 32 traditional counties of the island and not just the Republic of Ireland." World and Its Peoples, 2010

"The twenty-six traditional counties of Eire and the six traditional counties of Northern Ireland are used as the standard Irish geographical designations." - Robert A. Faleer, Church Woodwork in the British Isles, 1100-1535, 2009

Also has, Mabuska, says this is hardly original research. "Administrative" and "traditional" are merely adjectives, which can be useful to us when differentiating between 26/6 and 29/0. (And that's before we even talk about the cities: how can Cork be the principal city of County Cork, when it purportedly has not been in County Cork since the late 19th century?) --RA (talk) 12:20, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

I stand corrected on the existence of the term "administrative county" - although MacTire's links refer variously to 1898 counties and 21st-century counties. I am less convinced about the common use of "traditional counties". At any rate I must tone down my more extreme remarks like "we cannot say that on Wikipedia." Nevertheless, I still maintain that the primary use of "county" in modern parlance, both in ordinary life and in books and news media, is not the administrative division. There are signs on the roads saying "Welcome to County Tipperary"; tourist organisations try to attract visitors to County Tipperary; people like Mary Hanafin are said to be from Tipperary; a letter addressed to Clonmel, County Tipperary will be delivered without fuss, as will a letter addressed to Malahide, County Dublin or Kells, County Antrim; and yes, Tipperary have an excellent hurling team. I take exception to the snide remark that counties exist "to tradtionalists [sic] and the GAA etc" as though the GAA was some sort of fringe organisation or cult (not to mention "appease those that didn't want to have their hearts broke"). Counties exist. They are part of everybody's life in Ireland.

Mabuska has put his finger on the problem: the issue is highly emotive for some editors, but not for "traditionalists" who want to kid themselves "there were only 32 counties ever". All of the compromising and tweaking and general mucking-up of the lead sections of county articles in the Republic has been to deal with a non-existant issue: that any occurence of the words "32" and "counties" together represents an irredentist claim on Northern Ireland. I believe it's time we put that whole thing to bed, and started editing the lead sections of county articles to reflect real life again.

In answer ro RA's question, "how can Cork be the principal city of County Cork, when it purportedly has not been in County Cork since the late 19th century?" Good question, yet most of the time, if you're filling out a form on the internet and you give Cork as the town, you'll be asked what county. If you give Dublin as the town, you'll be asked to choose the county from a drop-down list, which does not include Fingal, South County Dublin or Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown. Real life, see? Scolaire (talk) 17:05, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Here's an example: Two-Mile Borris was in the news recently because of proposals to build a casino. I don't know which "administrative county" it is in. How many news articles, magazine features or web pages dealing with the casino proposals will tell me which, compared with the thousands that tell me it is in County Tipperary? Scolaire (talk) 07:56, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

"All of the compromising and tweaking and general mucking-up of the lead sections of county articles in the Republic has been to deal with a non-existant issue: that any occurence of the words "32" and "counties" together represents an irredentist claim on Northern Ireland. I believe it's time we put that whole thing to bed, and started editing the lead sections of county articles to reflect real life again."

Hardly Scolaire we where involved in the original lede consensus that adopted the use of thirty-two counties for all county articles, which hasn't been raised as a problem since until Sarah777 wanted to remove RoI unpiped from the RoI county ledes - the only way to do so was to remove the thirty-two counties stuff as when mentioning the island of Ireland and the state we HAVE to use RoI unpiped. Dropping the thirty-two counties bit meant RoI had to be piped according to the IMoS. In fact maybe you have't noticed but if it was really as issue for those, to coin a term, anti-irredentists, then how come the thirty-two counties bit is still in the NI county articles after all this time? Wouldn't those six articles be the prime target for its removal? So i'd lay the blame on Sarah777 for it and not those who think it represented irredentist claims on Northern Ireland.

""to tradtionalists [sic] and the GAA etc" as though the GAA was some sort of fringe organisation or cult (not to mention "appease those that didn't want to have their hearts broke"). Counties exist. They are part of everybody's life in Ireland."

Now your reading too much into it. Nowhere does it imply the GAA is a fringe organisation or cult. No-one is denying counties exist, hence why we choose the term traditional over historical - there is a big difference. One implies it no longer exists, the other that it still does. Mabuska ^(talk) 15:39, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm not interested in "laying the blame" on anyone. And I don't accept that doing anything on Wikipedia means you "HAVE" to do something else. I'm only interested in having the intro to articles give information that's relevant to the real world instead of quasi-legal rubbish. The intro to County Kildare currently says "County Kildare is a former administrative county of Ireland." A former administrative county! Scolaire (talk) 20:14, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

It's hardly misleading seeing as the traditional counties are no longer used as an administrative units by the government - that's real world. Mabuska ^(talk) 10:36, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

An alternative

As an alternative, what if we just stopped playing the numbers game altogether, and said "Kildare is a [[Counties of Ireland|county]] in [[Republic of Ireland|Ireland]]"? It's concise, it's verifiable, it's politically neutral, and it's free of bureaucratic terminology. Scolaire (talk) 21:00, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Sounds pretty perfect to me! Fmph (talk) 08:27, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Just one line? Isn't that a bit bare? Laurel Lodged (talk) 10:20, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

I like "Kildare is one of the 32 counties of Ireland." Others don't. If it's a choice between piling on adjectives or stripping it to a bare six words, then I'll go for bare. Scolaire (talk) 11:21, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

I believe this is the best solution all round. --HighKing (talk) 10:28, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

So you believe "Fingal is a [[Counties of Ireland|county]] in [[Republic of Ireland|Ireland]]" is fine? ^Mac Tíre _Cowag 10:42, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Obviously not! Leave Fingal as it is. The five "new" administrative areas are going to be treated differently anyway. Scolaire (talk) 11:21, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Well legally speaking it is a county. Irrespective of opinion or popular definitions, you can't leave information out simply to satisfy a 32-county definition of what is a county. Fingal is a county. It may not be a county in the traditional sense, but it is still a county. Having a simplistic definition such as "County X is a county" ignores the distinction between those current administrative counties and those counties recognised as popular definitions of what is a county. ^Mac Tíre _Cowag 11:55, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Actually yes. "Fingal is a [[Counties of Ireland|county]] in [[Republic of Ireland|Ireland]]" is fine. --HighKing (talk) 12:46, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

But would that not be confusing to those who don't know? Like suggesting "Fingal is a county..." while also suggesting that "County Dublin is a county..." - we would be putting them on a par despite the fact they are completely different things. ^Mac Tíre _Cowag 13:39, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

No more or less confusing that using "traditional county" and "administrative county" in the lede. The problem we've encountered is that, from a WP:COMMONNAME POV, the vast majority of people only really think about the "traditional" counties. The administrative areas, also called counties, are seen as different. I believe the best solution is for a very simple lede, and do the explaining within the article. --HighKing (talk) 14:15, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

That is a bit too bare and ambiguous. Counties (or their equivalents) to anyone outside of Ireland are administrative divisions of a country - implying that they are still being used as administrative units when in fact they aren't. How about stating "is a traditional county"? That'd help a bit and as MacTire showed, is well sourced. Mabuska ^(talk) 10:44, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Why suggest to me the very thing I'm objecting to? Counties of Ireland to anyone outside Ireland is where their grandparents came from, or where The Quiet Man was made. Try and leave the "my way or the highway" attitude behind and work towards a solution that will suit all sides. Scolaire (talk) 11:21, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

The problem with saying "is a traditional county" is the vagueness or ambiguity of the phrase. To the newly arrived, this statement would raise an unanswered question, "What is a traditional county? Is it a relatively undeveloped place or something, or somewhere where traditions are unusually strong?" — O'Dea (talk) 11:25, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Or maybe that it is a traditional county in the same sense as something that is traditional, like England and France are traditional enemies etc.

"Try and leave the "my way or the highway" attitude behind and work towards a solution that will suit all sides." - what my way or the highway attitude? Also a solution that will suit yours and O'Deas side? So how do we take into the account the fact Fingal is a modern county in the sense of it whilst County Dublin is not administrative wise? Just exaplain it in the article itself? Mabuska ^(talk) 10:26, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Explain it in the article itself? Careful, Mabuska, that is a radical idea! ;-) Scolaire (talk) 10:35, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

"...we would be putting them on a par despite the fact they are completely different things." How many times must this be explained? It's not that difficult. They are on a par. They are the same thing. The difference between them is temporal not functional. Both perform (or used to perform) the same thing - administration (some combination of judicial, financial and civil administration). Some contain entities that continue to perform this function (e.g. county councils), others contain entities that no longer do so but that used to do so (e.g. Grand Juries, County Azzises). Some are popularly capitalised (e.g. County X), others do not enjoy such popular favour (e.g. Fingal). Each is still a county. Laurel Lodged (talk) 22:53, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

By saying they are not on a par what I meant was the following: legally, Fingal is a county, while Co. Dublin is not. Fingal was established by the Irish authorities, Co. Dublin was not. Co. Dublin enjoys popular cultural, sporting, and self-identification status (people from Blanchardstown, Skerries, etc. rarely say they are from Fingal, they usually say they are from Co. Dublin), while Fingal does not. To state they are counties is true, and perfectly fine. But without clarification in the first few lines we are leading the reader to believe both entities are current geo-political administrative divisions. After all, most countries that use counties as divisions do not attribute any cultural or self-identifying status to those areas. In most countries they are simply political divisions; in Ireland, and to a lesser extent England, counties are much more than political administrative divisions, and by leaving out the distinctions between them we are misleading the reader, who, to be quite honest, generally tends to read only the first few lines of an article. ^Mac Tíre _Cowag 06:11, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

These things can be worked around. For instance, County Dublin could say "Dublin is a county in Ireland", with discussion of its division into four local government areas in the body of the article; Fingal could say "Fingal is a county in Ireland. It is one of three administrative counties into which County Dublin was divided in 1994", with further details in the body of the article. I take your point about readers only reading the first few lines, but it is unwise, not to say impossible, to try to condense a 16k article into a couple of lines. Remember, KISS. --Scolaire (talk) 07:24, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Suggested tweak of above: "Fingal is a county in Ireland. It is one of three smaller counties into which County Dublin was divided in 1994". — O'Dea (talk) 20:29, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

County intros continued

Hi, Laurel Lodge directed me to this discussion from County Louth, which I had amended unaware of this discussion because I find the introductory sentence weird and inaccurate. It read: 'County Louth is a former administrative county in Ireland'. The fact is that Louth is still a county, even though the term 'administrative county' no longer has any legal meaning. It would make sense to refer to County Dublin as a former administrative county, but to refer to Louth as such is misleading, suggesting that it has in some way lost its county status. In fact, Section 2(1) of the Local Government Act, 2001 - the section of the Act that provides definitions - clearly states that the administrative area of a county council is a county. Furthermore, Section 10 (4) (a) provides that:

The boundaries of a county referred to in subsection (2) are the boundaries of the corresponding county as existing immediately before the establishment day and, for that purpose, the corresponding counties to Tipperary North Riding and Tipperary South Riding shall be North Tipperary and South Tipperary, respectively.

It seems quite clear from the above that the correct term for an administrative area such as Louth, insofar as local government law is concerned, is 'county'. I would therefore strongly urge that Scoláire's proposal at the beginning of this section be adopted, at least for counties such as Louth where what I see is referred to as the 'traditional county' in Wikipedia terminology is coterminous with the legal county. For cases such as Dublin and Tipperary, separate articles for the 'traditional county' and the administrative county obviously make sense. For cases such as Cork, I think one article would be sufficient, and should start with something like:

Cork is a county in Ireland. Cork city is not part of the administrative county, but is treated as part of the county for sporting and many other purposes.

Obviously this could be fine-tuned, but I think it would be better than the current version based on the (not very) apparent consensus previously reached in this discussion:

County Cork (Irish: Contae Chorcaí) is a former administrative county of Ireland. There are two local authority administrative areas that now cover the county, Cork County Council and Cork City Council and are part of the South-West Region.

This is downright misleading, as not only is Cork still an administrative county (in susbstance, although the term 'administrative county' no longer appears in the relevant statutes), but Cork City has never been part of the administrative county since the foundation of the modern Irish local government system in 1898. 86.177.92.214 (talk) 01:54, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

I agree with you that there is no justification for using "former". I don't think there was even an attempt at justification in all of the lengthy discussion above.

I don't know whether silence equals consent in this case, but beyond the somewhat plaintive "it's a bit bare" there has been no critical objection to my proposal for a short and common-sense intro to county articles. I'm going to change the four Dublin articles in line with the last suggested version. If they remain stable for a couple of days perhaps someone can edit the other county articles accordingly? Scolaire (talk) 10:06, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

"but beyond the somewhat plaintive "it's a bit bare"" - plaintive? I would say avoiding MacTire's very valid comments by just stating "These things can be worked around." is more plaintive. You focus on County Dublin which is an easy issue to deal with but don't provide a solution for the rest. We could and should describe the status of the county in the article itself, but one word such as "traditional" (which the thirty-two counties are whether you agree or not) is hardly overloading the lede, and does set those counties into context. Mabuska ^(talk) 11:04, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

"Traditional" counties is an outdated concept held onto by people stuck in the past or unwittingly ignorant of the modern-day situation or hold onto romantic notions. Now who said that, I wonder? Scolaire (talk) 17:15, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

I realize this is a slightly complicated matter, particularly the relationship between 'traditional' and 'administrative' counties, but let us at least get rid of the quite misleading formulation 'former administrative county' which has been applied en masse to articles describing currently existing counties, and the convoluted associated phrases about administrative areas. My impression is that these reflect a misunderstanding of the Local Government Act, 2001. These particular issues don't relate to the Northern Ireland counties, for which I imagine it should be easy enough to find a formula describing them as 'traditional counties'. Of the counties of the Republic of Ireland, by my reckoning, all except the Dublin counties and County Galway have remained in existence since 1898 with only minor boundary changes, and their boundaries are the same as those of the traditional counties except for the exclusion of county boroughs/cities and the existence of two administrative counties in Tipperary.

Therefore, for the majority of counties such as Louth, Mayo, Meath, I see no reason why 'X is a county in Ireland' shouldn't be quite accurate - the 'traditional' and 'administrative' counties are essentially identical. For North and South Tipperary as well as the three Dublin counties, Scoláire's solution seems unproblematic.

For the counties where the administrative county excludes a city area (Galway, Cork, Limerick, Waterford) I would suggest, as I mentioned above, 'Galway is a county in Ireland' and a sentence either immediately following, or perhaps better after basic geographical information such as location, province and region, to the effect that 'County Galway is administered by Galway County Council. While County Galway is often taken to include Galway City, for example in sporting contexts, the city is not part of the legally defined county of Galway and is administered separately by Galway City Council.' It would then be desirable to specify whether statistical information such as population, area etc cover the entire traditional county or solely the administrative county (or provide both sets of figures). 109.158.149.4 (talk (previously User talk:86.177.92.214 - editing from a dynamic IP address)) 12:23, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Or alternatively, for Galway: 'Galway is a county in Ireland... Until the establishment of a county borough in Galway city in 1986, Galway County Council administered the entire historic county including Galway city. Since 1986, Galway city no longer forms part of the admnistrative county and is administered separately by Galway City Council. However, the entire historic county is still often referred to as County Galway and represented as such by sporting teams.' I don't know whether prior to 1898 the remaining cities of Dublin, Limerick, etc formed part of the eponymous counties, but the Wikipedia page on the Local_Government_(Ireland)_Act_1898 suggests that they were already separate entities termed 'judicial counties'. 109.158.149.4 (talk) 12:35, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Given that we are talking about the intro here, I don't see why there needs to be a whole rigmarole about the administrative status of a city in a county article. The County Galway intro only needs to say "Galway is a county...", the Galway article only needs to say "Galway is a city..." These convoluted sentences always result when people try to pack the whole of one section of the article into a single sentence in the lead. It's the same with "administrative counties", "traditional counties", "Local Government Act 1898" etc. All of the articles, county and city, have much more to them (or if they don't they ought to have!) than just which council is responsible for them. Their leads shouldn't make them sound like articles about local government. Scolaire (talk) 14:07, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

I too have been bold, and have amended the introduction to County Cork. Hopefully this will be considered helpful. Scoláire, I do have to kind of disagree with you - as counties are essentially geographical and administrative entities, very basic geographical and administrative information very definitely does belong in the introductory paragraph. Neither do I think that mentioning the status of the city and whether it is to be viewed as part of the county or not is excessive - I think we will be able to find a way of doing so without too much rigmarole, and the benefit is that then the introduction makes it precisely clear what the subject of the article is - in the case of Cork, a county which depending on the purposes for which it is being discussed, may or may not be taken to include Cork city. I think it's actually quite important for the introduction to an article about a geographical and administrative territory to make it clear what it comprises, even if that means that we admit that it has two somewhat different meanings.

If you are suggesting that the introduction should simply be one line saying 'County X is a county of Ireland', then I would have to agree that this is disproportionately skimpy given that some of these are reasonably well-developed articles. Here is what I have put in the intro for County Cork, in case anyone wants to comment here. Hopefully ye will think it is a useful step forward that can be worked on:

County Cork (Irish: Contae Chorcaí) is a county of Ireland. It is located on the south coast of Ireland, in the province of Munster, and borders counties Kerry to the west, Limerick to the north, Tipperary to the north-east, and Waterford to the east. It was named after the city of Cork (Irish: Corcaigh). There are large Irish-speaking areas in the west of the county. The county is administered by Cork County Council, and is part of the South-West Region. Cork city does not form part of the county under Irish local government law, and is administered separately by Cork City Council. However, for purposes other than local government, such as the formation of sporting teams, County Cork may also be taken to include both city and county. Cork is Ireland's largest county by area and had a population of 399,216 in 2011 (518,218 if Cork city is included).

Some of the geographical information is repeated in the first following paragraph, but I don't think this is any harm - the nature of an introduction is that it briefly recapitulates the most important elements from the main text, and in any case in reasonabl long articles such as these it will be separated from them by the table of contents as well. Any views on this new intro? 109.158.149.4 (talk) 14:29, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

I think the contributions above from 86.177.92.214/109.158.149.4 really make sense; the "former administrative county" formulation does not. Just take a look at the articles for English or American counties. However, I would opt for a shorter lead and feel that Scoláire should go ahead with his changing the Dublin articles. Hohenloh ⁺ 14:43, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Thank you Hohenloh. In support of my points above, may I point out another 'plaintive comment', by User:Lozleader on Talk:County_Cork, who says that 'The article seems to contain a lot of information pertaining to the city, and the lead gives the population figure for the county + city at the same time giving the impression that the "administrative" and "traditional" counties are identical, which they aren't... if the article is going to deal with two different things then it needs to be clear when we are talking about which'. I think this potential confusion for readers is a very strong argument for clarifying the matter in the intro. Of course, this problem only applies to Cork, Galway, Limerick and Waterford. For County Dublin and County Tipperary and the associated administrative counties, we already have separate articles for the traditional and administrative counties, which makes sense in these cases, but would surely be excessive for Cork etc. ComhairleContaeThirnanOg (talk) 14:55, 25 July 2011 (UTC) (formerly 86.177.92.214/109.158.149.4).

Lozleader's concerns could have been addressed in the article proper. Indeed, the first section of the article is "Geography and political subdivisions". There is no reason I can see why all the technicalities should have to be pointed out in what is only a brief lead. I honestly think this edit is total overkill. If a proper-sized lead is to be written, it should summarise every section of the article - geography, history, demographics etc. - instead of dumping a whole lot of technical stuff that belongs in the article itself.

By the way, congratulations on becoming a registered user. Scolaire (talk) 15:37, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for the congratulations! I think this version is quite concise. It is important that the introduction makes it clear what the article is actually about, and unfortunately in the cases of County Cork etc, the topic of the article undeniably has two different meanings, both of which are perfectly valid. This is probably not the case for most Wikipedia articles, not that I have carried out any detailed research on the issue. So how to make this clear and avoid confusion for readers? If not in the introduction, it should at least go in the first paragraph after. Otherwise, when you start giving information such as area, population, etc, it will not be clear what they are referring to. Also, I'm not trying to be smart here, as I realize it wasn't you that put this information into the lead of South Dublin, but that intro includes the information that 'The heraldic crest for South Dublin reads reads "This We Hold In Trust" in both English and Irish, while incorporating elements relating to the history, geography and present day infrastructure of the area.' Surely this is less relevant to South Dublin than the question of whether or not Cork City is part of County Cork is to County Cork? ComhairleContaeThirnanOg (talk) 15:41, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

You say, "if not in the introduction, it should at least go in the first paragraph after." I also said it should go in the first paragraph after. So do you want to move it there or will I?

And I absolutely agree with you about extraneous stuff in the South Dublin intro. I think you'll find that that bit went in years ago, in the dark ages, when standards were different. It could and should be zapped. Scolaire (talk) 15:52, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

I have played around a bit more with County Cork - removed the administrative details from the intro and combined it with the paragraph much further down on the topic to make a new first paragraph. Can you have a look and see what you think? I'm not saying its ideal but I think it is an improvement on the previous situation.

Unfortunately I think even now it is still slightly confusing, as there's no way around the fact that 'county' can and does mean two different things. By the way, from my own Jackeen perspective, anyone who ever talked about County Dublin was specifically referring to the parts that were outside the city, so I don't think the use of 'county' in this sense is confined to purely local government issues. However, much of the blame undoubtedly devolves upon the Department of the Environment, who abolished the useful term 'administrative county' in the Local Government Act 2001. Using that term in the article would perhaps make things clearer, but then we would have to also explain what we meant by it, which would in turn add a further complexity. Perhaps we are going to have to be content with this being slightly fuzzy. ComhairleContaeThirnanOg (talk) 16:04, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

I can't really see why it needs to be confusing, though. There aren't that many such facts in the article. If each time there is a statistic it says "the n was x, not including Cork city" or "the n was y for city and county together" it should be crystal clear without being intrusive. Otherwise, anything in the county article is talking about the county. It's not as though we're saying "County Cork's most famous building is the church tower of Shandon." I'm very happy with the intro, by the way. It's far better in every respect than what was there yesterday. Scolaire (talk) 16:51, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

I think it's an improvement. Being a minimalist, I would just remove figures from the lead, ie, the population and year- the following paragraph also has population figures - but would still mention that it's the largest county. I'd avoid using "administrative counties", as they no longer exist. Hohenloh ⁺ 16:54, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

I meant we should treat the figures that way wherever they occur in the article. I have no feelings either way on whether the figures are in the lead. Scolaire (talk) 17:28, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Scoláire - well, among several references to Cork city is the line that it is the largest city in the county. I don't see any harm in including that, although it could equally be excluded for consistency if you think that is the correct approach. Hohenloh - I don't have any strong feelings about including the population figure, though on balance I would leave it in as useful top-line information, and I'm not sure that the presence of the 'three large Gaeltacht areas' is necessary in the intro either (leaving aside the slight problems that they are not that large and there are only two of them). ComhairleContaeThirnanOg (talk) 17:07, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

As long as the population figure states whether it includes the city or not ;-)

"The largest city in the county" is a bit strange. The largest of how many cities? County Dublin simply says "The county contains the city of Dublin." Whether it "contains" it as an integral part or "contains" it as an enclave would be hair-splitting. As I say, there is no need for confusion if the thing is written sensibly. Scolaire (talk) 17:24, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

In directing the newbie IP to this discussion, it was my intention that he would join the discussion and assist in gaining a consensus. Instead he has made unilateral changes and sought retrospective forgiveness. This was my modus until people like Scolaire got hissy fits about it. So is this now permission for me to do likewise? Laurel Lodged (talk) 18:24, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

He simply added in what had become the new consensus anyway, namely, X is a county in Ireland simple intro and do all the explaining about 1898 act, 2001 act, administrative areas coveredetc, in the meat of the article. I hope that question is a joke, because as an experienced editor, you would have learned from your past mistakes not seek permission to repeat them. Snappy (talk) 18:29, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

There was a consensus? Did I miss the vote? How did it go? And no, it was not a joke, more an ironic comment on the fact that there's one law for a newbie and another for LL. Laurel Lodged (talk) 18:55, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, there was/is a consensus emerging, no voting as wikipedia is not a democracy, and poor you, just wallow in your own self pity. Snappy (talk) 19:34, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

It is not true to say that there is a consensus, either real or emergent. If there was, you could state in one sentence. Go ahead, try making that 1 line sentence that nobody contradicts. And if you cannot, then you'd have to agree that you're in favour of two rules - one for newbie and one for LLLaurel Lodged (talk) 19:46, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Don't tell me what I'm in favour of, just ask me and I'll tell you. I'm in favour of the proposal outlined below by RA. Snappy (talk) 20:43, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Getting real

"Instead he has made unilateral changes and sought retrospective forgiveness." Pot. Kettle. Black.

Is this conversation still going on? Above Mabuska (sorry to pick your comment out, Mabuska) wrote that:

"It's hardly misleading [to describe County Kildare as a former administrative county] seeing as the traditional counties are no longer used as an administrative units by the government - that's real world."

Only thing is that County Kildate is currently used as an administrative unit by the government. It is the adminstrative area of Kildare County Council. What's more, County Kildare is also used as a postal address. It is also a place used for cultural purposes, such as Gaelic games and soccer. We have people (alive today) who come from County Kildare.

That's real world. So can we please get real and agree on a wording to fix the situation, which everyone with a lick of sense can see is a disaster? So, below is MacTire proposal from above, which was broadly acceptable to everyone. I suggest we either adopt it or suggest specific changes to the text.

• Traditional counties with boundaries coterminous (or near co-terminous) with those of administrative counties (19):

County Meath (Irish: Contae na Mí) is one of the thirty-two traditional counties of Ireland and one of the twenty-six traditional counties and twenty-nine administrative counties of the Republic of Ireland. ... [Insert relevant stuff here.] ... Meath County Council is the local authority responsible for serving the county.

• Traditional counties no longer used in any capacity for administrative purposes (2 - Co. Dublin, Co. Tipperary):

County Dublin (Irish: Contae Bhaile Átha Cliath) is one of the thirty-two traditional counties of Ireland and one of the twenty-six traditional counties of the Republic of Ireland. ... [Insert relevant stuff here.] ... For local government purposes the county is divided into three administrative counties (Fingal, South Dublin, and Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown) and Dublin City.

• Traditional counties where the succeeding county council is still responsible for the majority of the traditional county but which contain a city for the purposes of local government (Co. Galway, Co. Limerick, Co. Waterford, Co. Cork):

County Cork (Irish: Contae Chorcaí) is one of the thirty-two traditional counties of Ireland and one of the twenty-six traditional counties of the Republic of Ireland. ... [Insert relevant stuff here.] ... Two local authorities are responsible for serving the county, Cork City Council is the local authority for Cork city with Cork County Council being responsible for all other parts of the county.

• Purely administrative counties (NTipp, STipp, Fingal, SDublin, DLR):

Fingal (Irish: Fine Gall) is one of the twenty-nine administrative counties of the Republic of Ireland one of the three such counties formed from the former County Dublin in 1994.... [Insert relevant stuff here.] ... Fingal County Council is the local authority responsible for serving the county.

--RA (talk) 19:11, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Agree, let's go for this and stop this interminably bickering about "traditional" and what it means. We need to get rid of the factually incorrect "former administrative" crap as soon as possible, because its has been proven to be totally wrong. Snappy (talk) 19:38, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

It's one thing to get agreement that something is wrong but it's quite another thing to get agreement on what is right. We have two solutions in front of us - this latest from RA (with which Snappy seems to agree) and the other one by the newbie (with which Snappy also seems to agree as he claims it has/had consensus and/or emergent consensus). It's very hard keeping up with all his agreements. Laurel Lodged (talk) 19:51, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

No, not really. Snappy (talk) 20:35, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

(Edited by RA) Don't understand that comment ("Pot. Kettle. Black.") as I had already freely admitted that that was indeed my own modus operandi.

It (County Kildare) is not used as an administrative unit by the government. It is used as a cartographic unit. Not the same thing at all. Laurel Lodged (talk) 19:46, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm in favour of moving this debate forward, not endless re-hashing. Snappy (talk) 20:35, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Eh, sorry. But what's with "MacTire's proposal from above, which was broadly acceptable to everyone"? I made a poposal which seems to have been acceptable to MacTire - since he made no further comment although he contributed to the bonfire discussion - and was considered a good proposal by Fmph, HighKing, O'Dea, ComhairleContaeThirnanOg and Hohenloh. Not to mention, as I pointed out this morning, that nobody has offered any sort of critical objection. You can't just turn the clock back five days and pretend that it didn't happen. County Dublin now looks just fine, without any 26, 29, 32, traditional, administrative or any other baggage. If we're going to get real, let's get real. Scolaire (talk) 21:00, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Between all of the text above, I didn't see that. Personally, I don't think the 26, 29, 32, traditional and administrative bits are "baggage". Rather, I think it clearly explains how both Fingal and County Dublin can both be introduced as being counties of Ireland in the present tense. MacTire's proposal, in my opinion, is more comprehensive and clear.

In any event, assuming your proposal is consensus, can we close this discussion for now? It cannot go on indefinitely without decision while there is agreement that a decision needs to be made on the articles that were changed. --RA (talk) 21:41, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, please let's close it. And let's fix all the intros. The question can always be revisited down the line if somebody comes up with something really new. Scolaire (talk) 22:01, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

I certainly think

County Meath (Irish: Contae na Mí) is a county of Ireland. ...

is far more succinct and preferable to

County Meath (Irish: Contae na Mí) is one of the thirty-two traditional counties of Ireland and one of the twenty-six traditional counties and twenty-nine administrative counties of the Republic of Ireland. ...

That's a lot of numbers of counties, which still manages to add relatively little, I would think, to the reader's knowledge about the county the article is actually about. If due to various sensitivities it is impossible to include one of the numbers of counties without including them all, I would suggest including none. I would think that this material too would be better in a first paragraph of the main body of the article, if it has to be included at all.

I think it is also undesirable to include the terms 'traditional county' and 'administrative county' in the introduction without explaining what they mean or linking to a page that obviously explains it (i.e. a page for the relevant term rather than the counties of Ireland page. I suggest something along the lines of my edits to County Cork might be considered in this regard?

Also, I think we do have to give proper place to the counties as legal administrative divisions (for those that are), as this is certainly one of the most significant things about them, and indeed their status as such was the origin of their existence. That means explicitly stating where the administrative county is not co-extensive with the traditional county, including in the cases of counties where the traditional county (arguably - how clear are we, for example, that 'county Dublin' is more often used to mean Dublin city and county as opposed to being used to mean Dublin county specifically excluding the city?) includes the territory of a city but the administrative county does not. For this reason I don't think the formulation

'Two local authorities are responsible for serving the county, Cork City Council is the local authority for Cork city with Cork County Council being responsible for all other parts of the county.'

is ideal. This is because if we are talking about local government, then for local government purposes, and I think since the passage of the Local Government Act 2001 for all legal purposes, County Cork is a legally constituted entity which simply does not include Cork city. I know this makes things complicated but again I'll stress the point that when we are talking about counties of Ireland one of the things we are talking about is the primary territorial divisions of the local government system, which are established as such by law and should in that context be accurately described/defined. That's not to say that this needs to be explained in the intro, I take fully on board the points made by Scoláire and Hohenloh in that regard.

In any case, thank you all for your courtesy, and apologies to Laurel Lodged for having taken advantage of your helpful reference to this page in order to make a whole raft of further suggestions!ComhairleContaeThirnanOg (talk) 22:54, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Never apologise to anybody for coming to the proper forum and speaking as an equal. If everybody was as collaborative as you, working on the pedia would be much easier and much more fun. Scolaire (talk) 07:12, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

I have to agree with ComhairleContaeThirnanOg that,

"County Meath (Irish: Contae na Mí) is a county of Ireland. ...

is far more succinct and preferable to

County Meath (Irish: Contae na Mí) is one of the thirty-two traditional counties of Ireland and one of the twenty-six traditional counties and twenty-nine administrative counties of the Republic of Ireland."

Speaking about how many counties there are in Ireland (island) and Ireland (republic) and whether they are traditional or administratve, and all the questions of what is a county and how many there are, and what kind of counties they are is not necessary within each county article, and can all be left to the one article that discusses those topics.

Attempting to crowbar some kind of consensus summation of the many aspects of counties into all of the county lead paragraphs is terribly messy. This is pure confusion: "...one of the thirty-two traditional counties of Ireland and one of the twenty-six traditional counties and twenty-nine administrative counties of the Republic of Ireland". How many? Ireland? Republic of Ireland? Bear in mind that most non-Irish readers will be thrown into perplexity by any ambiguity or subtlety because they are unfamiliar with this local matter.

ComhairleContaeThirnanOg's proposal is very clean and creatively avoids the question entirely of what to shovel into the lead paragraphs, and how it should be worded. "...a county of Ireland" is enough and leaves all the tricky material to a dedicated article. It is also a modular solution that avoids duplicated material throughout all the county articles by assigning all of it to one: Counties of Ireland. — O'Dea (talk) 07:30, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. It's Scoláire's suggestion, though, not mine. ComhairleContaeThirnanOg (talk) 09:59, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

@ Scolaire:

"Traditional" counties is an outdated concept held onto by people stuck in the past or unwittingly ignorant of the modern-day situation or hold onto romantic notions. Now who said that, I wonder?

Hah so you ignore the point i made in relation to your avoidance of MacTire's comments and go on an ad hominen attack on me. And what where you saying about people being colloborative, especially considering you originally tried to blame anti-irrendentists (to coin the term again) way above when it was Sarah777's fault the 32 etc. were removed? If you read the archives you'll notice how later i say that i was wrong in my original opinion on the word "traditional" and how it could be a solution (a well sourced solution going by the refs MacTire provided) in how to deal with the traditional counties. Obviously you would praise a new editor who virtually agrees with you.

What was in the articles and RA's solutions i must admit are a bit verbose in terms of "former administrative" and "thrity-two" etc. If we go simple as ComhairleContaeThirnanOg's suggestion, then it wouldn't be hard to stick in that one word "traditional" which is hardly inaccurate or misleading or overloading. Traditional is hardly tricky material and we don't have to go into numbers of each kind of county and how many in the RoI and the island. Mabuska ^(talk) 11:18, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Ah, but how will the reader know that the word "traditional" has the meaning you said it has the second time, and not the meaning you said it has the first time? Seems to me it's very tricky material indeed! Scolaire (talk) 12:03, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Well you definately hold true to "Never apologise to anybody". My original take on the term "traditional" was wrong and i, unlike others, am not ashamed to admit where i am. Traditional actually makes perfect sense and why i was against it originally i don't know anymore.

To answer your question we could always wikilink the word traditional, and hey guess what that article opens with: A tradition is a ritual, belief or object passed down within a society, still maintained in the present, with origins in the past - absolutely perfect! Mabuska ^(talk) 19:54, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Agree with ComhairleContaeThirnanOg's last comments above and Scoláire's suggestions. Don't see the point of what appears to me as constant nitpicking (which was the reason I didn't participate in the previous discussion). Hohenloh ⁺ 11:39, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Murder of Julia Martha Thomas featured article nomination

Murder of Julia Martha Thomas, about a notorious murder in London in 1879, is currently going through a review for featured article status (see Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Murder of Julia Martha Thomas/archive1). The article is covered by this WikiProject; if editors are interested, please feel free to leave comments on the featured article candidates talk page. Prioryman (talk) 13:57, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Ardfert, County Kerry

Hi there. Does anyone have information on the pre-Norman peoples of this area, centered around Ardfert, County Kerry? Who were the main peoples, and anything on the backgrounds of its coarb and erenagh clans? Fergananim (talk) 10:08, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Northern Ireland boxers nationality issue

A discussion has started over the issue of nationality in regards to Northern Irish boxers. A proposal has been made and all thoughts and opinions are sought. Mabuska ^(talk) 11:25, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

What makes a good local article?

I'm writing a blog post about what makes a good local article (or set of articles) on Wikipedia - in other words articles about a specific place, such as a town or village, and its features, people, etc.

What do you think we currently do well, or badly, in that regard. What do you, or would you, like to see, in such articles? What are the best examples?

Please feel free to prior discussion, if you know of any. Cheers, Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 10:29, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

You could try Tobermore. I've worked hard on it over the years to get it a B-rating and it has a lot of information, though whether it is any good to readers or not i dunno. Mabuska ^(talk) 22:10, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Paramilitary "volunteers" / "members"

I just came across an issue at McGurk's Bar bombing where IRA members were described as 'volunteers'. I've changed this to say 'members' which I think is more NPOV, the word 'volunteers' implies tacit support and admiration. I move that all references to paramilitary 'volunteers' be changed to 'members'. Support? Oppose? Comments please... --Eamonnca1 ^TALK 18:31, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Is there evidence that those serving in the IRA were press ganged? If not, they were volunteers. It is also the name by which they themselves wish to be known. Oppose the motion. Laurel Lodged (talk) 18:49, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Support. "Volunteer" is being used in the sense of a formal military rank, not in the sense implied by Laurel Lodged above. As such, it is being used to imply some kind of military legitimacy on an illegal paramilitary grouping. Mooretwin (talk) 20:51, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Support. To contrast with Laurel's comment, UVF members call themselves Volunteers but are they stated as such on Wikipedia? In regards to groups where their description is highly questionable and troublesome, such as for paramilitary organisations, it is better to go with a neutral term that doesn't portray and legitimise a groups designation of its members whe others would disagree, or terms that convey strong meanings or emotions such as "volunteer", "terrorist", "paramilitary", "freedom fighter" etc. Simply stating "member" avoids those issues, as quite simply they are all members of a group, voluntary or not and its not really arguable. Mabuska ^(talk) 22:17, 16 August 2011 (UTC),

Support Personally, I think "volunteer" is used frequently enough in connection with the IRA so as to lack special meaning. However, I can see the point and "member" is sufficient and neutral. --RA (talk) 22:28, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Support - What Laurel Lodge says about them joining voluntarily may be correct, but the term does have certain connotations. WP:EUPHEMISM says that some words may be "proper in many contexts also have euphemistic senses that should be avoided," and this is definitely one such context. By contrast the term "member" does not have any such connotations and is not a "value-laden label" per WP:LABEL. "Member" is accurate and sufficient and could not be interpreted as a euphemism. --Eamonnca1 ^TALK 00:01, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Support change to "member"; or, failing that, standardise all Northern Ireland paramilitaries, including loyalists that use the term, to "Volunteer" too. Using "Volunteer" for the IRAs only is weasel-y. I'd prefer member for all though—most paramilitary groups have special titles for their members, but by honouring them here it gives the impression of tacit support or sympathy on a supposedly neutral resource. JonChapple^Talk 06:43, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Comment I think that the term "volunteer" has a historical reason, as they claim to be related to the Irish Volunteers. I see it more as a term equal to soldier, Musketeer or Rifleman and not as a status. Night of the Big Wind _talk 10:17, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Comment - The UVF claim direct descent from the original UVF and designate its members as volunteers as well, however there is nothing to prevent an addition to the main IRA or UVF articles etc. that states that they call their members "volunteers" - with sources obviously - if it hasn't already been done Mabuska ^(talk) 12:51, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Support, as 'member' is un-questionably neutral. GoodDay (talk) 10:33, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Domer48 has re-added the word "volunteers" into McGurk's Bar bombing citing "consensus". Could someone direct him here? JonChapple^Talk 15:00, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Oppose PER (Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-12-02 IRA 'Volunteer' usage), detailed discussion and consensus on [1]] talk page and supported by a referenced and sourced article on the [2]] Article. While consensus can change, this straw poll conducted by and editor oblivious to these previous discussions is not going to do it.--Domer48_'fenian' 17:07, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for that. Although with all respect that's a five year old discussion. Are those editors still even around? --Eamonnca1 ^TALK 17:13, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Makes no difference, unless the arguments have changed and in this case no! The arguments in the previous were at least based on some informed opinion not to mention references. This ill informed straw poll is no substitute for informed discussion.--Domer48_'fenian' 17:24, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Let's see you give us an informed opinion and sources then. Nobody's stopping you. --Eamonnca1 ^TALK 18:36, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

I think you may have to wait a while Eamonnca1. Mabuska ^(talk) 23:04, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Those links are broken. And you've still not explained why you believe republicans have some kind of a monopoly on "volunteer" when unionists and loyalists use the term too. JonChapple^Talk 17:17, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Oppose, for a start the idea of membership is an open question anyway so it may not be accurate. Further the sources say volunteers in the main. Its an accurate term and its neither positive or negative, its simply true --Snowded ^TALK 17:30, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Jonchapple if you can't add something useful you should stop. I've not expressed an opinion on Loylists, so your question is either inane or an attempt to be misleading. In that case you are deliberately misrepresenting me, and I strongly suggest you strike of remove your comments above.--Domer48_'fenian' 17:37, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

I know you haven't expressed an opinion on loyalists – that's my point. When I tried to change the references to "UVF men" to "UVF volunteers" in line with the IRA in the McGurk's Bar article, you reverted it. I've been waiting for an explanation since then. JonChapple^Talk 17:43, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

You are clearly misrepresenting me and offering your own opinions. Were have I express the opinion that I "believe republicans have some kind of a monopoly on "volunteer""". Now provide a diff of strike/remove the comment.--Domer48_'fenian' 17:52, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

A diff of what? Reverting my changing "UVF men" to "volunteers"? What was your reasoning for that if you don't believe we shouldn't use the word to describe loyalists? JonChapple^Talk 18:05, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

I want a diff supporting your post, simple.--Domer48_'fenian' 18:08, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Don't you ever get bored of playing cryptic games? I've provided a diff that shows that you don't believe we should refer to UVF members as volunteers. Whether you want to play along is up to you, there's plenty of other people in this discussion who aren't quite so obstructive. JonChapple^Talk 18:13, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

The UVF has a system of military ranks, the lowest of which is volunteer. When referring to a member of the UVF, it is appropriate to use the proper rank, if such can be established from reliable sources. Eg Robin Jackson was a brigadier, and is referred to as such. Ivor Stoughton (talk) 18:35, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

OPPOSE. Per Domer. Ruairí Óg's (talk) 18:57, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Technically Wiki guidelines say you should provide your own reasoning for supporting or opposing something and says you shouldn't just per someone else. Mabuska ^(talk) 23:04, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose If they are called Volunteers in reliable sources be they IRA, UVF or whatever then we should use the same here. Member is no more neutral than Volunteer if that is what the respective organisations call themselves. Mo ainm~Talk 19:04, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Oppose/use both reliable sources use both. While member seems to be the preferred term, used by more sources, volunteer is used by numerous sources which are certainly not pro-republican or pro-IRA. These include The Sun newspaper, The Times and The Scotsman. The members of the Victim's Commission, including Ulster Unionist Party candidate Mike Nesbitt, had no problem with the term. The mediation cabal, while old, arrived at its conclusion after exhaustive debate: "In the main text of an article the word, volunteer, is free to be used, but this has to be judged in each particular instance to achieve maximum sense and good style. It should not be used rigidly and other terms such as "IRA member" can also be used or any other appropriate reference. Different terms can be interspersed, and may vary from article to article." I'd read that as similar to the old British/American English thing: if an article already uses one form, leave it be. Valenciano (talk) 19:20, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Pretty split opinion on the matter (no surprise). Very old mediation cabal, however the quote you provide Valenciano is very interesting, as it may be debatable whether every mention of the term has been judged along that guideline to achieve maximum sense and good style or whether its being used to push an ideal - and that alone will be hard to judge in some cases.

If member seems to be the preferred term in sources, with volunteer used by numerous sources, what about numerous sources that call them terrorists? The mediation cabal quote you provide contains phrases such as "other terms such as" and "Different terms can be interspersed" - does that mean if its reliably sourced and meets "achieve maximum sense and good style" you can also use the term terrorist? Technically whilst all IRA, UVF members are volunteers, meaning the term isn't inaccurate, they are also terrorists, which isn't inaccurate either. Just a query for clarification not a proposal of any sort. Mabuska ^(talk) 23:04, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

I wouldn't agree that the use of the term "volunteer" confers any kind of legitimacy on the individuals or indeed the organisation. Articles on members of the American Mafia, for instance, often refer to their rank within the organisation - soldier, caporegime, underboss etc. It's simply a matter of using terms that convey meaning in context, albeit the context may be a corrupt and criminal organisation. Ivor Stoughton (talk) 23:51, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

What's wrong with "member"? Mooretwin (talk) 00:03, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Well, in the case of Robin Jackson, say, it wouldn't convey as much information as citing his rank of brigadier. Ivor Stoughton (talk) 00:08, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

We're not discussing Robin Jackson. We're discussing McGurk's Bar bombing where the references are to anonymouse PIRA members. Mooretwin (talk) 00:12, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

The discussion is more broadly about the appropriate nomenclature for paramilitaries. (But in the particular case of the McGurk's bombing, the article refers to letters that were sent to the RUC claiming that two "IRA volunteers" were killed. It seems to me that we need to see transcripts of the letters to establish whether this is an accurate statement, and whether the letters indeed used the term "volunteer"). Ivor Stoughton (talk) 00:17, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

{deindent} @Mabuska above, no it doesn't mean that we should use terrorist/freedom fighter even if they are used by reliable sources because those are value laden terms and cast judgement on the morality and legitimacy of what they do. Freedom fighter will only be used by sources supportive of the IRA, while terrorist will generally be used by those hostile to the IRA, so you will never read in An Phoblacht that "Gerry Adams addressed a meeting of former IRA terrorists" nor in the Sun that "former IRA freedom fighter Gerry Kelly said..." However you will see the term IRA volunteer used in sources which are both pro-IRA and anti-IRA such as The Sun above or even victims of the IRA groups like FAIR which no one would seriously suggest are trying to glorify the IRA. Per the previous mediation, I don't see that we should make a fuss over using volunteer or member as both are quite neutral and descriptive. Valenciano (talk) 09:32, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

oppose - I think there needs to be evidence that it is being used incorrectly before it should be changed, as per the mediation cabal. This is change for change sake. Why not just put a {{fact}} template on the usage in McGurks. Thats the standard, lets-not-make-a-drama-out-of-this, way of handling these issues. We don't need a huge Project talk page discussion every time an editor sees something they disagree with it. Use a {{fact}} tag and move on. Fmph (talk) 09:57, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Oppose Let's see what books have to say about this eh?

• Moloney A Secret History of the IRA page 149 "And such was the initial success of the new police interrogation centers at Castlereagh, as Strand Read in Derry, and as Gough Barracks in Armagh in extracting confessions from IRA Volunteers..."
• English Armed Struggle: The History of the IRA page 197 "He was again arrested, in October 1976, in Dunmurry, Belfast, after an IRA operation: they had bombed the Balmoral Furnishing Company in a hit involving nine IRA Volunteers"
• Taylor Provos: The IRA and Sinn Féin" page 104 "Sinn Féin existed in the shadow of the IRA and was of little interest to most IRA Volunteers"
• McGladdery The Provisional IRA in England: the bombing campaign, 1973-1997 page 67 "Despite a serious setback with the loss of ten high ranking volunteers..."
• Geraghty The Irish War: the hidden conflict between the IRA and British Intelligence page 4 "If an MI5 report made public in 1997 was correct, the movement secretly recruited and trained a new generation of volunteers"
• Coogan The IRA page 403 Less than two weeks after the 'Kangaroos' episode, on 2 December 1971, two of the Provisionals' toughest volunteers.."
• Harnden Bandit Country page 204 "Four IRA volunteers were arrested..."
• Dillon 25 Years of Terror: The IRA's War against the British page 165 "None of those journalists suspected they were active IRA volunteers"

I got kind of bored after every single book I checked about the IRA used "volunteers", does anyone want me to check the rest to really hammer the point home? WP:IDON'TLIKEVOLUNTEERS doesn't seem to exist right now, but it most certainly is the correct term used by reliable sources. 2 lines of K₃₀₃ 10:40, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Why have you moved Volunteer (Ireland) to Volunteer (Irish republican)? Are you of the opinion that all non-republican claims to the title are invalid? JonChapple^Talk 11:39, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

With reference to the preceeding comment, the fact of the matter is that User:Jonchapple moved Volunteer (Irish republican) to Volunteer (Ireland) without any attempt at discussion or consensus. It was quickly moved back, the user in question reverted the move, and it was moved back again. Hohenloh ⁺ 13:14, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Correct, I boldly moved it in May time, I'm not hiding that. I'm just curious as to why anyone thinks the current title is a better one than the much more accurate and neutral Volunteer (Ireland). JonChapple^Talk 13:24, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

What do you mean neutral? The article is about the Irish Republican usage of the term. It is accurate and neutral. Mo ainm~Talk 15:19, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

It's not, it's about use of the term in general. It mentions the Irish Volunteers, Ulster Volunteers and modern loyalist paramilitaries, none of which are republicans.

Mo ainm a chara, its clear the article is about Irish Republican usage of the term, no point wasting any more time on it. --Domer48_'fenian' 18:54, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

"I don't feel like chatting about it, because if I just ignore the discussion the article will have to stay as it is. That's how Domerpedia works." JonChapple^Talk 20:57, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Wierdly enough seeing as this is WikiProject Ireland, which also covers the Republic of Ireland, in the interest of NPOV this discussion should of been notified in the UK WikiProject seeing as the IRA and most of their actions have been directed at and primarily in the United Kingdom making it relevant to that WikiProject.

On that article, it is primarily about Irish Republican usage, however no doubt the editors of it have made it that way. The article has plenty of scope to treat the issue more neutrally and fair by expanding more of the loyalist usage of the term which it glaringly makes little mention of in its pursuit of pushing the republican ideal. Then again if anymore mention was made it'd have to be renamed.

An article called Volunteers (Irish loyalist) could be created, however in the end both articles would probably have to be merged into each other as there isn't really a point in having two sparse articles on a term used by both sides on this island. Mabuska ^(talk) 10:23, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose as they all have called themselves volunteers for decades, in terms of rank. But most volunteers go very quiet when you ask about who was in their command structure.Red Hurley (talk) 10:40, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

OR use of the "s-par" template for Oireachtas members

See debate here and here.
At issue: whether the "s-par" template should list the name(s) of the parliamentary constituency for the given member. It is my contention that it should not.

Rationale. No other parliament uses the template in this way. Neighbouring parliaments that use the "s-par" template include:

• The European Parliament whose succession template doesn't include the political party in its parliament name. See Pat the Cope Gallagher (from FF).
• The Parliament of the United Kingdom whose succession template doesn't include the political party in its parliament name. See Tony Blair.
• The Northern Ireland Assembly whose succession template doesn't include the political party in its parliament name. See Gerry Adams.
• The National Assembly for Wales whose succession template doesn't include the political party in its parliament name. See Dafydd Elis-Thomas.
• The Scottish Parliament whose succession template doesn't include the political party in its parliament name. See Alex Salmond.

Putting in the political party clutters the space necessitating the creation of many layers. An extreme example of this is Noël Browne, who was a TD for 5 parties (6 if you count Ind). This may be contrasted with that of David Owen, who is equally famous for his party hopping. His template remains uncluttered with party allegiances; it quite properly confines its entries to his parliamentary terms.

It is the opinion of a third party editor (WP:3O) that "... political parties ought to be left out full stop, as is done in most political articles (see, say Francis Pym). So it would look like this: "

Interested readers have wiki links to discover party alleigance - or if important it can be made clear in the article.

It is the opinion of an outside editor who came via RfC that "...it seems inappropriate to include party affiliation at all. It confuses things and suggests that each party has a member occupying that office".

User Sam Blacketer offers the opinion that "...It would be better not to include the party within the title, because it wrongly implies that there is a specific post within the constituency representing that party."

While a more general debate about the appropriateness of the use of succession boxes in multi-seat constituencies is possible, in the meantime, this issue needs to be settled before the wider debate can commence. It could be some time before a solution and a developer for multi-seat constituencies is found and it would be inappropriate for this error to be allowed to remain pending that solution. Laurel Lodged (talk) 12:45, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

We use multi-seat constituencies in Ireland. It is complete OR to say that Seán Ryan was succeeded by Michael Kennedy, who in turn was succeeded by Alan Farrell. Seán Ryan was elected in in 2002 and did not stand in 2007. Michael Kennedy was elected in 2007 and was not elected in 2011. Alan Farrell was elected in 2011. There is no such things as succession of seats under PR-STV. Michael Kennedy did not win Seán Ryans seat.

I have no opinion about whether to include party affiliation or not but succession is OR. Where is that discussion taking place? --RA (talk) 15:04, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

The original idea was for informational/presentational purposes. The TDs tables display all this information (Dublin North), with the caveat of: "The columns in this table are used only for presentational purposes, and no significance should be attached to the order of columns. For details of the order in which seats were won at each election, see the detailed results of that election.". For each TD, the constituency and dates of office are displayed in the infobox. One proposal was to list all the TDs serving alongside the subject plus all those who preceded and succeeded them, but this lead to a huge and unwieldy, horrible looking succession box. We don't have succession boxes for Senators (also elected in multi-seat constituencies), so we should remove the succession boxes for multi-seat constituencies entirely, and the information will be available in the officeholder infobox and the relevant constituency article. If the consensus is to remove them completely then debate (which has seen more forums than a Roman emperor) about including the political party will be unnecessary. Snappy (talk) 15:47, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

"Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury the abuse of s-par...The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones." Laurel Lodged (talk) 16:13, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

No where in the s-par documentation does it say that parties are not allowed, but anyway the debate has moved on and is now about whether the succession boxes for multi-seat constituencies should be there at all. Snappy (talk) 17:50, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

As far as I know you vote for a specific person, not for a specific party. So it makes sense to me to leave the party out of the succession box.

But it is true that you have multi seat constituencies in Ireland, so the box can only be used safely for by-elections. Alternative is the use of the succesion box per constituency and not per member, but that give complications with by-elections. Night of the Big Wind _talk 16:42, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Actually one votes for both, all ballot papers in Ireland, show the candidates name, party name and party logo, or state non-party if they are independent. Snappy (talk) 17:53, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Excuse me for butting in late, but I have to say this: why on earth would we use s-par for seats in the Oireachtas at all? With or without party affiliation! All seats represent multi-member constituencies. It is impossible to say that X was followed by Y in constituency Z, because Z has three to five seats. If you really wanted to shoehorn Oireachtas seats into a template that was designed to describe seats elected by primitive electoral systme such as used in the UK, then you would have to use a wikitable and use it after every election:

Outgoing TDs	Election	Incoming TDs
Seán T		JJ O'B
Micheál R	2011 General Election	Fred J
JJ O'B		Seán T

(where order is as returned). But you couldn't use s-par. So new template, new rules? --Red King (talk) 10:10, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Red King is right; and while Snappy is right about parties being on ballot papers we should avoid clutter and use links.Red Hurley (talk) 10:48, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

How is this method gonna work with by-elections? Night of the Big Wind _talk 11:37, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

That proposed table is interesting but that level of detail isn't needed on each TD's article and is available anyway in the constituency article. I think we shouldn't use any succession boxes for multi seat constituencies. Snappy (talk) 19:10, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Ulster Volunteer Force page move

BoutYeBigLad has moved the page "Ulster Volunteer Force" to "Ulster Volunteer Force (1966)" and the former is now a disambiguation page. Ther was no consensus for this move and so a discussion has been started at the article's talkpage. ~Asarlaí 17:21, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

I notice the discussion over there has dried up. I think the 1966 should be dropped from the article's title as it could imply to some readers that this group only existed in 1966.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 07:27, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Soldiers / British soldiers

Just while I'm ruffling feathers, I've noticed a trend on wiki where editors on Northern Ireland Troubles related articles sometimes get into little ding-dongs over whether to refer to "the army" or "the British army", or "soldiers" vs "British soldiers". Now the defence I've seen of the removal of "British" is that it's supposedly obvious that they are British soldiers and hence there's no need to specify it. But, wrt WP:OBVIOUS, is it obvious to everyone who might be reading the article? Wiki is read by an international audience, including people who may be unfamiliar with the conflict and who may not be aware of which army is being referred to. Hell, there are people in Britain who don't even know that Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom, so what chance has a reader in Malaysia who isn't even sure which island is Britain and which is Ireland? I move that we allow the descriptor "British" to remain. --Eamonnca1 ^TALK 18:00, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

My preference is to say "British Army" for the first instance, then simply "the army" and "soldiers" from then on it. No matter your feelings on the status of Northern Ireland, the fact remains that it is a country of the United Kingdom and so the British Army is its army. We wouldn't keep referring to the "British Army" on an article about a conflict in England. JonChapple^Talk 20:51, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

After the first reference in the article to "British Army", yes, it is obvious. No need constantly to state British thereafter. A bit like the first reference to Provisional IRA, followed simply by IRA. Mooretwin (talk) 20:53, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

That sounds reasonable. The only exception I can think of would be if another army happened to be mentioned in the same article, such as the Irish army, then we might have to be a bit more verbose. But if the British army is the only one mentioned then one "British" identifier should be sufficient. --Eamonnca1 ^TALK 21:46, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Agree that if two or more armies were mentioned, the need for the descriptor would continue after the first reference. Mooretwin (talk) 21:49, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Agreed here. JonChapple^Talk 21:52, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Agreed, however there is no harm in restating "British" further down a very long article, otherwise the lede and then first mention in the article after that would suffice. Mabuska ^(talk) 10:25, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

I think in any context involving the British Army and the Irish Republican Army it can't hurt to state explicitly which army is being referred to. I'm equally opposed to the use of, for instance, "United" in the context of a match between Man. U. and Newcastle. The obvious objection - that the IRA has no legal standing in the UK or Ireland - doesn't alter the fact that either can be referred to as "the army" (see J. Bowyer Bell, The Secret Army: The IRA for frequent reference to the IRA as "the army"). Scolaire (talk) 18:56, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

I've seen the IRA referred to as "the army" too, but only on internet messageboards by mischievous people trying to wind up unionists. --Eamonnca1 ^TALK 20:56, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't think too many editors will be mistaking "army" as refering to the IRA. Mabuska ^(talk) 12:03, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

I would.--Ruairí Óg's (talk) 12:34, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

That's one, then. JonChapple^Talk 17:41, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Scolaire's point is well made and quite reasonable. I could add any number of sources which refer to the Irish Republican Army as the "army."--Domer48_'fenian' 18:36, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Outrageous POV by Scolaire. Unsurprisingly, gleefully backed up by Domer48. Mooretwin (talk) 22:50, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

If I read an article about Northern Ireland in which someone mentions "Army" I would never think about the IRA but would think about the British Army in the sense as "occupation force". (See the book of Roger Failigot Guerre specialle en Europe. I have a Dutch version) Night of the Big Wind _talk 23:48, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

I always think it's funny when people try to claim the British Army is an occupying force in its own country. Possible statements in IRA contexts: "fleeing from the scene they were stopped by an army patrol", "after the attack the army fired shots towards them", "they ambushed an army checkpoint" - i don't think readers would mistake army for IRA. An RfC (if anyone would bother answering as they are loathe to do with Ireland related matters) would probably feel the same. Mabuska ^(talk) 12:56, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

In all articles I edit relating to Northern Ireland, I use British Army and when I wish to differentiate from the Ulster Defence Regiment (a regiment of the British Army, although not every reader would necessarily know this), I use the term regular Army with a pipelink to British Army. The word army is too vague for me.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 07:24, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Charles Boycott, Featured article candidate

Hi, I have nominated Charles Boycott, an article possibly of interest to members of this project for featured article. Feel free to comment on the article at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Charles Boycott/archive1. Thanks, Quasihuman | Talk 20:14, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Frank Fahey

There's been a complaint about this article to WMF, in particular the part about Lost at Sea, but maybe also the whole article. I've tried my best to fix the Lost at Sea section so it is factual and sourced, but I'm out of my depth with the rest of it, really. Are there some positive achievements of Fahey that should be mentioned? Why is it so bad that he has invested money in different properties? Maybe it is bad, but why is not clear form the article. The Corrib gas thing seems like a big deal, but the way it is described isn't very clear about Fahey's role.

Definitely not suggesting the article should be whitewashed, but think it needs some Irish eyes smiling on it, if that way of putting it doesn't make you puke. --FormerIP (talk) 00:59, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Specific question. The article currently says: "In June 2009, Trevor Sargent in the Dáil accused Fahey of tax avoidance and making inappropriate decisions as a minister, and called on the Taoiseach to sack him". That sounds like it is an unusual and dramatic event (therefore noteworthy). Or is the type of thing that happens all the time in Irish politics? --FormerIP (talk) 16:27, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Not that unusual and fairly typical drama-wise, I'd say. Scolaire (talk) 16:40, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

"Are there some positive achievements of Fahey that should be mentioned?" Well, there was the time he... um... or that thing he did, er... Nah, being honest, nothing at all springs to mind. (The fact that a minister drops from a low 10% vote to 5% in the last election is telling...) Nothing wrong with property investments, per se, but it's mandatory for all Irish politicians to declare all of their interests, which he was accused of failing to do. While it might not be all that unusual for an opposition party member to accuse a government member of inapproriate decisions, accusations of tax avoidance *are* rare enough - and in this case, Trevor Sargent wasn't an opposition member, he was a Minister of State in a coalition government with Fahey's party. I'd say that makes it very unusual. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 17:57, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Oh yeah, I forgot Sargent was in government! Yeah, that was unusual. Scolaire (talk) 18:16, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

The drop in votes is not so strange, if you take into account that Fianna Fail was hammered party wide. They lost 51 of their 71 seats... Night of the Big Wind _talk 18:59, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

OK. So I added a reference to Sargent being a government minister, to make it clearer why that incident is significant, and to the fact that this years GE was bad all round for FF, so as not to give the impression that Fahey's defeat was just about him.

Does that sound right?

Any and all comments about the article still welcome, BTW. --FormerIP (talk) 19:46, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Gaeltacht villages names: which language should have primacy?

Issue Whether towns and villages that are in the Gaeltacht should have their official Gaelic name as the primary address with the English name as a re-direct or vice versa. Examples:

• An Spidéal and Spiddal
• Dún Chaoin and Dunquin
• Baile an Sceilg and Ballinskelligs
• An Cheathrú Rua and Carraroe
• Tuar Mhic Éadaigh and Tourmakeady
• Baile Bhuirne and Ballyvourney.

Arguments for the Gaelic primacy: per the "Official Languages Act 2003". Quoting from a Seanad debate of Wednesday, 15 June 2011:

"The official name of Dingle was changed to An Daingean in 2004 by an order of the Minster for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs under the Official Languages Act 2003. The English language version then ceased to have legal force."

.

While the name has been changed again by Ministerial order, the point is that until that time, the official name of the town was "An Daingean" despite lots of local, possibly even exclusive, use of the name "Dingle". While this is an English language Wiki, nevertheless, certain institutions that have the force of law get Gaelic primacy. For example, Seanad Éireann is still the primary address, not "Senate of Ireland" and Oireachtas is still the primary address, not the "Irish parliament". The example of Spiddal is particularly egregious as two of its references either support the Gaelic version (C.S.O. census) or support a differerent English spelling - Spiddle (Placenames Database).

Arguments for the English primacy: while the village may be in the Gaeltacht, local usage may have lapsed into English usage. Maps display the English name. Tourists have been marketed the English name. Laurel Lodged (talk) 19:28, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that's covered in IMOS. If you disagree, then the IMOS talk page is the place to take it. Scolaire (talk) 19:45, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it's covered here. As to the use of Oireachtas and Seanad Éireann - that'd be WP:COMMONNAME. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 20:37, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Luckily this is an issue thats already been debated and resolved. Mabuska ^(talk) 21:27, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

I think that there may be a gap in the IMOS. The nearest case to the present issue seems to be "Where the English and Irish names are different, and the Irish name is the official name, and has gained favour in English usage, use the official Irish name.". I don't think that the case covers the situation as it assumes that English usage is the common usage; why would anyone assume this of a Gaeltacht? Surely Gaelic is the common usage in a Gaeltacht? Would it matter what the English/French/German usage was? How would it be relevant in a Gaeltacht? Do we not need a new case like:

• "Where the English and Irish names are different, and the place is part of an official Gaeltacht area, use the official Irish name." ? Laurel Lodged (talk) 22:53, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

The IMOS talk page is the place to take it. Scolaire (talk) 06:36, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Case logged in IMOS. Laurel Lodged (talk) 12:45, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Proposal being made on WT:IMOS

Might be of interest this proposal Mo ainm~Talk 15:43, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Current "administrative units" and the vice-counties of Ireland

In the article Vice-counties, which is currently being revised and expanded, there is a brief discussion and a table describing the relationship between the current "administrative units" (counties, unitary authorities, etc.) in Great Britain (=England, Wales and Scotland) and the vice-counties used for biological recording.

There should be something similar for Ireland, both the Republic and Northern Ireland, so that someone who knows only the modern "administrative units" (counties, districts, or whatever) can relate them to the vice-counties as set up by Praeger in 1901. Is anyone here able to add such a section? Peter coxhead (talk) 14:01, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Never heard of vice-counties before in my life so i wouldn't have the foggiest idea how to help. Mabuska ^(talk) 12:46, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

They were just a concept (invented in the UK in the mid-1800's) for breaking up big counties into smaller units, to provide an overall base of similarly-sized land areas. They remain related to the 32 traditional counties, and I guess a table could be made up accordingly. SeoR (talk) 12:49, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Category discussion:Alumni by secondary school in Ireland

Category:Alumni by secondary school in Ireland and its various sub-categories have been nominated for renaming to a consistent form. The discussion is here. Timrollpickering (talk) 12:59, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Traffic signs

Hello, appreciate it if someone could take a look at this - posted it there, then noticed that nobody's touched that page in years. Thanks, 92.27.136.232 (talk) 14:31, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

I've corrected the Irish language parts and removed text from those that have no signs. I also removed text from other sections that do have signs but not displayed in the gallery. If you get those images I can add the text back in with the redacted Irish version. ^Mac Tíre _Cowag 15:07, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Just for your information. The Irish language signage can be found at these locations: Regulatory signs, Warning signs, Road works signs, Information signs, Traffic signs and road markings. ^Mac Tíre _Cowag 15:14, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. My own opinion is that the legend should remain where there is a sign but we don't have it here yet, but that's a discussion for the article talk page itself, and it is in need of more work than just that. 92.27.136.232 (talk) 17:23, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

James Liddy

Anyone familiar with Irish poetry? The article James Liddy is extremely poor and badly sourced. He deserves better... Night of the Big Wind _talk 23:19, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Wow that is a big article - excluding external links theres a total of four words and two years. I've expanded it a little bit, not much, but better than nothing. Mabuska ^(talk) 22:17, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't know anything about Irish poetry, but I corrected the Irish poet stub template used at the bottom. The little tricolour was linking to the island rather than the state. JonChapple^Talk 22:24, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

So now all Irish poets alive before 1922, and there are several to which this stub transcludes though I have not checked them all, are linked to a state that did not exist for some or all of their lifetime. Very clever! ww2censor (talk) 23:02, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

It's no less clever than linking to a geographical entity with a flag that 1) only represents about 5/6ths of it, 2) wasn't invented until the 1840s, and 3) is liable to cause offence to large chunks of its people. It was a rush-job and Mabuska's edit was a much better one, but perhaps you could have made it instead of reverting with snarky comments. JonChapple^Talk 06:23, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

@ JonChapple Perhaps you missed my post below made several hours before yours where I acknowledge the flag was not a good idea. ww2censor (talk) 20:49, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. My knowledge of Irish poets is almost non-existent. A quick look at Google learned me that Liddy is without any doubt notable. Night of the Big Wind _talk 23:12, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Actually neither template edit was that great but Mabuska replaced the flag with a shamrock which covers all periods fine. ww2censor (talk) 02:41, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

GAR for The Corrs

An article that falls within this project, The Corrs has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the good article reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status will be removed from the article. Jezhotwells (talk) 00:15, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Open page move discussions

• (Discuss) – Ireland → Island of Ireland
• (Discuss) – Belfast Agreement → Good Friday Agreement Kauffner (talk) 07:05, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Poll on ArbCom resolution - Ireland article names

There is a poll taking place here on whether or not to extend the ArbCom binding resolution, which says there may be no page move discussions for Ireland, Republic of Ireland or Ireland (disambiguation), for a further two years. Scolaire (talk) 11:18, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

RfC - Volunteer (Irish republican)

A Request for Comment has been opened up here on the Volunteer (Irish republican) article.

And no it has nothing to do with is Volunteer a rank/title/term to describe Irish republican paramilitaries. Its simply about relevance of historical information. Mabuska ^(talk) 23:16, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

AfD's

I've nominated Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Parkmore RFC and other similar clubs for deletion. Have a look Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Parkmore RFC Gnevin (talk) 10:49, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Describing the Lordship/Kingdom of Ireland and the forces that fought for it

Q1: Between 1171 and 1800, the Lordship of Ireland/Kingdom of Ireland was a territory that the English monarchy (later the British monarchy) claimd sovereignty over. Altho it had its own parliament from 1297 onward, the Lordship/Kingdom of Ireland was not a sovereign state. Would it be correct, therfor, to describe it as a dependent territory? If so, a dependent territory of England (later the Kingdom of Great Britain) or a dependent territory of the monarchy? If not, what would be the best way to describe it in modern terms? The current ledes don't do a good job of explaining this.

Q2: The Lordship/Kingdom of Ireland never had its own standing army. The Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland didn't hav standing armies until after the English Civil War. Insted, temporary armies wer created when needed and wer mostly composed of ordinary citizens. How, then, should we describe the forces that fought for the Lordship/Kingdom of Ireland? For example… in military conflict infoboxes, should the Nine Years' War be described as a war agenst the Kingdom of Ireland, agenst the Kingdom of England, agenst the "English army" (lowercase 'a') or agenst the "Forces of the Crown"?

~Asarlaí 23:46, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Just for clarity, why wasn't is a sovereign state if it had it's own parliament? --HighKing (talk) 01:28, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Depends on your particular take on the source of state power and, in parallel, its legitimacy. 'Talking shops' are one thing, but the exercise of control is sometimes something else. RashersTierney (talk) 01:46, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

The problem with these sorts of description is that they use modern terminology i.e. less that 200 years old, to refer to medieval (in the case of the Lordship) or early modern (in the case of the Kingdom for the first 200 years or so) entities. The Kingdom of France or the Holy Roman Empire are never referred to as "sovereign states", and Bohemia is never referred to as a "dependent territory". Ireland should be described in whatever terms historians use for Ireland. I would suggest something along the lines of "The Lordship of Ireland refers to that part of Ireland that was under the rule of the [[Monarchy of the United Kingdom#English monarchy|king of England]] between 1177 and 1541" and "The Kindom of Ireland refers to the country of Ireland in the period between the proclamation of Henry VIII as King of Ireland in 1542 and the Act of Union in 1800." As far as the Nine Years' war is concerned, to my mind the current infobox describes the English side better than any of the alternatives proposed here: it was the Kingdom of England and its government in Ireland. Scolaire (talk) 06:53, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Some points; the Lordship and Kingdom were in "Personal union" with the king of England / Britain. Not a fashionable idea today outside Andorra, but as Scolaire says, we must consider European international law at the time. The Kingdom and its link was recognised from 1542 by states that recognised Henry VIII, and from the Papal bull Ilius (1555) the personal union was acceptable to the Papacy. From time to time a lot of clan chiefs were beyond the control of Dublin; they were certainly autonomous in Ireland but not independent under international law. During the Nine Years' war Hugh O'Neill offered sovereignty to Philip II's cousin in 1595. It was all a bit untidy and we are more encyclopaedic if we stick to the norms of the day.Red Hurley (talk) 10:24, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

The above makes the same mistake in attempting to apply a modern concept. There was no functional "international law" in that period. Ireland was governed locally, like everywhere else, and never having been part of the Roman Empire, Holy Roman Empire, etc., was not subject to even a claim of any external jurisdiction. Pope Adrian based his infamous Bull asserting a right to "award" Ireland to the King of England on the specious "Donation of Constantine" - a claim based on a claimed Roman Empire point which had no validity with regard to Ireland, and was probably a fraud to boot. The claim to Ireland may have been recognised by States which had relations to England, but not by any with links to the former Rithe Tuatha, provincial Kings or High Kings of Ireland. Notably Ireland had its own legal system, and this had no provision for allocating jurisdiction to any outside power - it did not even give so much power to the High King. The English presence was a continuing invasion, only, and its force was limited to the area it controlled by arms and settlement. As a side note, Hugh O'Neill had no entitlement to offer sovreignty to anyone either. SeoR (talk) 12:45, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

There was an emerging church-centred western christian international law before the lordship, if you look at the Investiture Controversy and the Concordat of Worms. It was a personal thing, the lordship did not belong to "England" but to the person who was king of England. The Papacy didn't think much of the Brehon laws and we had never paid our share of Peter's Pence, so we were on the wrong foot in 1154. The Papacy's view led on to international recognition of the Lordship and Kingdom, fact, and that is what sovereignty is based on. Pope Urban III even approved of John being crowned King of Ireland in 1185 without mentioning the poor old Rithe Tuatha.Red Hurley (talk) 16:40, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

The new ledes at Lordship of Ireland and Kingdom of Ireland ar an improvement but I think they could be betterd. Nevertheless, we havn't really toucht on my second question. For some conflicts in Ireland it's clear who the opposing sides ar, but for meny others it's not. For most of the battles in the following campain boxes, what should we name the forces that fought for the Lordship/Kingdom if Ireland?

• Template:Campaignbox Irish-Norman wars
• Template:Campaignbox Desmond Rebellions
• Template:Campaignbox Tyrone's Rebellion
• Template:Campaignbox Irish Confederate Wars (before the New Model Army landed)

~Asarlaí 20:09, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

I answered for the article you asked about. I said "to my mind the current infobox describes the English side better than any of the alternatives proposed here." Your templates link to an awful lot of articles, too many for me to trawl through them all. So I'm going to make a guess and say they're probably all all right. The whole business of looking for clever and/or bureaucratic 21st century descriptions for historical events and parties is just a bad idea! Just leave them the way that they have been described throughout the ages and up to the present day. If in doubt how they are described, look them up. There will be books in your local library. If that's too much, try Google Books. Having a "what shall we call them" think-in on the talk page is covered by a Wikipedia policy: No original research. --Scolaire (talk) 21:30, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Again, you had lots of feudal lords and knights who owed personal military services to the king. There was some garrisons but no standing army until the 1660s.Red Hurley (talk) 16:40, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Association Football / Soccer

When was the last time you heard an Irishman refer to "Association football" in conversation? I have yet to see that term written in a newspaper, magazine, or book. In Ireland it is customary to refer to soccer as 'football' when it's the only sport being discussed, oftentimes it is referred to as 'soccer' when it is the only sport being discussed, and when Gaelic football is involved in the conversation then the sport is most definitely referred to as 'soccer' to avoid ambiguity. It certainly isn't referred to as "Association football". Google has 56,700 results for "Association Football" Ireland and 257,00,000 results for soccer ireland. [3] Per Per WP:TIES it is customary to use the terminology of a particular country in an article that is closely related to that country. The term "Association football" is not part of the general lexicon in Ireland, "soccer" is. In fact the term "soccer" can be heard in Britain too, if you'd like I can pull up examples of English soccer commentators using the term themselves. So what I don't get is this mission that User:Mooretwin seem to be on to obliterate such a widely recognised word like "soccer" and replace it with the almost unknown term "Association football". I would be surprised if that term were even known to the majority of the sport's fans. --Eamonnca1 ^TALK 19:01, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

I can agree to using just football for association football in articles that are to do with association football, and football for Gaelic football in articles that are about that. If either sport makes an reference in each others article they could be called "Gaelic football" in an association football orientated article and "soccer" in a Gaelic football orientated article.

For articles that aren't dealing specifically with one sport over the other is where i think the problem really lies. Whilst in the Republic and many parts of Northern Ireland football may be used refer to Gaelic football, what does the term football convey to an international reader? More than likely it conveys to them the sport of association football, whether they'd call it that or not. Does stating "Gaelic football" and "football" together in a sentence/paragraph/context lead to the possibility of confusion? Possibly. In that context i can see the point in stating "Gaelic football" and "soccer" together in the same sentence/paragraph/context - however in that context alone where there is a chance of confusion.

On the term soccer, ironically despite their apparent disdain for the "American" term, it is an English invented word for the sport rather than American as far as i'm aware. Mabuska ^(talk) 20:00, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

The word "soccer" is as old as the game it refers to. It's a shortened form of "Assoc." + er. It originates on these islands.

On general articles to do with Ireland, "football" alone is insufficient. Like Australia, "football" in Ireland can mean (definitely) two things and (if one was to argue the point) up to three things.

"Association football" does seem to be the preferred term on Wikipedia for the game that I'd usually call "soccer". I can live it with either way and slightly prefer the proper names for things. I definitely will not be supporting rugby football being called "rugger" or Gaelic football being called "ga". By the same logic, I marginally prefer Association football being called "association football", rather than "soccer". However, it's not the same as the other examples and I notice that Australia uses "soccer".

"...what does the term football convey to an international reader?" — Over half of our visitors come from the United States or Canada, where "football" is gridiron. --RA (talk) 20:48, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Two issues here and, although they are related, they should be considered separately IMHO

1. The term to be used for 'association football' in article titles in Ireland related articles
2. The use of the term 'football' in Ireland related articles

With 1) above, anything other than soccer is a POV imposition. It is not used in Ireland. No one would go searching for it. It's a nonsense in every respect. However with 2) above, I think in an article called, for instance, Soccer in the Republic of Ireland, it would be entirely proper to use the term 'football' to refer to the sport in question. And it would be similarly acceptable to use 'football' in relation to Gaelic football. Fmph (talk) 06:28, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

I'd agree with you not referring to Rugby as 'rugger' since that remains a slang term that never really became a de-facto proper name of the sport. "Soccer" on the other hand has become an accepted proper name of the sport and is even used by some of its governing bodies such as Major League Soccer and the American Youth Soccer Association. The persistence of the term "Association football" on wiki is largely due to the work of one editor who has previously admitted that he just doesn't like the word "soccer" and has been going around replacing it. --Eamonnca1 ^TALK 21:39, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

When you state Ireland-related articles, don't forget that Northern Ireland is not the exact same as the Republic, and in Northern Ireland football amongst the majority doesn't equate to Gaelic football. So if Ireland-related, are you stating Republic wise or island wise? We shouldn't just cast both parts of the island under one umbrella. If its simply in regards to the Republic then i can agree to using soccer in place of association football. Mabuska ^(talk) 21:57, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't see what political partition has to do with it. Gaelic football is more popular than soccer in the south and the same applies in the north. In fact Gaelic football is more popular in parts of Northern Ireland than it is in parts of the south. --Eamonnca1 ^TALK 22:03, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes in parts of Northern Ireland there is very devout followers and players, but not in the whole of Northern Ireland. Don't forget many people here, safe to say the majority of people here, don't play or follow Gaelic football - so it'd be hard to say that "the same applies in the north". Football in the United Kingdom refers first and foremost to soccer not Gaelic. Like i already said i can agree to the use of soccer in Republic of Ireland articles or Gaelic specific articles (which can include those based in Northern Ireland). Thats a fair compromise in my eyes. Mabuska ^(talk) 22:07, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

"Football" in Ireland (both parts) can mean soccer or Gaelic depending on context. This is the Wikiproject Ireland talk page, we're talking about Ireland-related articles. If you're talking about articles specific to Britain where there's no ambiguity about what most people mean by "football" then there's no need to specify which flavour we're talking about. Northern Ireland is different since soccer is not the dominant form of football here. Incidentally, attendance at Ulster Gaelic Football Championship matches is bigger than the crowds you'd get at a Northern Ireland international. Judging by that and the three men and a dog who attend Irish League matches, I think it's "pretty safe to say that the majority of people here" don't follow soccer either. --Eamonnca1 ^TALK 22:16, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Neither do I see it as being particularly specific to the republic. In every part of Ireland, whether it is rugby in Limerick, soccer in Dublin, or Gaelic in Tyrone, there are several very popular sports all competing for the name "football". --RA (talk) 22:16, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

I agree with both RA and Eamonn; when it comes to Irish article we need to use Gaelic, Rugby and Soccer to relate to the different games of football. BTW I just looked at the attendance figures for soccer in the North and Eamonn you are wrong it is only two men and a dog, woefully low. Bjmullan (talk) 22:28, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

I was being generous. --Eamonnca1 ^TALK 22:30, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Aye, sure ignore participation and concentrate only on spectating. Mooretwin (talk) 22:45, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

I agree with RA. We should use "association football" - this is the term preferred in Wikipedia. Outside the US, Canada and Australia, "soccer" is not used by those who play or organise the sport (indeed the name is usually objected to) - there are no "soccer clubs" or "soccer associations" in Ireland. The point that no-one in Ireland talks about "association football" is irrelevant - this is a worldwide encyclopaedia, not an Irish one, and the convention is to use Association football rather than soccer. Mooretwin (talk) 22:43, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

So nobody in Ireland says "Association football" (which is correct) and that is irrelevant.

But nobody in Ireland says "soccer" (which is incorrect) and that's relevant.

You have just entered ... the Twilight Zone.

So many contradictions and errors in there it's difficult to know where to start. Let's break it down, shall we?

"We should use "association football" - this is the term preferred in Wikipedia" - It is now after you've gone on your one-man crusade to obliterate the word "soccer", but per MOS:TIES I think you're on a hiding to nowhere with it.

"The point that no-one in Ireland talks about "association football" is irrelevant". - Au contraire, MOS:TIES.

""soccer" is not used by those who play or organise the sport" - And...? Even if it were true, what's that got to do with the price of fish? Are we only going to listen to the views of people who actually organise and participate in certain sports now? I'd be all in favour of that (particularly in GAA articles) but somehow I think any such edits wouldn't last very long.

"The term is usually objected to." - That is an unsourced claim and irrelevant. The term "Londonderry" is objected to as well but I don't see that being excluded from Wiki.

"This is a worldwide encyclopedia, not an Irish one." - Actually, it's customary to use the local lingo on pages that are relevant to a particular area. But if you're going to ignore MOS:TIES then why are you making statements about the local use of English (which happen to be preposterously incorrect)? --Eamonnca1 ^TALK 00:27, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Eamonn (well, maybe not with the attendance figures!). As I already mentioned, this has been discussed before and I was of the opinion that agreement had been reached. Hohenloh ⁺ 22:50, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

This has always been one of the sillier nationalistic kerfuffles we allow ourselves to hash out over and over. Oh well, I suppose it keeps us paying attention. From various past arguments, a few things are clear: (1) In terms of Ireland at least, the term "football" by itself is simply too ambiguous to use on its own, as it can refer to several different sports without anyone being wrong, and (2) "association football" has become a fairly common Wikiped-ese substitution for "football" when disambiguation is required and "soccer" is not common. What's not at all clear in the case of Ireland, is the claim that "soccer" isn't common (or is even avoided). To the casual observer, it certainly would seem to be in widespread use. The sport pages in the Times,[4] the Independent,[5] and the Examiner[6] all use it. An important study of Irish sport and nationalism by Michael Cronin is called Sport and Nationalism in Ireland: Gaelic Games, Soccer and Identity Since 1884. We don't need to reinvent the wheel here.--Cúchullain ^t/c 01:35, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

It's be good if we could find some British sources that refer to soccer too. That [7] would [8] be [9] interesting. [10] --Eamonnca1 ^TALK 02:05, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Would UTV be considered British enough? Fmph (talk) 06:57, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Or Reuters UK? Fmph (talk) 07:00, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

I have no intention of getting involved in this, but I did notice that in Eamonn's third link - the "Soccer violence" one - Michael Henderson also said, "I didn't make a vow never to attend another match. I like Association Football too much for that." Scolaire (talk) 08:43, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

"Northern Ireland is different since soccer is not the dominant form of football here. Incidentally, attendance at Ulster Gaelic Football Championship matches is bigger than the crowds you'd get at a Northern Ireland international. Judging by that and the three men and a dog who attend Irish League matches, I think it's "pretty safe to say that the majority of people here" don't follow soccer either."

Eamonnca1 that is utter codswallop. A disgraceful amount of over-simplification to try to force a untrue point on which sport is more "popular". Just because people may not follow the Irish League does not mean they don't follow football at all. Are you saying that Manchester United, Liverpool, Rangers or Celtic, are also supported here by just three men and a dog? Whilst the local game may not be flourishing, there are countless "soccer" teams in the country, with a redicuolous amount of amateur junior leagues, and a yet greater amount of people with an interest in football outside of Northern Ireland. In fact in almost every settlement you will find a local "soccer" team, in unionist and nationalist areas - the same cannot be said for Gaelic football where you find them largely in nationalist areas alone. As I said its pretty safe to say that the majority of people here follow and use the term football for association football... regardless of local participation levels.

"Actually, it's customary to use the local lingo on pages that are relevant to a particular area."

Yeah, the only time in recent memory i have heard soccer being used to refer to football is here on Wikipedia. Then again Northern Ireland is not the Republic of Ireland. Regardless of local particpation levels, Gaelic football is a minority sport here, with far more people supporting Rangers, Celtic, Manchester United and Liverpool. I'm not denying that the word soccer is used by British media or anything, never did, i'm simply refuting Eamonnca1's amazing claims that Gaelic is the more supported sport in Northern Ireland. Mabuska ^(talk) 10:51, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

For our current purposes, it hardly matters how well this or any support is supported, it only matters what it is called. If it were only (or primarily) called "football", we could go with the substitute "association football", but as it's obvious that "soccer" is widely used in Ireland, that's clearly the better choice.--Cúchullain ^t/c 13:11, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Preach it brother! Just because someone never heard anyone say soccer (and I'm damned if I know what kind of rock you would have to live under to avoid hearing it) doesn't mean the term isn't in widespread use. And my esteemed colleague's description of Gaelic football as a "minority sport" in Northern Ireland is the funniest thing I've ever seen here in a while. --Eamonnca1 ^TALK 06:11, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

No point in trying to explain the political reasons as to why it is, would only drag the discussion down. So what exactly is your proposal Eamonnca1? I already said i'd back soccer in various different contexts. Mabuska ^(talk) 21:23, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Given that Gaelic football in Northern Ireland, with only a tiny number of exceptions, is played and followed only by Roman Catholics, and that Roman Catholics are a minority, it is, therefore, by definition, a minority sport. Mooretwin (talk) 21:40, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

That is amongst the political reasons i'd prefer to avoid discussing as it would only lead to the dragging down of this debate. Mabuska ^(talk) 22:02, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

@Mooretwin - Do you have any evidence to support such a partisan opinion. I think it's well understand that very few people of a protestant outlook would attend GAA matches, but that is not the only way to support a team. Media coverage is so wide these days that it is well possible to support without disapproving neighbours ever knowing. My personal experience is that many open minded NI protestants (and there are quite a few of those around contrary to many assertions) would support their county, especially during a successful all-ireland run for instance. If you have evidence to the contrary I'd be willing to see it. Fmph (talk) 06:28, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Not to put too fine a point on it, that is the greatest load of nonsense I have ever seen contributed to this discussion. Since when did a dubious assertion about the religious affiliation of its followers have anything to do with whether or not something is a minority sport? We're not talking about popularity of any particular flavour of church. We're talking about interest in sports, and in Northern Ireland Gaelic football is very much a mainstream sport. If Northern Ireland international matches got anywhere near the kind of attendances that an Ulster Championship Gaelic match got then the IFA would be in much better shape. --Eamonnca1 ^TALK 06:42, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

This qualifies for WP:HORSEMEAT. Red Hurley (talk) 17:11, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

The Phoenix

Just wonder how people feel about pullings quote from The Phoenix that criticize organizations and/or people? An example is here. --RA (talk) 19:40, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Thought I should mention, your link is to a link. That can be off-putting.

As regards this, I would call WP:RECENTISM. Whether the Reform Movement sinks or swims, in ten years time nobody will want to know what The Phoenix thought of them. Same goes for any other quip that might be used in any other article. Scolaire (talk) 20:05, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Which I've now done. --Scolaire (talk) 10:45, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Use Groucho Marx's quote - "I never wanted to join an organization, that would have me as a member". GoodDay (talk) 21:49, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

By its nature it's an ephemeral fun thing, with jokes that nobody will understand in the near future. But some should be included to add flavour.Red Hurley (talk) 15:35, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Protection of presidential candidate pages

All of the articles relating to candidates in the forthcoming presidential election are coming under increasing pressure from vandals and unregistered or newly registered contributors with obvious POV issues. Examples:

• Dana
• McGuinness
• Norris
• Davis
• Gallagher
• Higgins
• Mitchell

I suggest that all of these pages be placed under semi-protection until after the election. Do others agree? (I'm not offering to do this myself as I am involved.) --RA (talk) 17:47, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Good idea and I agree. Bjmullan (talk) 17:56, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Definitely agree. Snappy (talk) 18:22, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. ^Mac Tíre _Cowag 18:45, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Also agreed. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 19:23, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. ~Asarlaí 22:24, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

So, er... if you can't do it yourself, who/where do we ask for it to be done? Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 23:03, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Anyway there's plenty of room for qualified abuse on Irish presidential election, 2011.Red Hurley (talk) 15:32, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Added a request here: Wikipedia:Requests_for_page_protection#Biographies_of_candidates_in_Irish_presidential_election. --RA (talk) 08:09, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

 Done by Fastily. --RA (talk) 11:36, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Open page move discussions

• (Discuss) – Republic of Ireland → Ireland (republic)
• (Discuss) – James McCann (Irish republican) → James McCann (drugs trafficker) Kauffner (talk) 03:36, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Protection of Irish presidential election, 2011

I suggest the semi-protection of the article Irish presidential election, 2011 until at least a day after the results of the election. The article has been under increased pressure from vandals, with those perpetrators not only being disruptive, but also launching insults at other editors such as this edit. Comments or suggestions welcome. ^Mac Tíre _Cowag 22:21, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

I agree, and suggest a week after the results. -- Evertype·✆ 22:25, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Agree to semi-prot, regrettable but necessary for now. Snappy (talk) 22:35, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Bilateral relations of the Republic of Ireland

The naming of articles in this category and its subcategories is very inconsistent. Some use the long form "Republic of Ireland", some the short form "Ireland". Which one should they? --The Evil IP address (talk) 11:57, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

In line with these recent moves Talk:Denmark–Ireland_relations, they should all use "Ireland" and the dash should be unspaced. Snappy (talk) 12:08, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Agree. The 'long form' is a dab used on the project 'for technical reasons'. The correct name of the state should be used as there are no circumstances where a geographical feature can have diplomatic relations (does this really need to be pointed out?). RashersTierney (talk) 13:18, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, I've fixed up the wrong dashes and two remaining usages of "Republic of Ireland". --The Evil IP address (talk) 16:23, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

You missed one, People's Republic of China – Ireland relations. Snappy (talk) 19:42, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Arbitrary heading

Why was i not notified of this noticeboard before? I have identified as {{User Irish}} since the beginning! (that means i was in the Category:Irish Wikipedians) - Benzband (talk) 18:37, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Probably because there's no official (or unofficial) welcoming committee. Most people just stumble across it, I think. But now that you're here - welcome! Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 18:45, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Let us ask Michael D. for this job. :-) Night of the Big Wind _talk 20:49, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Fire away. But you're not allowed ask him yet... Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 20:52, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Dáil constituency names

I see on October 9 Snappy added endashes to a lot of Dáil constituency article names with comment "per official name". WP:COMMONNAME is not official name; in any case, I don't believe the official names use endashes. Electoral (Amendment) Act 2009 has hyphens, at least in the online copy, as does the Dáil transcript of the 2011 election results. The 2007 Constituency Commission report is inconsistent; sometimes hyphen, sometimes unspaced endash, sometimes spaced endash. Whatever the "official" names might be, I don't think they override the common names, and I think we should apply MOS:DASH, MOS:HYPHEN, and WP:MOS#Directions and regions. So hyphens in Dublin North-West or Cork South-Central but endashes in Carlow–Kilkenny and Kerry North–West Limerick. There would still be some arbitrary calls: Is Donegal North~West the north-western half, or the northern quarter plus the western quarter?

While I'm on the subject, I disagree with adding "(Dáil Éireann constituency)" to all names. This violates WP:PRECISION. There is AFAIK no guideline "make all articles in a given category have the same parenthetic disambiguator", and I don't think any Wikiproject can vote itself an exception to the general MOS, only to augment it. Therefore:

• Laois–Offaly (Dáil Éireann constituency)→Laois–Offaly (bare name redirects...well Laois-Offaly does)
• Dún Laoghaire (Dáil Éireann constituency)→Dún Laoghaire (constituency) (less precise dab redirects) dab of Dún Laoghaire, but not of any other constituency, unless you count the period when borough council was elected from a single local electoral area.
• Clare (Dáil Éireann constituency): correct, to dab Clare (Parliament of Ireland constituency) etc

jnestorius^(talk) 20:27, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

What I actually did was to move constituencies like Cork North Central (no dash/hyphen) to Cork North–Central per the official name in the Irish Statute Book which uses a horizontal bar separator thingy. I used endashes as a common separtor for them all. While the online versions seem to use hyphens, is that because hyphens are the govt's intended usage or is it because whoever builds the webpages doesn't bother with endashes? The only way to know for sure would be to check the hard-copy of the legislation, assuming this is still produced.

As for the disambiguator point, this seems somewhat pedantic but technically correct, though the current naming convention does offer clarity and consistency. By having Dáil Éireann constituency as a disambiguator, you know what the article is, a Laois–Offaly could be anything! Snappy (talk) 21:00, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Well, for that matter, a Dáil Éireann could be anything. To know what an article is about, the proper method is not to read the title; it is to read the article. Not even the whole article: if the first sentence is doing its job, it should tell you better than any title could. jnestorius^(talk) 21:40, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

"To know what an article is about, the proper method is not to read the title; it is to read the article." and the prize for stating the obvious goes to....

Snappy (talk) 22:58, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm glad you agree with my response to your statement By having Dáil Éireann constituency as a disambiguator, you know what the article is. jnestorius^(talk) 11:37, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't agree with you response. I was just pointing out that if there was a prize for stating the bleedin' obvious it would go to you. I don't know how one could construe that as agreement with your response. Anyway, what was the point of this discussion again? Snappy (talk) 21:19, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Sigh. I doubt this discussion can make further progress with input from a third party. jnestorius^(talk) 16:02, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

You never replied to the endashes question. Snappy (talk) 17:19, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I thought it was a rhetorical question to which neither of us knew the answer. In any case, as I originally said, the COMMONNAME is not necessarily the official name. If the Official name is in a hardcopy that's difficult to source, it's not very common at all. It seems like your attitude is not that preferring hyphen to endash would be incorrect, but rather that the decision is too trifling to bother about. jnestorius^(talk) 23:43, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Once again, you seek to misrepresent me, nowhere did I state or imply that. Snappy (talk) 22:20, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Place of birth for people 1801—1922: UK or Ireland?

A proposal has been made at WikiProject Biography that the place of birth of people born in Ireland between 1801 and 1922 should be given as United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. --RA (talk) 20:54, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Don't forget the pipe-link to Ireland. GoodDay (talk) 21:08, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Userbox

There are things particularly relevant to Irish Wikipedians at the Irish Wikipedians' notice board.

A userbox… - Benzband (talk) 15:45, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Mass page move request

A mass nomination to move articles about sportsmen based on diacritics in their name has been filed at Talk:Dominik_Halmosi#Requested_Move --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 04:17, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Treaty Sarsfields GAA

Hello! I've recently run across this article and its corresponding AfD. The article was written by a new editor and appears to be written in a very colloquial/essay-like manner. It's sourced and from what I can tell, is about the history of Limerick GAA. I think the members of this Wikiproject may be able to understand the article better than probably anyone else so I thought I'd come here and ask if anyone can take a look at the article and respond in the AfD regarding the subject of the article and also let us know if there's salvageable content in the article. I would hate to lose content due to lack of knowledge of sport in Ireland. Thanks for your time. OlYeller21^Talktome 22:07, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

What harm, it's up there with Durrus and District History 1700-1900, my long-term favourite.Red Hurley (talk) 00:59, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Author, autobiographer and prisoner in Thailand

Colin Martin wrote an autobiography titled Welcome to Hell: One Man's Fight for Life Inside the Bangkok Hilton.

Previously there was an article about him. I think that it might be possible to write an article about him or his book where notability is demonstrated.

Can someone post links to the most notable references about him and/or the book?

(That a previous article about him has been deleted, can mean a number of things. Including references being poor, the article sucked ... )

I have read the book, and I seem to remember that the book makes claims about Thailand's prison system, that might be notable. (But since I do not have the book at present, then I am more interested at commenting on references/citations rather than my recollections.)

The categories he might belong to are Irish author, autobiographer, Prisoners of Thailand, and Irish prisoners and detainees.

His book is also one of a handful of books which is credited (in Bangkok Haunts) for inspiring the novel Bangkok Haunts.--85.166.141.247 (talk) 11:13, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

One problem is that there is a rather different "Bangkok Hilton" already. Lots of foreigners get locked up in Thailand, and lots of autobiographies are written that don't sell well. His claims about Thailand's prison system should be balanced by other opinions.86.42.212.2 (talk) 20:39, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

My first question was "Can someone post links to the most notable references about him and/or the book?".

You said "and lots of autobiographies are written that don't sell well." Do you have any references about how your statement relates/not relates to his book?

And I guess I should thank you for your hotel-link. What you called "one problem", is what I would call a non-problem or possibly a non-issue. Please start a subdiscussion on that point, and I will make plans to illuminate and/or debate your misgivings. If an article is written about the book, I see no problem in linking to "your" Bangkok Hilton, or simply mentioning how many years after (?) the book was published, that "your" Hilton was erected.

That lots of foreign prisoners get locked up in nearly every country, is something you and I might agree upon. Preferably in a different thread, perhaps.--85.166.141.247 (talk) 11:19, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Appealing the previous article deletion

If someone can contest the deletion of the previous article, or have it resurrected & relisted for deletion, then such a move will have my support. I hereby give a special power of attorney to anyone who needs my vote, to resurrect & relist for deletion the article, or to make any other appeals to contest the previous deletion.

(I am not sure of how to start such a process. And there might be times when I do not look at wikipedia for weeks. Therefore I do not want to head a process that I can not guarantee that I will follow every week. I respect that politics and administration of wikipedia is important; but I have prioritized writing/editing text rather than understanding/navigating everything relating to administration and/or politics on this website.)--85.166.141.247 (talk) 11:30, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

He doesn't seem to be a notable prisoner - maybe try the Thai project page. We don't know if you're advertising the book. How well has it sold?Red Hurley (talk) 00:46, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

RFC ar Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (use English)

There has been a brewing issue at WP:RM over WP:HOCKEY recommendations and how they should be applied over WP:COMMONNAME and WP:UE. Basically the hockey recommendation is that Diacritics shall be applied to all player pages, where appropriate as for the languages of the nationalities of the players in question. This is in fact a mandate that does not allow consideration of any other policy on naming. I think we need to resolve the issue of which naming convention we use for ice hockey players. Is it the one for the names of everyone else based on existing policy and guidelines, or do we have a blanket exception for one project? Please go to: Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(use_English)#RFC_on_hockey_names per Vegaswikian (talk) 00:53, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Why is this relevant to WP Ireland - apart from the danger of running into GoodDay? Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 23:22, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

This is misplaced here. Is any ice hockey even played in Ireland? (Hockey, above, is the American usage, referring to ice hockey. Actual hockey is called field hockey in the US.) — O'Dea (talk) 14:20, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

A Class?

I noteistd that you don't have A Class. Why don't you have it and why don't you start it? Darrman1 (talk) 18:46, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Football (word) Pipe linking Republic of Ireland

See Talk:Football (word)#Republic of Ireland

The article Football (word) is discussing the usage of football in different English speaking countries. For better or for worse the consensus has been that because soccer has divided usage in Ireland (unlike like many other sports) and because usage in the south tends to be more homogeneous than in the north, that Ireland would be divided into north and south, the six counties being mentioned in the UK article and the 26 being labelled the Republic of Ireland. This fits in well with all sorts of secondary sources including government statistics about sport gathered by the two different governments.

This is a clear case were the use of the term "Ireland" is misleading, particularly as the sources used for the sections are selected to show usage north and south of the border. For anyone who knows about this project the term Ireland with all its nuances are well known and so is the debate over them. But for the typical reader who is likely to view a page about the use of the term football is extremely unlikely to be aware of these issues and for them an unqualified use of the term Ireland is likely to confuse them. I think we need to have a wider debate on this, because in the last 24 hours there have been edits to remove the Republic of Ireland and replace it with Ireland. The first use of the term was Ireland linked to the Republic, but that that was in itself misleading the sentence is talking about the pople who inhabit the territory that to the south and west of the border, not the whole island.

In my opinion [changing the section heading] from "Republic of Ireland" to "Ireland" when the issue is being discussed on the talk page, without any input from the editor who made the edit is less than helpful. -- PBS (talk) 09:16, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Discussion at the MOS talk page

A discussion on these issues is taking place on the manual of style talk page. --RA (talk) 09:29, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Darren Scully

Here is a tricky one - Darren Scully would fail WikiProject Ireland's standards for a politician article as he is only a councillor. When he opines in an un-PC way he is slammed by his opponents and hey presto an article appears. But I hesitate to delete as Alpha Quadrant is a busy editor. Thoughts?Red Hurley (talk) 08:38, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Arguably as a councillor he's not notable per se, but as a councillor who's got himself lots of coverage in the national press he is. Not a speedy delete anyway. ComhairleContaeThirnanOg (talk) 10:08, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

No, indeed. I don't know Scully but he has (had?) a good reputation. Our political system of promising all things to all people is at fault, as immigrants are much more likely to believe such promises when they see relatively great wealth all around them. "You'll have to wait" could seem to be discrimination, only to be overcome by asking repeatedly - this is what DS seems to have missed IMHO. Scully has 1.1m hits on google and poor auld Ruth Coppinger only has 800,000. She has been deleted 3 times now, and we all agreed on that. Print out all her pages and they would reach to Red Square and back again, but she is not notable. My point is about notability, not DS per se.Red Hurley (talk) 11:33, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

He fails WP:Politician and this racist incident surely comes under WP:1E, as no one (outside of Naas/Kildare) had heard of him before it. Snappy (talk) 18:41, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

I'd also lean towards deletion as per Snappy above. --HighKing (talk) 20:12, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps a rename and re-edit in line with WP:1E eg Mayor of Naas resignation 2011. This is hardly the last we'll hear of the issue. RashersTierney (talk) 20:30, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

He has received international coverage, (article in The Guardian). I'd support a re-name per Rashers. Snappy (talk) 23:46, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Me too.Red Hurley (talk) 13:10, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Any suggestions for a better title than Mayor of Naas resignation 2011 before I start to implement this later today? RashersTierney (talk) 11:19, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Done. RashersTierney (talk) 13:31, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Cheese articles

There's a number of articles created for Irish cheese. Since most cheese companies produce many different varieties, the articles are organized by cheese producer. I fear that some articles may struggle for notability and may be nominated for deletion - see Abbey Cheese Company for example. So what passes for notability for an Irish cheese? Comments welcome. --HighKing (talk) 22:37, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Same as anything else. Secondary sources that talk specifically about them. I'm afraid a source that lists them with a short description of each just establishes notability for the collection of cheeses so they could be part of an article but not an article themselves. A chapter in a book though would show notability. Dmcq (talk) 00:16, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Funny enough, the articles in question all have a chapter in a book. --HighKing (talk) 01:41, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

I think the key word in WP:ORG is "...significant coverage...". A chapter in a book and a mention in a Bord Bia promo may not be enough. But some mentions of product launches in the food press, or business innovations in the business press, might add sufficient notability. Fmph (talk) 13:48, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Gotcha - key word is "significant". An article on cheese, lets face it, is pretty much going to be local coverage. WP:ORG states subject of significant coverage in reliable, independent secondary sources. Trivial or incidental coverage of a subject by secondary sources is not sufficient to establish notability. Why isn't getting a chapter in a recently published book sufficient? Is that not "significant"? As for press coverage, the article in question, Ardagh Castle cheese also has an article from "The Southern Star" newspaper (referenced). --HighKing (talk) 15:38, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

OK, now the editor in question has turned his attention to Ardagh Castle cheese. This small article has 5 references - in my opinion more than meets WP:GNG. I've posted at WP:N/N but I'm not sure that's the right forum. It's not the first time this editor has jumped on an article I've created, or has shown an interest in cheese. Opinions please... --HighKing (talk) 03:00, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Look I know that cheese isn't a sexy topic, but the editor is looking for more sources and refuses to discuss on the Talk page. A 3rd (4th and 5th etc opinion) is needed/ . --HighKing (talk) 16:31, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

What about Anglo-Irish cheese? :P Sheodred (talk) 18:57, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't think there's any such thing... :-) Pre-1922? Probably blue by now... --HighKing (talk) 01:14, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Anglo Irish

There is a misconception on wikipedia regarding the nationality of certain notable Irish figures in relation to the use of "Anglo-Irish" in the lede instead of Irish.

The term Anglo-Irish is incorrectly and sometimes deliberately bandied about instead of Irish as a nationality. Many of the figures in some article disputes involved are Irish, but come from the Anglo-Irish social class, but it is not a nationality, and there is a lot of inconsistency regarding its use, an example is Jonathan Swift, an Irish man but for some reason is disregarded by a minute section of editors who refuse to acknowledge that he is Irish and Anglo-Irish (but only in the respect that he comes from that social class in the article), and then other articles like Oscar Wilde who is Irish but of Anglo-Irish culture, he is renowned internationally as Irish (not Anglo-Irish because it is a class not a nationality)

I don't understand it, a tiny segment of editors are trying to ignore this fact and are coming up with all this pseudo-social/historical excuses (most to be quite fair are pathetic) to make it difficult for observers and well-meaning editors for whatever reason, I am being falsely accused while trying to point this fact out as a POV pusher, which is unfair because I am not, I support and say the fact that if a individual is of Anglo-Irish class it should be mentioned in the article, just not in the opening sentence as it does not belong there, I am just stating the facts.

This misconception needs to be addressed.

I propose that Anglo-Irish not be used in the lede as a replacement for Irish, because it is a term for a privileged social class that existed/exists within Ireland, it is not a nationality, it should be used only when we are discussing the individual after the lede, or the first line of the lede.' Sheodred (talk) 20:57, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. - benzband (talk • feed) 21:15, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Agree also, although it is something already covered by the general guidelines (i.e. it is a dispute that ought not to come up). I think there should be some sort of centralised discussion of RfC about Irish nationality because there are other cases such as C.S. Lewis and Peter O'Toole where there are current disputes going on. I was thinking of starting such a discussion recently, but never got round to it. --FormerIP (talk) 21:42, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

I do not see the issue with Anglo-Irish mentioned, unless I overlooked it, there is a huge amount of articles on Irish figures where certain editors are entrenched where they will not accept Anglo-Irish being removed from the lede as an incorrect substitute for Irish (as original post indicates above), there are so many articles with this problem, it will take a collaborative effort from the community on Wikiproject Ireland to correct. Sheodred (talk) 22:19, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

The MoS for Biographies, needs to be changed. If one was born in the United Kingdom, before Irish partition (i.e. 1801 to 1922) & after the Irish partition (1922-present), then one should have British in the intro & United Kingdom in the infobox. GoodDay (talk) 22:29, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Since there have already been multiple recent RfCs and discussions covering this ground, my proposal is to make a request for mediation over the general question of Irish v. British v. Anglo-Irish. Would anyone object to me doing that? --FormerIP (talk) 22:35, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

• Agree, no objections. 109.77.41.89 (talk) 09:22, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

GoodDay confuses a state with a nation. By that logic, nobody born in Hesse before 1801 may be caled "German"; he must be called Hessian. Laurel Lodged (talk) 23:26, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

To FormerIP - I wouldn't think that would help on Irish articles. The current situation there works fine and we don't need a mediation request to satisfy a couple of objections that have no substantial body of opinion behind them. On British articles, feel free, but leave the Irish ones out of it please. ComhairleContaeThirnanOg (talk) 23:59, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

I find it a bit hard to make sense of that, Og. Since the disputes are about whether the subjects of various articles are Irish or British, it would be hard to identify the ones that actually are British and just deal with those. As well as pointless. The purpose of meditation is not to satisfy objections, but to try to reach a conclusion to prevent the same disputes occurring time and again. --FormerIP (talk) 00:10, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

I think there is general consensus, with only a couple of objectors, that people from pre-1921 Ireland and from post-1921 independent Ireland should be described as Irish, regardless of when they were born. Whether British people should be described as British or as English, Scottish or Welsh is another question and if you feel a mediation request would be useful in that regard, I have no objection - I haven't followed that question. As for individual cases, where someone was born in one country and lived and worked mainly in another, such as C.S. Lewis, I don't think such disputes are confined to British and Irish people, and I think they will always have to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis with due regard to the person's self-identification and the descriptions available in reliable sources, so I'm not sure that there's much call for mediation on that as a broad topic either, and if there is, it should be WP:BIOG-wide, not just confined to British and Irish biographies. ComhairleContaeThirnanOg (talk) 00:32, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Hesse is not a good example because it was sovereign until 1871 (or 1918), and is Hessen in German but Hesse in local dialect... Before 1801 you had subjects of the Kingdom of Ireland in terms of a state, and everyone would have called them Irish for that reason. Anglo-Irish people could slip between both islands easier than the rest of us. Between 1801 and 1922, even despite the union, there was still a viceroy, a chief secretary and a separate body of Irish law which was not described as British or UK law. Lots of grey areas. Have a look at Talk:Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington for a good row on that.Red Hurley (talk) 01:32, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

It must be time for the trolling to end soon? Anyone working on a RFC? Any proposal that, if adopted (which would never happen), would result in ludicrous outcomes such as the lead of Patrick Pearse reading "was a British teacher, barrister, poet, writer, nationalist and political activist who was one of the leaders of the Easter Rising in 1916" cannot be seen as anything but disruption. 2 lines of K₃₀₃ 13:22, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Good point, common sense must prevail.Red Hurley (talk) 14:00, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Anglo-Irish shouldn't be used unless it can be verifiably sourced in my opinion. Also common sense should prevail such as stating Irish for nationalists and republicans such as Patrick Pearse and Oscar Wilde, whilst we should use British for the unionists and others who can be easily regarded as British such as the Duke of Wellington and Edward Carson. Mabuska ^(talk) 14:22, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Your logic Mabuska, I regret to inform you, is completely flawed. Sheodred (talk) 19:36, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

• Support Agree with Sheodred's proposal regarding Anglo-Irish. It has been an annoyance of mine too for the same reasons. In my view, it is part of a broad habit of attempting to "claim" the subject of articles (in modern terms). All of these people were either Irish or English or British. Anglo-Irish is just "a Protestant with a horse". --RA (talk) 00:54, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
• Support. I also found the use 'not right'. The clarification is well expressed above. RashersTierney (talk) 11:52, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
• Support, and I would describe all 4 of Mabuska's examples as Irish - they did of course have very different visions of what was good for Ireland.Red Hurley (talk) 13:21, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

  Well said. - benzband (talk) 14:48, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

  Agree also with Red Hurly, particularly in sentiment. However, in the case of the Duke of Wellington, as a prime minister of the United Kingdom, should be given as a British politician. As I understand it (though this is uncodified), common practice is to give for office holders of the central government of the UK as British rather than English, Irish / Northern Irish, Scottish or Welsh, in contrast to other people from the UK. That also seems sensible to me. --RA (talk) 18:16, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Opposed. This has already been discussed at the following two pages during the last two weeks:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Biography#Infobox_of_people_born_on_the_island_of_Ireland.2C_in_the_United_Kingdom_of_Great_Britain_and_Ireland http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Ireland-related_articles#Anglo-Irish As discussed at those pages, for any biography of an Anglo-Irish individual, a hard and fast rule could not be used and each must be judged and guided through the article's talk page for that individual. And for many 19th century individuals who could be labelled as "Anglo-Irish" it is better to speak of them as "British". Seanwal111111 (talk) 19:04, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

"And for many 19th century individuals who could be labelled as "Anglo-Irish" it is better to speak of them as "British". Your statement reeks of your political aspirations for Irish bios. Do tell us why its "better to speak of them as "British". Sheodred (talk) 23:44, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

I already said why, in a half a dozen different places in the discussion at the page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Ireland-related_articles#Anglo-Irish . This page we're on right here is not the place to carry on that debate, simply because that page became the place. Here's one short comment I'll copy-and-paste from that page. But please don't take it as an invitation to debate on this page; that page is the place for it. However, obviously, what you're talking about now is not the "Anglo-Irish" question; it's the "British" versus "Irish" question. If you were to take the initiative to start a new discussion on a clean page about that question, I would contribute to the discussion.

The 19th century people such as Tyndall and Hamilton were called British and were also called Irish (and, less often, Anglo-Irish). Such people were opposed to a nation of Ireland (Irish nationalism); they supported a nation of the British Isles (UK unionism). They belonged to the nation of the British Isles in the spirit and the practice of their daily lives. They were self-consciously British, and none would deny that they were living in Ireland. They were also legally British; there was no Irish sovereign state. Labeling them "Irish" is in defiance of the reality of their Britishness (while labelling them "British" is not in defiance of the reality that they lived on the island of Ireland -- in case you missed it earlier see http://www.ark.ac.uk/nilt/2008/Community_Relations/NINATID.html ). Seanwal111111 (talk) 02:14, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Irish bios? What runs that.. PC or Mac? Seanwal111111 needs to learn the difference between nationality and heritage – a man born in Ireland pre-Acts of Union 1800 is Irish, because it wasn't a part of Britain for them to be "British" – even if his family came from the Protestant Ascendancy, which makes him Anglo-Irish. Ooh, exactly like Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, well bless my soul! And Sheodred, you would do better to acknowledge the difference between nationality and heritage too, because you have a definite pro-paddy COI about everything you edit, nearly always aimed at adding in "Irish" and removing "British" and "Anglo-Irish" references. You just can't seem to accept that they are different things, and your nationalistic attitude won't work on Wiki, because it is not neutral. And editors who continually go against NPOV will simply fond themselves reverted to death, until they get sick and quit, or get blocked for disruption. In the end, being neutral is easier.. and less detrimental to your character. No one likes POV-pushers. Ma®©usBritish ^{[Chat • RFF]} 00:16, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

I do not remove Anglo-Irish or British references to individuals, only if they are in the lede when we are describing an Irish figure, when editors, the vast majority, are like Seanwa1111111 who will erase any mention of Irish, and try to dilute that in an attempt to placate editors with comments like Labeling them "Irish" is in defiance of the reality of their Britishness (while labelling them "British" is not in defiance of the reality that they lived on the island of Ireland See how he refuses to call it Ireland, but the "island of Ireland" (partition only occurred in 1922), that calling people Irish is not true because they were British, but its ok to call them British because their Irish identity is included when we name Ireland? These are the kind of editors that invade Irish bios and erase all mention of them being Irish. Sheodred (talk) 13:44, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

The lead, the main body – it's all the same to me. Removing it from the lead but not reasserting it into the context of the main prose. Nothing in policy supports any need for that – even your interpretation of the nationality/sexuality is wrong, and FYI your edit summaries saying "MOS dictates" – MOS dictates nothing, MOS is a set of guidelines in styling, not policies. You're using false claims and weasel words to justify your edits, which are not neutrally managed. You throw all Irish people in the same basket, "Irish" with no consideration of the period they lived in or socio-economic position relating to the use of ethnical terms such as "Anglo-Irish" which is not a pro-English word, it is a description that says something about their heritage. You also throw all British editors in the same basket, accusing them all of POV editing, anti-Irish remarks which are only in your mind: Ireland is an island. So is Britain. So what's your point? He's probably saying the "island of Ireland" to not confuse today's Ireland, which is divided, with the Kingdom of Ireland which was not until 1922. So there's really no excuse for your WP:BATTLEGROUND attitude in the manner, all across Wiki. By throwing all British editors, including me with no anti-Irish views, I write from a purely historic POV with references (something your edits often fail to respect), you simply alienate yourself, appear disruptive and create an aura of distrust. You underline that distrust by making edits to articles based on false MOS policies, by making proposals that are non-NPOV in whispered circles and by disregarding the wider Wiki community in the attempt. Personally I prefer the all or nothing approach.. by referring to people as British or Irish, whatever the case may be, and also noting their Anglo-Irish background thereafter. Nationality gets precedence, in sentence order. but it does not replace important background information. Ma®©usBritish ^{[Chat • RFF]} 20:06, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Ernest Shackleton

Am I in the wrong here, did I make the right edit here regarding Ernest Shackleton's infoxbox? I did not want to disrupt the lede, because there was consensus (how?) for Anglo-Irish to be there in place of his Irish nationality. Anglo-Irish is not a nationality right, but why is this happening on so many articles? Sheodred (talk) 15:59, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

In 1874, there was no such thing in law as Irish nationality (nor Anglo-Irish for that matter). Nevertheless, many people from that era identified themselves as Irish and would have been insulted to be called British. Have you any evidence how Shackleton idetified himself? --Red King (talk) 16:49, 29 November 2011 (UTC) See also #Place of birth for people 1801—1922: UK or Ireland? above. --Red King (talk) 16:58, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Here are some sources: http://uwpress.wisc.edu/books/2445.htm and http://www.jamescairdsociety.com/index.php, some of a few. Sheodred (talk) 17:18, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Proposal at manual of style

Discussion has been opened here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Ireland-related_articles#Anglo-Irish. Sheodred (talk) 16:26, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

I've also made a concrete proposal for an addition to the manual of style in relation to this question and related issues. --RA (talk) 20:13, 29 November 2011 (UTC)