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Talk:Republic of Ireland

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I dunno, except for the mistake with the UK flag those changes looked a lot to me like an honest attempt to plunge-forward and get an article started. For instance note the way that the person had replaced the fact book with the country template (admittedly it should be the wiki format version). I think I'd rather see the anon users stuff fixed up with the wiki format version of the template and the correct flag, than to do a rollback to the CIA version. I figure we want to encourage folks who really are plunging forward. -- Mark 07:30, 1 Apr 2004 (EST)

If I was too hasty I am sorry, but when I saw the page it was only a template and appeared to be vandalism. The user edited the page at the same time I rolled it back. -- Huttite 07:37, 1 Apr 2004 (EST)
I'm sure it's OK. Sometimes I think anon users (those who are not vandals) are a bit un-confident and should be given some room to make mistakes since we can always roll-back later. -- Mark 07:57, 1 Apr 2004 (EST)
I note they came back later and made some good changes. I am going to add the full template to see if that will help them more. -- Huttite 08:26, 1 Apr 2004 (EST)

[edit] CIA Factbook info

The CIA Factbook info has been moved to Talk:Ireland/CIA World Factbook 2002 import. Feel free to use it for reference. --Evan 15:50, 1 Apr 2004 (EST)

[edit] Ireland vs. Republic of Ireland

Hi, just started on Ireland and Northern Ireland, and was wondering if 'Ireland', the name of the country in Europe referring to the 26 counties, could be changed to the 'Republic of Ireland', as 'Ireland' generally means the 32 counties and things could get a little confusing. Also, the first edit to the Ireland page wasn't me, the second one was me (when I was anonymous), in case there was some ambiguity. -- Professorbiscuit

I'm a little dubious about this. First, I'm a scaredy-cat about hotspot political issues like Ireland. But second, I'd worry that we'd then have two places to put information about the Republic: on Ireland, and on Republic of Ireland.
That all said, I think if we make Ireland a disambiguation page (rather than a page about the island), it'll probably be OK. Any other thoughts? --Evan 20:52, 1 Apr 2004 (EST)
Disambiguation page sounds good -- Huttite 03:31, 2 Apr 2004 (EST)
Works for me -- Professorbiscuit

I just discovered this conversation. It was me who messed up the page in the first place and yes it was an honest attempt to start it and yes I went back in later, nervously, to continue. It's much easier now the correct template is there. I'll add more if I can. I've done some on the Cork page too -- ( anonfromCork)

anon: Don't worry about messing things up -- you did a great job getting this article active. Thanks for your work and help. --Evan 22:56, 3 Apr 2004 (EST)
There is no such country as "Republic of Ireland", though it is sometimes wrongly described as such. The name of the country which is the subject of this article is "Ireland" and it happens to be a republic. It is not to be confused with "Northern Ireland", which is a part of the United Kingdom. The title of this page should be "Ireland", and the disambiguation page should distinguish between "Ireland" and "Northern Ireland". --Lorcan 2 Aug 2005
You are strictly speaking correct, but the Republic of Ireland is the country's legal description as stated in the Republic of Ireland Act.
That said, the "common usage" criterion tells me this page really should be at plain old Ireland, with a disclaimerbox pointing to Northern Ireland. Jpatokal 03:56, 2 Aug 2005 (EDT)
I believe that Lorcan has stated it correctly. The Irish Constitution specifically states that, in English, the name of the country is "Ireland". The Republic of Ireland Act refers only to the "description", not to the "name". In addition, the Constitution takes precedence over all laws so that if the Oireachtas had wanted to change the name of the country then a referendum to change the Constitution would have been required. As an Irish citizen may I state (with all due nervousness) that I often come across fellow citizens who object to "Republic of Ireland", some who don't mind it and no-one who prefers it. --BrianR 15 Sep 2005

I want to revisit this discussion. I feel the disambiguation page is redundant and this article should be moved to Ireland and move the disambiguation page to Ireland (Disambiguation). Everyone in the UK understands the relationship between Ireland and Northern Ireland, as does everyone in Ireland. I'm sure the majority of Americans do too because I remember, even as a young child, watching video of the Catholics and Protestants clashing and became aware of the turmoil and history of Ireland. So I think a disambiguation of "Ireland" is just foolish as most English speakers will likely know Northern Ireland is independent of Ireland. Thoughts? -- Sapphire • (Talk) • 23:48, 7 June 2007 (EDT)

I'm not overly familiar with the region on a personal level, so can not add voice to objections to one or the other based on local sentiments. However, I think that most people are aware that Ireland refers to the republic and Northern Ireland refers to the province. So, I think it is acceptable to drop the disambiguation in favor of having two unconnected articles simply called 'Ireland' and 'Northern Ireland'. WindHorse 03:32, 8 June 2007 (EDT)...though on reflection, leaving the disambiguation is useful for travelers who wish to visit the island of Ireland. In addition, we have a disambiguation the two Koreas, where the lines of demarcation are far more clearly defined. Maybe the argument for maintaining the status quo is, perhaps, slightly in more compelling... WindHorse 03:46, 8 June 2007 (EDT)

[edit] Usefulness of the Provinces

I've been working on adding information to the Ireland pages based on my recent trip which included 2 months in Ireland, and I found that using the four Provinces as a seperate page was kind of annoying, and not that useful from a travel guide point of view.

For one thing, aside from knowing that County Galway, where I spent most of my time, is in Connacht, and that Northern Ireland is most of Ulster, I have no real idea as to where the boundaries of the provinces are, so just seeing the four of them on the main page wasn't very helpful. And I've already been there.

The other problem I was having with the previous setup was that there was very little to say about each province except what counties and cities were within them, without repeating information that would be more useful on the pages for the counties and cities.

So what I did was move all the names of the counties into the regions list, using the provinces only as secondary headings. Of course the disadvantage is that this makes a 30 lines long list, which is a bit of a pain too.

Anyway, what I'm wondering is what people think of this, which way is better, and is there a better way to show users what parts of the country fall into which provinces without making such a long list? - Neil C 23:54, 10 Aug 2004 (EDT)

I think the main downside to what you did is that we try to keep divisions of a country or region down to about 7+/-2 parts. Take a look at Wikitravel:geographical hierarchy#dividing geographical units for some more details. I think having the 4 province pages is the better bet, even if they are really short. --Evan 02:42, 11 Aug 2004 (EDT)
I agree in theory. But I was also in Ireland this summer, and the new long format would have been much more useful.
-Elgaard

I looked through the geographical hierarchy and I can see where you're coming from. The problem in Ireland, more significant than just the short pages in between national and county levels, is that the regional names are rarely, if ever, used, and the names mean nothing to the uninitiated. This makes the Irish situation somewhat different from, for example, the US, where if you say "Mid-west," even if you don't know the country, there is still some geographic meaning.

I was actually hoping someone would have a third option, that would make the provincial breakdown more useful to the traveller without having to make a long list of counties. -Neil C 15:47, 11 Aug 2004 (EDT)

Can you think of another way to group the counties into a smaller number of regions? Is there a more traditional or well-known high-level grouping than the provinces? If not, I think we should really leave the provinces in there. --Evan 16:50, 11 Aug 2004 (EDT)

[edit] Irish hierarchy revisited

Well, I see this topic has fermented for a long time. I am sure there must be a better way to do the top-level regions for Ireland—currently we have a region (Ulster) within Ireland that overlaps the entirety of Northern Ireland, which is in a different country. Worst of all, it leads to a disambiguation page! I'll look into this some more. --Peterfitzgerald Talk 19:13, 7 June 2007 (EDT)

Here's a map of a new regions proposal, based on the regions that the country itself promotes. I will allow some time for others to comment and, if no objections, I'll plunge forward with a new regional hierarchy for Ireland. --Peterfitzgerald Talk 16:13, 10 June 2007 (EDT)

[edit] Talk

"There are many Irish people who will hold visitors in higher esteem if they make the effort to learn and speak some basic Irish phrases, especially in tourist centres and pubs."

as an Irishman in all the times i have seen any foreign visitor attempt to speak Irish it has generally benn met with eith curious amusement or downright disdain (esp. Americans) the main reason for this is the low level of spoken irish in ireland so most irish people will be unable to understand even simple phrases if they are mispronunced (cead mile failte is the most frequently mangled expression), unless i can see some evidence that tourists are encouraged ot speak irish in the gaeltacht I would be in favour of deleting this passage as I and every other Irish person I know would consider any attempt by a tourist to speak irish generally a faux pas and would consider the above statement bad advice and liable in some extreem circumstances to cause trouble . any thoughts ,note I wont change this for some timee to give people time to respond.86.43.91.11 19:59, 17 September 2006 (EDT)

Don't agree with above. You are giving a personal opinion and taking an extreme view regarding the Irish language. My experience is that visitors who attempt Irish are received with good manners and treated with respect. I think it is the same as somebody trying out a few French phrases in Paris. User: Ciaranc

[edit] External links

Here are some external links for Ireland that some WikiTravel users added and may be used for reference.

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