It seems that Northern Ireland is claimed as a country mostly by analogy to the other constituent countries of the UK. A foolish consistency...
With the Good Friday Agreement, Ireland recognised Northern Ireland as a part of the UK. You probably already knew this but I just wanted to clarify for anyone else reading.
[1] https://old.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/ms97x/venn_diagram_...
Schengen is about regulating travel over the existing borders, Schengen is not a border treaty about where the exactly the borders lie and which country has full sovereignty over some land. While in colloquial language Schengen can be described as "eliminating borders", of course that is only a limited metaphor/analogy and the Schengen treaty does not challenge or change the validity of borders between countries in the Schengen area - even if it's trivial for people to cross over some Schengen border, it is not questioned that the sovereignty and laws change across that line.
By this definition, Northern Ireland is part of Ireland and the inhabitants are still called Irish. I don't know a ton of Irish people but I think I've heard them say it like that too? On the other hand, there seem to also be contexts where "Ireland" is shorthand for "Republic of Ireland".
Variations of The Republic are used for disambiguation but are not used officially.
> Northern Ireland is part of Ireland
The island yes. But not the Republic of the same name.
> and the inhabitants are still called Irish.
A large portion of the inhabitants see themselves as Irish. But there is also a large portion who see themselves as British. These are not necessarily exclusive categories as some of them see themselves as both British and Irish. There are also those who see themselves as Northern Irish.
Full disclaimer: Not Irish or British, just have an unhealthy interest in the situation.
Even Wikipedia erroneously catalogues "Ireland" under "Republic of Ireland".
However! That page makes it clear that the name of the country is Ireland:
Ireland (Irish: Éire [ˈeːɾʲə] (listen)), also known as the Republic of Ireland (Poblacht na hÉireann),
since Ireland there takes precedence.
In conclusion, I think it's just a technical limitation.
Some other posters have replied with some good information, but if you want Entirely Too Much Information this wikipedia page has a more fleshed-out discussion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_the_Irish_state
Even that is missing some more exotic parts of that history - I see no mention of 'Republic in Ireland', for instance.
In the UK, "Ireland" can mean either the country or the island as a whole. It's often clear from the context which is meant, though "Republic of Ireland"/"Irish Republic" is frequently used instead to make the distinction obvious.
The Good Friday Agreement[3] recognises that the people of Northern Ireland may consider themselves British, Irish, or both:
> recognise the birthright of all the people of Northern Ireland to identify themselves and be accepted as Irish or British, or both, as they may so choose, and accordingly confirm that their right to hold both British and Irish citizenship is accepted by both Governments
[1] Constitution of Ireland, Article 4: "The name of the State is Éire, or, in the English language, Ireland." https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/cons/en/html#part1
[2] The Republic of Ireland Act, 1948, section 2: "It is hereby declared that the description of the State shall be the Republic of Ireland." https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/1948/act/22/section/2/en...
[3] https://peacemaker.un.org/sites/peacemaker.un.org/files/IE%2...
One of these days I’ll refer to “Southern Scotland” in return.
Perhaps you could use 'Southern Albion' instead? Or 'the south part of the Eastern Island', maybe.
From Wiki, there's a bunch o links after that very first sentence.
More from wiki:
> For example, the websites of the Office of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom[99] and the UK Statistics Authority describe the United Kingdom as being made up of four countries, one of these being Northern Ireland.[100] Other pages on the same websites refer to Northern Ireland specifically as a "province" as do publications of the UK Statistics Authority.[101][102] The website of the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency also refers to Northern Ireland as being a province[103] as does the website of the Office of Public Sector Information[104] and other agencies within Northern Ireland.[105] Publications of HM Treasury[106] and the Department of Finance and Personnel of the Northern Ireland Executive,[107] on the other hand, describe Northern Ireland as being a "region of the UK". The UK's submission to the 2007 United Nations Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names defines the UK as being made up of two countries (England and Scotland), one principality (Wales) and one province (Northern Ireland).[108]
And Ireland definitely doesn't claim it as part of the Republic.
It should be noted that up until the Belfast Agreement (Good Friday Agreement) the Republic of Ireland constitution did claim all 32 counties as part of the Republic. A part of the Good Friday Agreement was amendments to the RoI constitution. On the flip side was a formal requirement for a border poll if it appeared to the UK Secretary of State that a majority of NI would want a border poll.
> The UK claims it as a province, Ireland claims it as a part of Ireland,
This is just nonsense. Neither the UK or Ireland claim anything of the sort.
> independence is not very popular
What does that have to do with its status as a country?
Generally in a country you would expect to find some people (not necessarily the majority) who believe in the idea of that country as an independent, sovereign nation.
Northern Ireland doesn’t have that. The vast majority of people in Northern Ireland want it to either be part of UK or of Ireland, and to the extent an independence movement exists it’s notable only for how incredibly un-popular it is.
Why does it matter? Because if the population of a putative “country” don’t in fact see it as a country but rather as a territory of somewhere else, then the “country” descriptor would appear to have been externally applied.
I wonder what the mainland thinks?
On that theme, I've ever pondered would happen if one were to hold a referendum in England, Wales and Northern Ireland about Scotland leaving the UK and becoming a sovereign state. Not least because of the Barnett formula[0], asking the Scots what they think of independence is surely only part of the puzzle.
> the “country” descriptor would appear to have been externally applied.
You've made two generous leaps here - that the population don't consider it to be a country, and that the fact that an externally applied label on a state is invalid. It's incredibly dismissive of you to think that the people of NI don't think of it as country for a dtart, but your second point is just plain wrong. I can call Crimea a disputed territory with confidence, despite Russia claiming it's independent, for example.
For some reason that I've never understood, the ISO-3166-1 alpha-2 and alpha-3 codes for The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland are "GB" and "GBR" [1]. That might have some bearing on this.
As a brit as well, and as commentary for others who don't live here, my perception is that the term "Great Britain" isn't used a lot nowadays - either as an informal synonym for "the country called the UK", or as the formal name for "the part of the UK that isn't Northern Ireland". It does get used for things like "Team GB" (the UK Olympic team branding, which includes athletes from NI) and probably other sports-related stuff. Its all very confusing...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ISO_3166_country_codes
There is a party called the Alliance party that is attempting to offer an alternative to tribal politics of DUP/SF and they did quite good in recent election.
Even with that being said, I think most younger people see the Union as a good thing, if even in just the economic sense.
Somewhat less so than before Brexit but still the finances of NI look dire if they left the union.
That is incorrect, Sinn Fein are the most popular party with the younger demographic and Alliance are popular among middle aged people. The antediluvian politics of the DUP is more popular among the 18-34 cohort than Alliance.
It is standard UK government terminology to call it a "constituent country". To just give one random example – https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/eat-out-to-help-out... – HRMC statistics updated in February this year speak of "Four constituent countries within the UK"
> independence (as opposed to unionism or Irish reunification) is not very popular unlike in Scotland or Wales
I don't think the term "country" for the primary first-level subdivisions of the UK necessarily has anything to do with independence. The term has been used that way for decades, including back in the days when Scottish or Welsh independence were rather fringe positions. It is still used today by many people who oppose the Scottish and Welsh independence movements. So the fact that Northern Ireland independence has very few advocates, is not in itself an argument against Northern Ireland being a "constituent country".
> The UK claims it as a province
Calling it a "province" is controversial. Ireland is traditionally divided into four provinces; Northern Ireland is the six eastern counties of the Province of Ulster, but its three western counties are part of the Republic. Unionist sources often like to identify Northern Ireland with the Province of Ulster; nationalists view this conflation as inaccurate, disrespectful, and politically biased. Due to both the arguments that the term is technically incorrect, and the desire not to inflame the nationalist community, the UK government generally avoids the term "province" for Northern Ireland. Nationalists obviously aren't big fans of the term "country" either, but it is not as strongly associated with the unionist viewpoint as "province" is, so they don't find it as upsetting.
Officially, the UK does not claim "Northern Ireland" to be a "province". I'm not sure if, officially speaking, the UK claims "Northern Ireland" to be anything at all, other than "Northern Ireland", and theirs. Even the original Act of the UK Parliament creating it (Government of Ireland Act 1920) never explicitly said what kind of things the two entities it was attempting to create ("Northern Ireland" and "Southern Ireland") actually were. I believe that was intentional, to try to maximise the chances of the Act being accepted by competing viewpoints (an intention which largely failed to be achieved, but its authors tried.)
Similarly, the Good Friday Agreement never states what "Northern Ireland" actually is. Any answer to that question is likely to upset somebody, so both the UK and Irish governments have decided to avoid all that potential upset by avoiding endorsing any official answer to the question.