Just FYI the “map of the UK” includes the Republic of Ireland, which is very much not part of the UK.
There’s not a 100% great term for the collective unit of land. Generally people go with “UK & Ireland” if they’re trying to be sensitive.
There’s not a 100% great term for the collective unit of land. Generally people go with “UK & Ireland” if they’re trying to be sensitive.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminology_of_the_British_Isl...
Obvious, really! :)
The Irish may not like it, but they're fighting against two millenia of history.
Frankly, I find the term offensive, and think it should be discouraged in much the same way people have shifted away from "the Ukraine" to simply Ukraine.
It's the difference between a descriptive name for a region and a proper noun for a country.
Two thousand years ago Britain and Ireland were ethnically and linguistically pretty similar (I believe). Since then they have diverged in many ways - most significantly during the Reformation period when people in Britain largely left Catholicism, but people in Ireland remained Catholic. Changes like this and the legacy of colonialism this have ultimately resulted in Ireland having distinctly non-British identity. It is reasonable that our naming for things reflect this current state of affairs.
As always, it useful to consider other examples to clarify the point. For example, by the same argument, should we deprecate the phrase "Latin America"? After all, Latin Europeans only arrived in the Americas 500 years ago and the continent has had people for 10 thousand years before that. Are people who include a European adjective in the name of this cultural area "fighting against ten millenia of history"?