Talk:Republic of Ireland/Archive 5

message: I have to say that this article now has quite a bizarre opening, based on a mistaken elevation of the Republic of Ireland Act by supporters of the "status quo". The Constitution is the supreme legal document for the Irish state, it constitutes the state and names it. It is clearly of higher logical and legal status that the aforementioned Act. The name of the state in English is Ireland. When the constitution was originally adopted jurisdiction was claimed for the entire island. Since the adoption of the Belfast Agreement by referendum, the claim of jurisdiction on Northern Ireland was rescinded. Please respect the sovereign right of the people to name their own state.Deepsoulstarfish 01:24, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I understand your objection, but I don't see how you can call it "mistaken" given that the article states that Ireland is the name and that the Republic of Ireland is the description. The thing I find slightly bizarre is the Republic of Ireland Act itself.  If Republic of Ireland is just a description, than why does the Act phrase it like a name? It could have said "Ireland can hereafter be described as a republic."  And why is it capitalized, as if it were a name?--if its just a description, it could have been phrased as 'republic of Ireland'? What does it mean to officially designate your country's description? Do other countries have officially desingnated legal descriptions that look and sound like names but aren't names?   Republic of Ireland certainly gets used as a name. Why, for example, would one call one's national football team with a description?  I just can't help but wonder in reading through this debate why Republic of Ireland isn't made the official name of the state?  It would still be shorthanded as Ireland (similar to France for the official 'French Republic,' for example).  But...Are the tags at the top of Wikipedia pages officially designated as "Names" for the content of the pages? -- or can they be thought of as descriptions for the content of the page? (If Ireland can do it, I say Wikipedia can do it too!!) 75.43.176.247 17:17, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

text: If it wasn't replaced by later legislation or ruled unconstitutional, on what basis can the Republic of Ireland Act be called legally irrelevant? I'm not saying the legislation overrules the constitutionally defined name, but the constitution also defines the legislative process, doesn't it? In which case, a legislative act isn't irrelevant in light of the constitution--its an application of that constitution. The Act didn't change the name, but it does provide a different way by which the state can be referenced. Given how common the usage "Republic of Ireland" is I'm not clear on how its Act can be called obscure. Somebody certainly knew about the Act, and it caught on.  You say that the U.K. soccer teams don't overlap with states, but the only relevant point here is that the Republic of Ireland team does correspond with its state (that is, with citizenship to its state). And I'm slightly confused by what political bias you are saying is inherant in the use of Republic of Ireland. Are you saying that Ireland (the state) isn't legally a republic or simply that you don't want it to be? Nuclare 06:44, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Based on the link you provided, the court case referenced would appear to refer to the use of the name of the state on legal documents. The ruling may have deemed the use of Republic of Ireland (or any other non-official name) as the name of the state on legal documents unconstitutional, but I see no evidence it does what I referenced: That is, this case didn't render the Republic of Ireland Act "legally irrelevant"  And I wasn't trying to make football teams central to this debate, but your inclusion of lots of details about how Irish and British sport is organized was even less central to a debate about the contexts in which it is or isn't appropriate to use the phrase Republic of Ireland. If anything the complexities of the island point out more clearly why the existence of a unique way to definitively differentiate between island and state is desirable. The one sense in which it could be argued that the name of the state's football team is relevant here is only that one can pressume the state's team name was chosen to be Republic of Ireland for similar reasons to why Republic of Ireland was chosen to title this Wikipedia page. Nuclare 03:44, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

text: I don't disagree with much of anything you are saying here. There are definately elements of the way the article is written that I don't care for. And I think you may be right about the way the Republic of Ireland Act and the U.K.'s Ireland Act are forefronted. I'm not sure how useful going into that detail is. The article shouldn't be about how the state got its 'official description.' I don't have a problem with the use of that description as the title of the page, but I can see what you mean by the over-emphasizing of those elements. Having said that, the article does state that RoI is a description of a state officially named Ireland. That's in the article. However, I'm perfectly in support of any effort to reword, if one feels they can better articulate and better emphasize the important details. I'm certainly aware of the controversies concerning all elements of naming surrounding these issues. But I think the issue of differentiation/non-differentiation is more complex than your last sentence implies. One could equally argue that differentiation between state and island is important to nationalists. It simply depends on how one is framing the issue. Differentiation can, at times, emphasize that Ireland is divided, but it can equally emphasize that the concept Ireland applies to both sides of the border. But its a complex issue, and, ultimately, I don't think the issue of using language to differentiate state and island accrues to the benefit of either political ideology. The fact is that there is a difference between the state (particularly with the constitution now amended) and the island, and as ways of talking about the state go, I don't think Republic of Ireland is really all that controversial. Its soooo widely used (and by many well-meaning people without apparent political biases), and it does have some official status (not as a name, but as a way of describing the state). Its not as if this page is called the "26 County State" or "Southern Ireland" or some such. :-) Nuclare 06:38, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

text: I'm starting to be convinced about this after initially voting for RoI. Maybe Ireland (state) would be better. --sony-youthtalk 19:15, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Sorry, I take that back.  Look at France (officially the French Republic), Germany (Federal Republic of Germany), Spain (Kingdom of Spain), United Kingdom (United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland), etc. --sony-youthtalk 22:03, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

text: I'm afraid I don't see where you are referring to.  Please change it though if it is misleading.--sony-youthtalk 14:20, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

text: The way I see it the term 'Republic of Ireland' was created for situations like this where the 26 counties it can be confused with the island as a whole. Republic of Ireland is an official description defined by Bunreacht na hÉireann (Edit: My mistake, it's actually in the Republic of Ireland Act. « Keith t/e» 16:11, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

text: 'Northern Ireland' was a term created alongside 'Southern Ireland' to distinguish the two parts of Ireland in the Government of Ireland Act. My point is the term is there, set out in law, so why can't we use it? « Keith t/e» 16:11, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Whatever opinion one has on how this page should be titled, I think its unfair to imply that 'Republic of Ireland' for Ireland is the equivalent of calling Israel the "Zionist Entity." The equivalent to Zionist Entity would be something like the 'Irish Nationalist Entity' or, given the offensiveness that's often implied by those who choose to use the word Zionist instead of Israel, frankly, something more like 'The Fenian B*stard's Entity' might be a more accurate equivalent. The 'Republic of Ireland' is nothing like that. It is widely used (by people who mean NO offense or negativity). I think this football team issue is probably  being overplayed (no pun intented!)--partly my fault--but, regardless of whether the name was imposed by FIFA, it was imposed for a very good reason (the same reason why people are concerned about titling this page 'Ireland') and FIFA didn't invent 'Republic of Ireland.' They didn't pull it out of the sky.  Its a legislatively defined way of describing the state. The problem that arises from "Ireland and Northern Ireland" is that it leads to "Irish and Northern Irish."  And "Irish and Northern Irish" implies that no one and nothing from Northern Ireland can be Irish. That is simply not factually accurate. I'm not saying this to imply that this justifies using the description Republic of Ireland to label this page, but its something to keep in mind, because I think it goes to partly explain why someone who wants people from outside Ireland (both state and island) to understand the issues clearly might think that labeling this page Republic of Ireland is a good idea. Nuclare 00:23, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Please re-open the poll, you have the wrong name for my country 

message: What about Polish and other minorities (I mean people from new EU countries)? And maybe other Irish people with foreign origin (Asian, Black). About 8% of Irish population are Poles (from Polityka, leading weekly magazine in Poland). And from other sources we know other numbers- over 100,000 Poles, 80,000-90,000.... What do you think? Kowalmistrz 15:57, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The BBC says 30,000 in the North and 150,000 in the Republic. --sony-youthtalk 21:04, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Here you go! by Polish Information & Culture Centre in Dublin Ltd. 180,445 PPS numbers for Polish citizens, published by Department of Social and Family Affairs. Kowalmistrz 11:28, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Demographics- What about Polish and other minorities? 

message: What's with the revert war over the map?  Why are the parties failing to discuss the issue here?  --Red King 00:52, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This is some bullshit that's going on over the EU. As far as I know, there is some discussion, somewhere, about changing all of the EU maps but they cannot agree on a style - it started a couple of weeks ago when one guy changed them all to his favourite.  Just before writing this I looked at the UK and France and Germany. Including Ireland, four pages, four different maps of the EU. Personally, I can't tell the difference between any of them, but Christ! I wish they stop changing them! --sony-youthtalk 01:37, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Revert war over the map