Talk:Pevsner Architectural Guides/Archive 1

British and Irish Isles
I would appeal to the general editor of this site to stop using the term 'British Isles' in this otherwise very good article. This controversial term, which is an inaccurate term anyhow, is not recognised by the Irish Government and is thus not recognised internationally. The term is certainly not recognised by the United Nations, the E.U., the O.E.C.D. or the U.S. Government. The term is downright offensive to the vast majority of people over here in Ireland (North and South combined).

A much more acceptable - and accurate - term would be 'British and Irish Isles'. This is a much more tolerant, inclusive term, which recognises both the independence of the Republic of Ireland (a sovereign state which is not even a member of the Commonwealth!) and recognises the fact that 'these Isles' are mainly made up of two main islands: Ireland and Great Britain.

I have edited the first paragraph of this article a few times, changing the term 'British Isles' to 'British and Irish Isles'. However, someone keeps changing it back to that rather 'imperialist' term 'the British Isles'. As I don't want to get into an unseemly 'edit war' over this, I am appealing to the main editors of this site to resolve this issue. As I say, the term 'British Isles' is almost never used by anyone in the Republic of Ireland and is only used by the Unionist community within Northern Ireland (where they make up around 50% of the population). Laggan Boy (talk) 13:32, 19 September 2013 (UTC)


 * British and Irish Isles redirects to British Isles where there is a specific talk page Talk:British_Isles/name_debate devoted to the subject. I would suggest taking your complaint there, first, to see if you can build a consensus on what seems to me to be a clumsy relative neologism which is actually more "politically charged" than the purely geographic term in common use to which you object. The current Wikipedia consensus seems not to favour the use of "British and Irish Isles" and until that changes, you should respect wikipedia convention. Incidentally, the claims made above regarding non-recognition by the Irish Government, the EU, US government, OECD and United Nations are not borne out by documents produced by those bodies. None of them appear to use "British and Irish Isles" as an alternative.


 * However, since "British Isles" also includes the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands, which are not the subject of Pevsner volumes, it might be acceptable to use "Britain and Ireland" if other editors feel it really is a problem. Ghughesarch (talk) 15:13, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

I think you and me have had a similar discussion on your talk page, where I came to the conclusion that we were not going to agree on this point. I find it fascinating, however, that you find the term 'British and Irish Isles' a 'politically charged' term, yet you don't see 'British Isles' as a very politically charged term (and a downright inaccurate term), claiming, as it does, that all of these islands are British!! You should visit this country sometime, mate, and see what reaction you get when you go round telling us that Ireland (or, in particular, the Republic of Ireland) is part of your so-called 'British Isles'!!

And I love your sweeping statement that seems to infer that you, personally, have read each and every document issued by the United Nations and the various other bodies that I listed above and that you have found that they do not use the term 'British and Irish Isles'!!!! Perhaps they do not; but one thing is for certain: they are not meant to use the term 'British Isles' either. Certainly not officially. Often the term 'Britain and Ireland' is indeed used. However, that term omits the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man.

Nevertheless, as the Pevsner Guides do not currently cover the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man, I would have no problem with changing the term 'British Isles' in the article to 'Britain and Ireland'. That seems to me like a very reasonable compromise. Laggan Boy (talk) 10:48, 25 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Well, having noted (and see my talk page) that Britain and Ireland redirects to British Isles, clearly there is no consensus for using that as a catch-all term either, so the article will have to remain unchanged for the moment unti there is a consensus to the contrary. The next step, as only the two of us are involved, would be to take it to WP:3 for a third opinion, but I don't intend to do so at this stage as the issue seems perfectly clear cut in terms of what Wikipedia convention is on this particular naming policy (and I understand that an Isle of Man volume of the Pevsners is in preparation) Ghughesarch (talk) 17:36, 25 September 2013 (UTC)