User:Jnestorius/Georges Channel

< St George's Channel


 * logainm records
 * 1592-96 CSPI index says pp. 253, 453, 527
 * 1601:
 * For reasons which I will not put down in writing my opinion is that they will land in Galway, Limerick, Cork, Waterford or Dyveling [Dublin]. I "least doubt" Dyveling as it is so far in St. George's Channel and as the population there are loyal to the Queen and of her faith.
 * I then went towards Kinsale but when off Dungarvan was caught in a violent storm and driven into Waterford and all my sails and tackle spoiled. I found a ship going for England, but detained the master until I had spoken to Mr. Mayor, and sent you any information which might be obtained from him. I asked him to send all the news he had to you. I found further that there is a doubt that there were 20 sail of great ships that passed through St. George's Channel, for there is a report that there were 20 ships then athwart of Si Hi [Scilly], which bore north-north-east in the morning, which " leded " them rightly to St. George's Channel. The same ship met a fleet of 50 Spaniards the same night, but knew not to what nation the fleet of 20 belonged, but descried them to be " great ships."
 * The one is to come by the southward along St. George's Channel to Carlingford ... These galleys, the castle of Strangford, and island aforesaid will, if well ordnanced, protect the coast of Ireland from Calebeg [Killybegs] to Strangford, and from Strangford southwards to the entry into St. George's Channel, and likewise the flat coast of England south of Liverpool.
 * 1607 Ninnius also expresly calleth the Britans that inhabite Ireland Scythians, and the narrow sea thorow which they passed over out of Ireland into Britaine Gildas nameth Vallem Scythicam, that is, The Scythian Vale.
 * 1635 Mare clausum: Et Vergivii, in quo Hibernia sita est, pars censetur Mare Hibernicum, olim Vallis Scythica dictum, nunc Canalis Sancti Georgii appellatum.
 * 1652 translation: The Sea encompassing great Britain, which in general wee term the British Sea, is divided into four parts, according to the four Quarters of the World. On the West lie's the Vergivian Sea, which also take's the name of the Deucaledonian, where it washeth the Coast of Scotland. And of this Vergivian, wherein Ireland is situate, the Irish Sea is reckoned to bee a part, called in antient time the Scythian Vale, but now the Channel of St George. So that as well that which washeth the Western Coast of Ireland, as that which flowe's between great Britain and Ireland, is to bee called the British Sea. For, not onely this (which of old was called great Britain, and somtimes simply the Great Island) but also the Isle of Ireland, with the other adjacent Isles, were termed Britanniae[.]
 * 1652, Gerard Boate, The Natural History of Ireland, Ch.6 Of the Nature of the Irish Sea, and of the Tides which go in it." refers to earlier works
 * 1660 Report on the Guarding of the Irish Channel [sic]. "It is necessary that there should be three ketches employed in the Irish Sea between Dublin and Holyhead and the parts adjacent for the constant conduct of His Majesty's good subjects with speed and safety as well as the carrying His Majesty's messengers and expresses and the public mail with letters : as also the securing those seas from picaroones or other robbers and trubulent persons."
 * 1685 book: It is washed by the great ocean. It is, on all sides, surrounded by the Vergivian sea, called by the antient Britons, Morweridh; which opposite Scotland has got the appellations of the Hyperborean, Caledonian, and Deucaledonian sea, from the places it flows by; where it flows between Britain and Ireland, it is called the Irish sea, which is the Scythian valley of Gildas, now commonly known by the name of St. George's Channel, since Edward III. in the year 1350, had adopted St. George, the Cappadocian, as the patron of the English: but on the south, it is particularly called the Vergivian sea; as also on the west.
 * 1689 map The Province of Ulster Surveyed by Sir William Petty has "The Irish Sea or St. Georges Channel"
 * 1715 map The Kingdom of Ireland, Divided as Much into the Main Regions of Ulster, Connacht, Leinster and Munster by the firm of Nuremberg engraver and publisher Johann Baptist Homann has "The Irish Sea or St. Georges Channel"
 * 1724 book: On the West side of Britain lies the Vergivian Sea, which where it washes the Coast of Scotland, takes from thence the I Name of the Deucalidonian Sea. Of this Vergivian Sea, the Irish, or St. George's Channel, is a part.
 * 1728 chart 59 by Johannes van Keulen had modern division between St George's Channel and the Irish Sea.
 * 1786 book: VERGIVIUM-MARE, derived from Iver giübbüi or the most western water, that part of the Atlantic Ocean on the southern coasts of Ireland, called by the Irish Mor Bhergus or the sea of the most western water, and by Gildas Vallis Scythica.
 * 1822: St George Steam Packet Co founded in Cork. "By 1828 the firm had offices at Cork, Dublin, Hull, Liverpool, and London; agents at Newry, Derry, Belfast, Westport, Galway, Limerick, and Belfast; and twelve vessels running routes from Cork and Dublin to Dundalk, Newry, Liverpool, London, Bristol, Hull, Glasgow, Hamburg, and Rotterdam."
 * 1824 book: The four seas over which Great Britain claims dominion, are denominated from the cardinal points of the compass. Toward the East is the German Ocean generally called the North, but by the Danes, Swedes, and other northen regions named the West Sea, and the boundaries on this side are the shores of those countries opposite to Great Britain that way, as the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, and Norway. Southward is the British Ocean, so called by Ptolemy, one part of which is commonly denominated the Channel, or by the French La Manche, which divides England from France. This way the boundaries extend to the opposite shores of France (4), to those of Spain as far as Cape Finisterre, and to an imaginary line drawn from that Cape in the same parallel of latitude to their boundary on the West, thus taking in that part of the British seas which consists of the Channel, the Bay of Biscay, and part of the Atlantic Ocean. On the West is that sea anciently called the Virgivian Ocean, which, where it washes the coast of Scotland, is from thence called Deucaledonian Sea; that part of it which flows between England and Ireland, is sometimes called the Irish Sea, anciently the Scythian Vale, but now Saint George's Channel; and the rest the Western Atlantic Ocean. Northward is the sea anciently known by the several names of Hyperborean, Deucaledonian, and Caledonian Ocean, now the Scotch sea, in which are situated the Orcades, Thule, and other islands. The proper boundaries of the British seas for the west and north on those quarters are generally reckoned a line drawn from the before-mentioned imaginary line, extending from the Cape Finisterre in the longitude of twenty-three degrees west from London, to the latitude of sixty-three degrees, and thence another line drawn in that parallel of latitude to the middle point of land called Van Staten in Norway, thereby taking in to the west that portion of them which consists of part of the Atlantic Ocean and the Irish Sea, or Saint George's Channel [ref (1) Selden's Mare Clausum, b.2. c.1. p.182. Molloy, b.1. c.5. s.10. Postl. Dic. tit. Sea, British.]
 * 1835: IRELAND is the most westerly island in Europe; bounded on the north by the Deucaledonian Sea; on the south, by the mouth of St. George's Channel, or Virginian Sea; on the east, by the Irish Sea (commonly called St. George's Channel); on the west, by the great Atlantic Ocean.
 * 1837 book: The Atlantic surrounds it every where except on its eastern shores, which are separated from Britain by the Irish sea; or, rather, by St. George's Channel, the Irish Sea, and the North Channel. The first, or St. George's Channel, includes that portion of the sea lying between the coast of Wales and the coast of Ireland, from Carnsore Point to Dublin; the second, or the Irish Sea, properly so called, extends from Dublin to Donaghadee, having the Isle of Man in its centre, North Wales on its south, Lancashire and Cumberland on its east, and Galloway on its north side; while the third, or North Channel, extends from Donaghadee to Rachlin Island, having on the opposite Scotch coast the Rhynns of Galloway, the Mull of Cantire, &c. From St. David's Head, in Wales, across to Carnsore Point, the distance is about 47 miles; from Port Patrick, in the Rhynns of Galloway, to Donaghadee, the distance is 22 miles; but from the Mull of Cantire to Tor Point, in Ireland, is only 13£ miles.
 * 1842 map The British Isles “under the superintendence” of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge has "The Irish Channel"
 * 1839 Basil Hall: The same vigorous intellect (Francis Beaufort) which conceived the original notion of furnishing a subaqueous map of the North Sea, struck out and put in execution the analogous plan of surveying the Irish Sea, or St. George's Channel, as it is sometimes called.
 * 1861 encyclopedia: IRISH SEA, that portion of St. Georges Channel lying to the north of Anglesea, and washing the opposite coasts of England and Ireland. It is regarded as 130 miles north ana south, by a mean width of 40 miles.
 * 1876 commentary on Marcianus Heracleensis' description of Ireland: The "Hyperborean" here mentioned is the Northern Sea ; the "Hibernian," is the Irish sea between central Ireland and Great Britain (in the middle of which is the Isle of Man or the "Insula Mevania" of the ancients); the "Virgivian sea" is St. George's Channel, between the South of Ireland and England. Gildas, the British historian in the sixth century, called St. George's Channel and the Irish sea "Scythica Vallis" or the Scythian valley: because it was the sea that separated the Scythians or Irish Scots from Britain.
 * 1930, Osmond Esmonde: About twenty years ago the Attorney-General for the United Kingdom, in the course, I think, of an international case, maintained that the Irish Sea and St. George's Channel, so-called, were British territorial waters, that it was an enclosed sea. The courts did not accept that view, but I think the Attorney-General of the United Kingdom still maintains this point of view. If that is the case, then as a result of the division between the United Kingdom and the Free State our territorial waters extend to between twenty-five and thirty miles inside St. George's Channel and the Irish Sea.
 * 1988 Des O'Malley on seabed treaty: The other difficulty arises further south in St. George's Channel and in the north-eastern part of the Celtic Sea. Mr. Lysaght draws attention to that in the article which has been referred to by Deputy Barry, where he feels that in the part that can be described as Irish block 50 there is an overlap, as it were, in the two original claims and to the north-east of Irish block 50 the bulk of the disputed area seems to have gone to Britain, and he is fearful that that is one of the most valuable parts.
 * 1992 written Dáil answer: The vessel, drifting as it was in the approaches to the George's Channel and Irish Sea, Bristol Channel and the English Channel, was a hazard to navigation and a pollution threat.

Compare two editions of the Gazetteer of England and Wales:
 * 1836: The sea bounds this part of Britain on three sides. On the east it has the German ocean; on the south it is separated from France by the English channel; and on the west it is bounded by that part of the north Atlantic ocean which has received the name of St George's channel, and which separates it from Ireland.
 * 1840: The sea bounds this part of Britain on three sides. On the east it has the North sea or German ocean; on the south it is separated from France by the English channel; and on the west that part of the North Atlantic ocean which has received the names of St George's channel, and the Irish sea, separates it from Ireland.

A 1770 book uses "St George's Channel" for the English Channel:
 * [France] extends in length from the Pyrenean mountains in the south to Dunkirk in the north, eight degrees and a half, or five hundred and ten miles; and in breadth, from the most westerly point in Brittany, to Strasburg, in Alsace, four hundred and ninety-five miles; being bounded to the south by the Mediterranean and Spain, from which it is separated by the Pyrenean mountains; to the north by St. George's channel and the Netherlands; to the east by Germany, Switzerland, and Italy; to the west by the Western ocean.

Likewise a 1660 multilingual dictionary.

Philip Carteret in 1767 named St Georges Channel by New Britain.