Wikipedia:Irish wikipedians' notice board/Archive04

Villages in Ireland

 * From Talk:Gougane Barra

Gougane Barra isn't a town: it's not even a village. It's a lake, a church, and about four houses that are not even close to each other - whereas Ballingeary, 2 miles for it, is a village proper. Can I suugest that it be removed from category towns, for possible inclusion in 'historic places in Ireland' at some point? rroddy 16:19, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * This is a problem with not just this article, but a relatively small bunch of places in Ireland that have stubs on Wikipedia. There were a few overzealous additions to town lists (on the county pages, and the master list), and hence stubs were created for completeness. I'll raise the issue at Wikipedia talk:Irish wikipedians' notice board, as this affects a few other places too which aren't really towns (or even notable as villages). So lets hold off on Gougane Barra until we get a coherent suggestion to apply across the board. We may need to evaluate whether such places merit articles (they may of course, because despite the small size, some have hundreds of years of history).


 * Anyone else interested should see how the discussion pans out at the aforementioned page. zoney &#09827; talk 16:32, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I suggest we sort this problem out before it comes to a head with people randomly listing Irish location articles on VfD - as others will draw less distinction between valid Irish town articles and non-notable Irish village articles. Also some villages probably do deserve articles, due to their hundreds of years of history, or some notability (e.g. Sallins on the railway line to Cork).

So what do people suggest we do? Carefully decide do we want to nominate by consensus Gougane Barra and some similar pages for deletion? Immediately ensure history or notability information is added to such articles? (Can for example, Gougane Barra be written about?). Help and ideas please? zoney &#09827; talk 16:32, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Remember that the number of places that are officially "towns" is actually quite limited - less than 100 - the Central Statistics Office maintains a list of places that it uses the term "town" with - also ***strictly speaking*** for the terms of local government the following "shall be known as towns..." Local Government Act, 2001 - Local Government Areas (Towns) - however this within itself does not prevent using a generic definition of a town - in the UK the difference between a city, town or village is quite formal, in Ireland is has become less so since independence. Either way i think that the categorisation advantages outweights the ambiguity of statusDjegan 19:48, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * That definition of Town is scarily limiting. Maynooth is by far the 'most important' town in North Kildare, yet Leixlip is the sole town. And it hasn't even got a supermarket or (to the best of my knowledge, this is) a petrol station. It has got Intel though, but Maynooth has the NUI and all the shops. Hope we're not going to limit ourselfs to that list :-).

Kiand 23:17, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * Not to mention that the people of Kilkenny will give out when they find that they're not living in a city. :) I'd go with a more non-formal town definition to allow lists include larger non-town-council-having towns. jlang


 * All the information I have at hand indicates Kilkenny is a bona fida city - however the local government system is not - if in doubt discuss in Cities in Ireland! Djegan 19:55, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * Indeed, but I was less concentrating on the issue raised as regards categorisation (I'm happy to use "towns" quite broadly), and more the issue of such articles' place in Wikipedia. Should we remove the few short stubs on very small places (e.g. Gougane Barra) that don't have anything in particular (besides name+location) written about them yet? If not, what should we do to stave off others deciding that such articles should be VfD'ed? zoney &#09827; talk 22:09, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * I'd favour expanding the stubs. In fact, I might have a little stab at Gougane Barra this very day. Could we have a Category:Places in Ireland with cities, towns and villages as sub-cats and these other places as direct members of the Places cat? Glad to see that Sallins counts as a real place, anyway! Filiocht 09:54, Oct 22, 2004 (UTC)


 * I didn't mean to suggest that Gougane Barra be deleted: there's a pile of history there, and it would be wrong to. I'll contribute to the page as I can. It's just that it's not a town. It's like, erm, the Hill of Tara: a place, just not a town. Maybe it's a gazetteer that should be developed for Ireland.  Just my 2p. rroddy 10:07, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Categorising towns and villages
Thanks for the input. OK, so now back to the categorisation issue. Here's the thing. There is already Category:Cork, Category:Dublin, Category:County Kerry, Category:Limerick topics (this latter cat should probably be renamed for consistency). Eventually I hope we can have one of these for each county (albeit minus "County" for the city counties of Cork, Limerick, Dublin and possibly Galway and Waterford). They are subcategories of Category:Counties of Ireland of course (which holds the county articles as members also).

However, I'd also hoped to conserve the "Towns in ..." categories and not just place towns directly in Category:Dublin for example (although the town categories are subcategories of those county/city cats). The Dublin towns category is already termed Category:Towns and suburbs in Dublin reflecting the fuzzy nature of many Dublin places (e.g. Dundrum is a town but part of Dublin city). Should we just rename ALL these town categories to be "Places in ..."? But that would include landmarks, which I don't want to include. Should it be "Settlements in ...". But that sounds silly. Has anyone a proposed solution?

zoney &#09827; talk 11:26, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * How about, for example, Category:Places in Dublin with a subcategory Towns in Dublin and articles on, say, Phoenix Park as direct members of the Places cat?


 * I'd leave things largely as they are - towns/settlements in category "Towns in xxx" and other notable articles about things/places/landmarks in or relating to the county in the category "County xxx" (Or tidied up to be consistently like that).  I considered changing the links to category:Counties_of_Ireland to sort on the county name rather than the word county, but said I'd mention it here first. jlang 14:52, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Ah, I see the problem now, there aren't 'County xxx' categories except for those you've listed above. Then I vote that there should be. jlang


 * So, further to JLang's comments, I suggest we go with:
 * "towns" (broadly, including villages we can get away with calling towns) being members of Category:Towns in Cork, etc.
 * Places that cannot be squeezed into the towns category we put in Category:Cork, Category:County Kerry, etc. (i.e. using "County X" but for the city counties)
 * Category:Towns in Cork, etc. are subcategories of Category:Cork, Category:County Kerry, etc. in addition to being subcats of Category:Towns of Ireland.
 * Category:Cork, Category:County Kerry, etc. are subcats of Category:Counties of Ireland.
 * Are people agreeable to this? It keeps things relatively simple (plus I REALLY don't want to recategorise all the town articles).
 * zoney &#09827; talk 16:28, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Seems sensible to me. Filiocht 08:20, Oct 26, 2004 (UTC)

My comments yesterday were not intended to rollback the tremendous work done on towns - its is important to remember that local government in Ireland has not undergone sustantial reform since the Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898 - as usual the government has simply face painted whats their and quite honestly made a muck of it - Irish governments have never created one city even though several boroughs and towns are (by official boundaries) larger than Kilkenny by far - therefore anything that has more than a crossroads and a donkey might well be considered a town without a great streach of the imagination - just make it clear in the article text city, borough, town or village. Djegan 19:25, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Category:Limerick topics
Zoney said "Category:Limerick topics (this latter cat should probably be renamed for consistency)". I agree, but I suggest that it be renamed to something like Category:Midwest as opposed to Category:Limerick, as topics of interest to Limerick City include things in south County Clare and west Tipperary. Limerick City is a bit of a special case, being on the border of its county. Seabhcan 11:38, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

RTÉ Lyric FM
Just stumbled across this and have removed a heap of POV text plus the tag. Could someone check what I've done, please? Filiocht 11:07, Oct 22, 2004 (UTC)


 * Seems fair enough to pare it down as you did. I think it's better. Obviously the article could use more content, but I'm sure we'll eventually get around to it. zoney &#09827; talk 16:30, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Northern Ireland
On the Ireland page appears Template:Northern Ireland - is this relevent to "Ireland", as the island, it is a list of districts of Northern Ireland - should only the traditional counties template appear ? Djegan 20:24, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Celtic Tiger
I've been working away on the Celtic Tiger article for the last week now, with the view of putting it up for featured article status. Before I put it up though, I want to give a few days for any of yee to point out any mistakes or ommissions to me, so that I can rectify them before listing the article on WP:FAC. In effect I would like a few proof-reads. Please responed soon! I hope to nominate it before the 30th Oct. CGorman 22:09, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * Brilliant work CGorman. IMHO, one slight critism is that the "Spreading the Wealth" section should talk a little about poverity black-spots in the inner cities and council estates that saw little benefit from the Celtic Tiger. Did unemployment, crime or drug use change there during those years? (don't feel I know enough facts and figures to answer that myself)
 * Perhaps also a brief section on how the tiger effected the northern peace process? Seabhcan 11:28, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * Thanks - I actually was thinking today of adding something on the North. You mentioned unemployment, crime or drugs in the inner city - I can't believe i've missed such an important area - i'll start work on it straight away (particularly about the Ballymun flats & and the regeneration project.) Any other quibbles - please let me know, I'd love to get this through FAC without any opposition! --CGorman 14:28, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * Go for it! I made a couple of minor changes for FAC requirements. Filiocht 07:51, Oct 26, 2004 (UTC)

OK, im putting the article up now on WP:FAC - please support! CGorman 10:09, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * Celtic Tiger is now a featured article! Well done! Filiocht 11:22, Nov 4, 2004 (UTC)

Ire-stub
Someone suggested a while back the creation of an Irish stub notice, like the many others and I was one of the ones that opposed it, not knowing the existance of numerous others. Now that I think of it another way, though, it would give a handy automated list of Irish stubs to expand. What do people think? J OHN C OLLISON [ Ludraman] 17:06, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * I was the one who suggested it (and I also didn't know about the others - and there was I thinking I had an original idea!). I still think it would be useful. Perhaps even two stubs? A Ireland-geo stub for all those town articles, and a more general one?
 * I've done up a general one Template:Ireland-stub, along the lines of the others in Category:Stubs_by_region Seabhcan 10:46, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * I think an Ireland geo-stub would be very useful indeed, in addition to the generic Ireland stub. zoney &#09827; talk 12:48, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * How about this... Category:Ireland-place stubs and Template:Ireland-place-stub. Perhaps a different icon would be good. Seabhcan 13:37, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Or else use a shamrock logo for the main Ireland stub, and use the map for the location stub (makes more sense?). zoney &#09827; talk 13:55, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * That sounds good. Are you willing to donate your personal logo? &#09827; Seabhcan 18:17, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Maps of Cities - again
I have recently been told of the format of maps used on the Welsh Wikipedia - a sample these are quite simple, the dot can be moved around as much as neccessary and thus a single map can be used to indicate any number of places (i.e. their are two images, a map and the dot). The current city maps are too inaccurate, require much time to process and check and they are not everyones ideal map. It is better to know the general location within Ireland rather than the boundaries within a county. This could be ideal to replace the city maps and as well could be applied to all county towns any ideas and input ? Djegan 19:29, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * I have tested it in mozilla and iexplore and it looks fine except that tranparency does not work well in iexplore Djegan

In summary: A map showing the location of a city or town can be created, preferrably, using the county map and simply overlaying a dot on the location of the place. This avoids having to create map for every city or town and avoids the process of creating new maps. In addition the original county map remains unedited and can be used, if neccessary, for several towns. This should be used for all cities in Ireland, except Dublin, as these cities are quite small and it is difficult to get accurate maps. Djegan 21:47, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * The maps need to be smaller, preferably half the size of your example. The information they impart to the article is needed (namely the location), but its importance is not such that it should eat valuable page real-estate. Plus if the map is small enough, it can be added to lesser town articles without drowning out their content or leaving no space for a photo. zoney &#09827; talk 22:28, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * I am not keen on smaller maps at all - if we are to use a smaller map then a new Ireland map would be neccessary, shrinking the standard Ireland maps does not do it justice even with the inbuilt smoothing features in wikipedia. Either way a full map of Ireland is essential rather than county based as the feedback seams to confirm this (Irish wikipedians' (and other interested parties) please give your opinions as a good discussion is neccessary before any implementation!) Djegan 20:20, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * How about a middle ground between the county-sized maps and a full sized map? Surely taking four quadrant maps and using whichever is appropriate will give enough contextual information about a town and its county, without taking up as much space as a similarly scaled map of all of Ireland.  An extent of coastline and a few surrounding counties might be enough.  AndrewH 09:16, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I have one some places in the new style of map: Dún Laoghaire, Swords, Tallaght - the three seats of local goverment of the new counties created in 1994. Djegan 14:21, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * I have changed all the cities in the Republic of Ireland to correspond to this format, any comments? Djegan 22:17, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * In the Dublin county ones, could the county boundary be made a bit heavier than the sub-divisions? Just a thought.  AndrewH 09:18, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

New maps
The current maps take up far too much space. I agree that shrinking the current maps is not a suitable option. Ideally a map of the county with a locator within the island would be best. I've scratched together a quick demo, the county map is not properly redrawn - just roughly scaled up. It gets the point across. If this is suitable, then redrawn county maps can be added for each county. Perhaps the colours should be changed? (e.g. white background on county map). zoney &#09827; talk 11:56, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Zoney, this looks like the best possible solution IMHO. Filiocht 12:07, Nov 2, 2004 (UTC)


 * I've updated the county map with more detail to give a better idea. See also my smaller version for use where we don't want to use much space. zoney &#09827; talk 00:02, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * In fact, I think I prefer the smaller version in all situations. It's just a quick indicator and the smaller map does the job. zoney &#09827; talk 17:11, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I prefer to use the country map with the county highlighted, as I have implemented they allow for dual and multi purpose (show county and town(s)). Individual maps as you have proposed are a good idea but their is substantial work required to implement (i have tried it). Also their are other considerations for instance detail, format and consistancy, regarding these points it is ideal that the maps retain a consistancy across articles rather than each appearing too individual. Also size and dimensions are important considerations - compare dimensions of County Cork and County Dublin - and what about County Waterford with the city split over two counties - again regarding dimensions a sense of balance is required. Just some points to consider. Djegan 20:18, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * I have created a map of Dublin, with the same scale and yet same size of overall image - it works just fine (will upload along with others). The maps should all be consistent, I will resize/reframe the Cork map if needs be (I'll need to check that the other larger counties fit - I'm reasonably sure Tipperary might need a larger frame vertically). I intend to do all 32 counties. The full-size map is just too large, and also imprecise.
 * There is not in fact an issue with towns/cities lying on county boundaries, as they are "officially" in only one county (simply placing the dot at the edge of the county will sufficiently denote its position.
 * zoney &#09827; talk 11:19, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * I should have correctly structured that comment on Waterford to imply near the intersection of the counties. Definitely creating individual maps could be ideal, but uniformity and realising the size of the task at hand are important - I would recommend against using county maps for Northern Ireland as they have no official status and might be misinterpreted when used in an administrative context, on a slightly unrelated matter I recently approached the statistics authority in the North and they do not compile records on a county level at all. Djegan 19:20, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * I've done the same for Tipperary to satisfy myself that the format suits the largest counties. Unfortunately, my earlier comments re: Dublin are not valid - it seems I accidently created the Dublin map to a scale twice the size of the others. So it looks good alongside Tipp and Cork maps, but is not the same scale. Perhaps adding the scale in the corner of the image would fix this? The matching scale County Dublin is illegible, and the larger scale looks better. It could be used for other such counties (Louth, Carlow). Thoughts? I'm not underestimating the project, and I do want to do this. zoney &#09827; talk 20:12, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * I've just done Limerick, a more medium sized county. Neither the Dublin nor Cork scale suit, so I've used a third scale. Would it suffice to merely scale the counties to fit the image? (Although I can probably stick to three scales, one for big counties, one for medium, and one for small). After all, they are not appearing side by side. zoney &#09827; talk 20:44, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * With Galway, I've used the same scale as Cork, but repositioned the island locator map. Again, I think the consistency is still sufficient (i.e. as long as style remains consistent it's OK). Views please on the variation of the maps? Are they OK, should I continue to create the other counties? (Bar N.I., we'll approach that afterwards). zoney &#09827; talk 19:55, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * Waterford done. Once I've created the Kilkenny map, I will add these to the city pages unless there are objections. Most likely I will use the larger size maps for the city articles - however, the smaller ones are important for short articles where the images can't be allowed to drown out what little text is present. zoney &#09827; talk 19:03, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * Kilkenny done Image:Ireland map County Kilkenny.png, Image:Ireland map County Kilkenny small.png. I shall add all these maps to the relevant pages. zoney &#09827; talk 23:26, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Economy of Ireland
I've been working away on this for the past week, like the Celtic Tiger article I intend to put it on WP:FAC, so could yee please proof-read it and make a few criticisims before I put it up on WP:FAC to help me reduce possible objections, thanks. CGorman 22:38, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * Sorry for not responding sooner. I've done some copyediting and one edit for NPOV (fiasco ==> situation). I fear there may be some other POV concerns: can we, for example, back up statements like 'The efficiency of the train network is poor, with regular delays and overcrowding on major routes.' with some hard facts? Filiocht 12:57, Nov 2, 2004 (UTC)


 * Yes I agree, i'll try to back up some of the statements or at least soften them (i.e. like where you changed fiasco to situation) at some stage during the week. This is precisely why im listing articles here before I put them on WP:FAC. CGorman 21:19, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Economy of Ireland is now on WP:FAC - please supoort CGorman 20:05, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

William Butler Yeats
Is on the main page today! Filiocht 09:00, Nov 3, 2004 (UTC)

Also, just wondering if there is anything we should do about the 150 years of University College Dublin? Filiocht


 * For the record the Catholic University of Ireland was formally established on 18 May 1854, on 3 November 1854 lectures commenced. Djegan 22:06, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Ireland for FAC
I think Ireland is looking in pretty good shape for FAC but it will get down as FACs do because of lack of references. So can anyone who contributed (and anyone who didn't but knows references!) add them! J OHN C OLLISON [ Ludraman] 23:31, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Censorship in the Republic of Ireland
Only the second time I've attempted a "big" article, so could some of you lot have a look at this. I'd like to think I could drag it to FA quality, but probably not, and certainly not as it is now. Kiand 22:52, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * Oh, and I'm also missing lots of the landmarks, such as that obscenity trial with the theatre whos name escapes me now; and indeed anything to do with censorship of obscenity on TV and radio. Kiand 22:55, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * A couple of points worth noting 1) I did'nt see a single mention of the church - it is widely known that they were the main drivers behind Irish censorship for much of the 20th century, 2) you should mention something about the film song in the landmarks section - it is supposedly the most sexually explicit film ever for general release - and despite bans in other countries, it is to be shown in Ireland (the film censor said he believed Irish adults should be allowed see it), 3) there are far too many 1 sentence sections, I got slated for this recently myself on WP:FAC, 4) I realise its hard to get images for this topic, but perhaps the film censors logo, the amazon logo, a picture of michael collins, a gun etc., could be made suit to the page. Anyways keep up the good work and good luck! CGorman 19:52, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * The Committee on Evil Literature might prove interesting. Djegan 21:39, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Irish Army
I was just taking a look around a seldom frequented part of Wikipedia: Category:Irish Defence Forces. I think it needs a bit of a clean-up. There is the Category:Military of the Republic of Ireland which fits in with the naming schemes of other countries (see Category:Militaries), but it has no articles. Then there is the Category:Irish Defence Forces which is grand but incomplete. Articles Irish Army, Irish Air Corps, and the like have good info, but could do with a more standard layout (and perhaps also renaming to include "Republic of"). Maybe a template box for all the parts of the ROI military would be useful?

Also, a few word of mention in the Republic of Ireland page might be good too. Any takers? Seabhcan 14:02, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * On a related note, there doesn't seem to be any articles related to the Irish Navy, or her ships (LÉ Aoife, LÉ Róisín, LÉ Deirdre, etc.). It's been on the to-do list for a while, but I just thought I'd remind people. I know the usual wiki-way is "do it yourself", but I really know nothing and have no interest in the area. What time I have on Wikipedia is spent on the things I am into. zoney &#09827; talk 16:43, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Also there is no page relating to Irish Army Peacekeeping Missions - surely an important aspect of the Irish Army in recent years. I found this out while looking for references to the Irish Armys involvement in the Congo Civil War. --Edzillion 19:12, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)