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British and Irish..or just British? (1 Viewer)

Jan-Paul Charteris said:
From living most of my life in Cricklewood and having many Irish friends throughout the early part of my life, I always understood the term United Kingdom to be found offensive rather than British Isles. I guess given that the term British Isles came from the same place that gave Ireland catholicism, it'd make less sense to disown it? Perhaps you could explain why the term British Isles as opposed to United Kingdom is found offensive?
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I don't know any Irish people who would find the term "United Kingdom" offensive. The term "British Isles" is an archaic term though, since people/country of the Republic of Ireland are not British so the term doesn't make sense.
 
Mayo Corncrake said:
I don't know any Irish people who would find the term "United Kingdom" offensive. The term "British Isles" is an archaic term though, since people/country of the Republic of Ireland are not British so the term doesn't make sense.
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Good point. What is really required here is a new up-to-date geographical term for our islands.
 
Amarillo said:
What is really required here is a new up-to-date geographical term for our islands.
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Wikipedia: "The term British Isles is controversial in Ireland, where there are objections to its usage due to the association of the word British with Ireland. The Government of Ireland does not use the term and its embassy in London discourages its use. As a result, Britain and Ireland is becoming a preferred description, and Atlantic Archipelago is increasingly favoured in academia, although British Isles is still commonly employed."

Atlantic Archipelago!! There are quite a few of those...

And an AA List sounds like counting binge drinkers... B :)
 
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I think you're all taking this far too seriously.

In my experience, the typical twitcher from England/Wales/Scotland (so nobody gets offended) struggles to sit down on a chair or even eat their Ready Brek with a plastic spoon, so the whole Imperial Britain thing might be somewhat above their understanding.

The idea that English/Welsh/Scottish twitchers tick Irish birds as part of some archaic sense of superiority that Eire is still under London rule... well, FFS just read that back to yourselves. It's about as funny as hearing about all the English/Welsh/Scottish twitchers who dipped Eastern Kingbird on Saturday. Not that that's funny.
 
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The Shanwick Isles. OK, this is just a jokey idea but the airspace over the eastern Atlantic between the Western Isles of Scotland, west of Eire, south of Iceland and east of Canadian airspace is under control of a tower called Shanwick. Of course there is no such tower and the name is derived from Shannon and Prestwick (I assume), as Shannon is still the main reporting tower for Ireland west of Dublin and Prestwick used to be the tower before it was named Scottish Centre. Darn, if it doesn't leave us English and the Welsh out of it!
 
Here is an interesting scenario:

Three Aleutian Terns arrive at the same time. One in Scotland (on Foula), one in Northern Ireland (at Giants Causeway) and one in the Republic of Ireland (at Dun Laoghaire).

You live in Oxford, you are very keen on adding to your British List and you don't have deep enough pockets to fly. You go for the cheaper option and team up with four of your mates and go by car. Given that the Foula bird is by far the furthest in distance and time you decide against going for this bird. The nearest ferry is from Holyhead to Dun Laoghaire. Clearly, the most accessible bird is at Dun Laoghaire but if you keep a strict British List you will have to continue north to the Giants Causeway.

If you are a serious lister, it makes no sense economically or geographically to exclude either Ireland as a whole or the Republic of Ireland.

By the way, I'm not a serious lister, so have no vested interest but can see the logic used by many twitchers in England as to why they would include birds on their list that they have seen in County Galway, for example.

Brian
___________
Birding Today
 
Brian Stretch said:
if you keep a strict British List you will have to continue north to the Giants Causeway.
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No, if you keep a strict UK list you will have to go to Northern Ireland. The strict British lister will have to go to Foula. It's obviously better to keep a Britain and Ireland and IoM list: much less confusing!
 
Amarillo said:
Good point. What is really required here is a new up-to-date geographical term for our islands.
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Probably too simplistic...''The Brit-Ir-ish Isles'' (enunciated as in skit-ish)..that I believe would even cover the IOM as it's betwixt the two larger composite Islands, and from an outsiders perspective (someone that has no historic understanding of the differences...for e.g an altitudinal Kazahkstan goat herder?), Islands that belong to both?.....and as for the Channel Islands......;)
 
tom mckinney said:
I think you're all taking this far too seriously.

In my experience, the typical twitcher from England/Wales/Scotland (so nobody gets offended) struggles to sit down on a chair or even eat their Ready Brek with a plastic spoon, so the whole Imperial Britain thing might be somewhat above their understanding.

The idea that English/Welsh/Scottish twitchers tick Irish birds as part of some archaic sense of superiority that Eire is still under London rule... well, FFS just read that back to yourselves. It's about as funny as hearing about all the English/Welsh/Scottish twitchers who dipped Eastern Kingbird on Saturday. Not that that's funny.
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Do you honestly think that anyone who ticks Irish birds does it out of a sense of archaic superiority? Ok, there may be the odd idiot who does, or at least does it out of ignorance, but most people just do it because a list doesn't reflect anything political...doesn't reflect any lack of respect for another country's people or it's independance. It's fully understandable why the Irish would resent the politics and imperialistic attitude from the UK, but I would have thought that issue would better be raised at those who tick birds in Northern Ireland on their UK list. The inclusion of Northern Ireland in the UK was no small part of the Troubles

In the meanwhile, this is all about birds, and listing, which can be anything from your garden or patch, to a country or whatever scale you want it to be. The Western Palearctic is hardly political, and yet it's one of the most popular listing boundaries these days
 
Mayo Corncrake said:
The term "British Isles" is an archaic term though, since people/country of the Republic of Ireland are not British so the term doesn't make sense.
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I'm with Farnborough John here, tough beans.

And if the Irish Government has decided against its use in favour of 'Ireland in the Atlantic Archipelago', I reckon they've flipped ... sounds like 'island in Atlantic archipelago', isn't that Tenerife or summut?

PS. How come none of the British aren't up in arms over the term 'Irish Sea', surely an offensive term suggesting territorial intentions to steal our Skomer Island, etc
 
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tom mckinney said:
And finally, before this crops up somewhere (it probably has already), no it isn't cheaper to go to America and tick sh1t-loads of Kingbirds than it is to go to Galway and tick (or dip) one.

There you go. Now I'm off upstairs to tend to a screaming baby.

Tom
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It's a lot cheaper per tick though!
 
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