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Contents 1 County Abbreviations 2 The people in the Oireachtas 3 Nationality 4 A modest proposal 5 Poll on Ireland article names 6 Series of proposals as WP:IECOLL

[edit] County Abbreviations

Can I suggest another guideline. To not use Co. or Co in county names, but to spell them out as County Down, County Donegal etc. The reasoning behind this is that people from Ireland may be very familiar with this kind of abbreviation, but I don't believe it is used anywhere else in the world. Plus we really shouldn't be using abbreviations in proper nouns. Yes people from Ireland will know Co. means county, but I think that that's in the minority of readers. Canterbury Tail talk 03:12, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Agreed, it might be useful to state that explicitly. Though in my experience, I've seen "Co." being used very rarely anyway on Irish wiki articles. --Schcambo^{aon scéal?} 10:42, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

I see it being used quite a bit. It's very common usage in Ireland, and since most of the editors of Irish articles are usually from Ireland (like any other geographical articles to be fair) they use what they are used to. It's not a dig at anyone, it's quite understandable that it happens, but I don't feel that anyone from outside Ireland, even in England, really recognises Co or Co. Canterbury Tail talk 13:21, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Okay, if no one has any objections I'll add a line to the IMOS about this. Canterbury Tail talk 13:45, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Sounds good. --HighKing (talk) 14:47, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Seeme like a good thing for clarity. ww2censor (talk) 17:29, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] The people in the Oireachtas

After nearly three years of intermittently editing articles related to the Oireachtas, I have recently started working on these articles again and have finally noticed that we have a terminological problem in referring to those who sit in the Oireachtas.

In a nutshell, the issue is that:

• The official titles are in Irish, as the first official language
• Wikipedia prefers unabbreviated English-language terminology
• The common usage in Ireland of some terms is the Irish language term, and in others it is the English term, and in some cases it is an abbreviation

However, current usage on wikipedia seems to be inconsistent, confusing and in some cases simply wrong. As one example, we have a series of articles listing the composition of Dála, which are named Members of the xxth Dáil (e.g. Members of the 25th Dáil). However, Dáil Éireann does not have "members". "Members" is the term used in the British House of Commons, but Teachtaí Dála are not "members of" Dáil Éireann; they are "deputies to" the Dáil, and I think it is wrong to follow the British terminology here.

This probably reflects a different conception of the nature of the two national legislatures, with the Irish concept drawing more on the model of the French Revolution while the British parliament has its origins in a near-absolute monarchy. British Members of parliament being summoned by the monarchy, while Dáil deputies are sent by the electorate .... but whatever the underlying reasons, the problem is that it seems to me that terms such as "Members of the Dáil" are found only on wikipedia.

I tried drawing up a table of some of the terms:

	Irish language	English language	Usage in English in the Oireachtas	Common usage in Ireland	Current usage on wikipedia	Is is this OK per WP policies?
Seanad Éireann	Seanad	Senate	Seanad or Senate	Seanad	Seanad	Current usage is probably correct
Senator	seanadóir	senator	senator	senator	senator	Seems fine
Dáil Éireann	Dáil Éireann or An Dáil	Dáil Éireann or "The Dáil"	"The Dáil"	"The Dáil"	"The Dáil"	Current usage is probably correct
Teachta Dála	Teachta Dála	Deputy	Deputy	TD	TD or Teachta Dála	Wikipedia is using either an Irish language term or an abbreviation.
Teachtaí Dála	Teachtaí Dála	Deputies	Deputies	TDs	TDs or Teachtaí Dála	Wikipedia is using either an Irish language term or an abbreviation.

... and although it's a bit simplistic, I think it highlights that the only difficulty is around TDs. I think that in general usage, existing best practice is to follow the guidelines on abbreviations by expanding them on first usage in an article: Teachta Dála (TD) is certainly better than TD or a piped link like [[Teachta Dála|TD]], but even Teachta Dála (TD) is not very helpful to readers new to the subject unless they follow the link.

So I wanted to suggest that it would be better in many cases to introduce the word "deputy", as in this sentence which I edited into the lead section of the article on the Dún Laoghaire constituency: The constituency has an electorate of 91,522 and is served by 5 deputies (Teachtaí Dála, commonly referred to in English as TDs).

I don't want in any way to displace "TD" from wikipedia, because it is the most widely-used term in Ireland, and is therefore "common usage". However, more widespread usage of the word "deputy" would then allow us to avoid misusing the term "member", both later in constituency articles and in category and article names. As an example of this with an article, please compare two versions of the table of TDs for Dún Laoghaire: the current version, using the term "deputy" and an earlier version using "member".

So far, I think I have only changed that one article, because after reflecting on those edits it seemed to me that this needed wider discussion. I'm not feeling dogmatic about this change, and may well be dissuaded, but it does seem to me that there is a problem in the way we have done it so far. If there does turn out to be a consensus for this, I suggest that we should then look at a series of renaming of articles and categories, such as:

• Members of the 25th Dáil --> Deputies to the 25th Dáil
• Category:Members of the 17th Dáil --> Category:Deputies to the 17th Dáil

What do others think? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 03:30, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Well reasoned and presented, I would support this move. --Domer48_'fenian' 13:15, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree and support also. --HighKing (talk) 13:29, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I dont know but I have made this edit] on the grounds that you are correct - Is it correct? - (Actually rereading the above I think I picked up on a link transalating DE as The House of Representitives of Ireland) . Lucian Sunday (talk) 19:04, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I am confused -according to Teachta Dála should not the translation be member until 1922; deputy until 1937 and representive from then on? I agree Lucian Sunday (talk) 19:23, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Regarding TDs, the word Deputy is not widely used outside the Dail Chamber itself. It maybe a more accurate translation, but TD is the most widely used term in Ireland. Looking at the oireachtas website, see [1], where the term deputies is used interchangeably with members, e.g. Members of Dáil Éireann are elected by citizens aged 18 years and over. A Member's official Irish title is "Teachta Dála" which in English means "Deputy to the Dáil"; Members are generally called "TDs" or "Deputies". Looking at the Constitution (Articles 15 and 16) [2], the term deputy is not used at all, its members of. Maybe we shouldn't use Teachta Dála (TD) because the term Teachta Dála isn't used in public discourse, maybe it should be just a piped link to TD.

Regarding the proposed renaming of the articles and categories, I don't agree with it. At the moment we have Members of the 30th Dáil and Members of the 23rd Seanad, under the proposed move, we'd have Deputies to the 30th Dáil but the Seanad articles and categories remain unchanged because the Seanad doesn't have deputies but members. This would create a bit of a disconnect between the two sets of related articles. Well, that's my two cents. Snappy (talk) 09:17, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Snappy, thank you very much that for thoughtful and well-researched contribution. I'm glad I pointed you to this discussion!

I'm afraid it seems clear that I should have done more research before posting here. Your links to the Oireachtas website surprised me in their use of the term "members", so I followed your example and looked at the Constitituon, in particular articles 15-27 "headed "the National Parliament". It repeatedly uses the word "member" or "members", so often that I chucked the text into a counter and find that "member" or "members" or "membership" is used 57 times in those articles, and in a quick scan of the output of grep, every instance I examined was referring to "members of Seanad Éireann", "members of Dáil Éireann", "member of either House". I found no use of the word "deputy" in Articles 15-27, just as you reported from articles 15-16.

So I'm afraid that the evidence shows that my suggestion was mostly wrong, and I'm sorry for wasting people's time by not doing sufficient research before posting.

Given this, I'm wholly persuaded that it would be a bad idea to rename articles to "Deputies to x", etc ... but I think it is still worth looking at how best to handle the terms within articles.

However, since the Oireachtas website's information page about TDs is entitled "TEACHTA DÁLA - DEPUTY" and as you have quoted says that "Members are generally called 'TDs' or 'Deputies'", it seems to me that it would still be a good idea to introduce term "deputy" into articles, at least in the opening paragraph of constituenccy articles or lists of TDs, using some formulation like one I posted above (served by 5 deputies (Teachtaí Dála, commonly referred to in English as TDs). It seems to me that this helps the reader by drawing their attention to the range of terms which may be used in other contexts.

I'm less sure about further usage. I think that in general, it's best to continue existing practice of using "TD" ot "TDs", but what about the tables which refer to "1st member", "2nd member" etc? That's introducing yet another word into the mix, and I'm still inclined to think that it would be better there to use "1st deputy" or "1st TD". Any thoughts on that? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:20, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

BHG, I agree with your formulation; served by 5 deputies (Teachtaí Dála, etc. for articles on constituencies and lists of TDs. As for the use of the word member in the tables, I would prefer if TD were used instead but Deputy is fine with me too. Snappy (talk) 04:18, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Nationality

There often seems to be edit wars regarding people from Northern Ireland as to what nationality to put them down as. Some want Irish, as they may have called themselves Irish at some point, some want British as they would probably be British by birth. Obviously no matter which of the two you choose it raises issues in most cases (for instance Ian Paisley has described himself as Irish on many occasions, but this does not imply he has Irish citizenship.) However many people reading Wikipedia would probably assume a declaration of Irish to imply citizenship rather. It's quite legitimate to describe someone from NI as Irish, without it being citizenship, and for someone to describe themselves as thus.

In addition it raises the issue of them having Irish citizenship but them possibly also being British due to birth in NI and probably haven't gone through the formal legal process of denouncing it. Should they then be described as British until proven otherwise as well? Can, worms, open, all over the floor.

As a result I've be of the mind of putting them as coming from Northern Ireland rather than saying British, Irish, Northern Irish etc. References where people call themselves Irish can't always be taken as saying they have Irish citizenship, but merely are from the island of Ireland and consider themselves Irish. Any thoughts on the matter? Canterbury Tail talk 23:17, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

This has been discussed at least once here and perhaps elsewhere too. Archived discussion is here. ww2censor (talk) 23:35, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes I realise that, but it keeps coming up and we don't have a policy for it one way or another. Just seeing if we could start a discussion that can come to some consensus on this. Canterbury Tail talk 00:38, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

[edit] A modest proposal

I propose make the following amendment to the Use of 'Republic of Ireland' and 'Ireland' for the Irish state section.

To replace of the sentences:

"Please follow consensus in the article's talk page.

Note, discussion of the above is at the IMOS subpage, Irish disambiguation taskforce."

with:

While using either "Ireland" or "Republic of Ireland" to refer to the state is a matter of great controversy on Wikipedia. The has recently been the subject of a ruling by Arbitration Committee and currently under moderation at Wikipedia:WikiProject Ireland Collaboration. Without prejudice to the result of this resolution process:

1. In lists of the membership of international organisations, to which only sovereign states (and other international organisations) can be members, the state should be referred to as "Ireland" and pipe-linked to the "Republic of Ireland" article. (This does not apply to sporting organisation.)

2. For sporting organisation the form of words used by a given team should be used and linked to the appropriate article for that team. Standard naming conventions of team article apply.

3. In lists of economic data in which only sovereign states and territories are listed and the state should be referred to as "Ireland" and pipe-linked to the "Republic of Ireland" article.

4. Usage such as referring to: "the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland", is to be depreciated. The use of an appropriate disambiguator (ie one of those listed above) is to be preferred.

I feel this represents current practice. — Blue-Haired Lawyer 16:38, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

It sounds right but is a little too legalistic IMHO as you have written it above ("without prejudice" etc.). I think it can be written simpler, but in a nutshell it's common sense and common.

Here's my re-run:

In general the state should be referred to as Ireland. There are situations however when, for clarity and/or disambiguation, distinctions will need to be made a) between Ireland-the-state and Ireland-the-island and b) to avoid confusion with regard to Northern Ireland. In these situation the preferred means to do so is to call the island Ireland and the state the Republic of Ireland (this can be emphasised where necessary by use the phrase island of Ireland).

While the final decision to use one set of terms or the other should be determined by the unique contexts of each situation, the following rules of thumb will generally hold true:

• In lists of sovereign states, when discussing economies, governments or other qualities of states, the state should be referred to as Ireland e.g. Economy of Europe, NATO.
• When describing the area served by an organisation that is primarily all-island, use the phrase island of Ireland in the first instance and either Ireland or island of Ireland thereafter e.g. Supermacs
• Always use the official titles of state offices (e.g. the President of Ireland, never the President of the Republic of Ireland)
• When writing about the state and Northern Ireland in the same context, use the Republic of Ireland (or the Republic thereafter) e.g. the border should be described as being between "the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland" never as being between "Ireland and Northern Ireland".
• For articles where historical correctness is important (e.g. The Emergency (Ireland)) the state should be called the Irish Free State for the period between 6 December 1922 to 29 December 1937. In the same kind of articles, for the period thereafter until the coming into force of the Republic of Ireland Act (18 April 1949), the state not be referred to as the Republic of Ireland (another means to distinguish Ireland-the-state from Ireland-the-island should be used as necessary).

--rannṗáirtí anaiṫnid (coṁrá) 19:49, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

I support keeping:

"Please follow consensus in the article's talk page.

Note, discussion of the above is at the IMOS subpage, Irish disambiguation taskforce."

Although, mostly, I agree with User:Rannpháirtí anaithnid's analysis. In particular, I agree that "general the state should be referred to as Ireland" although I think referring to the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland is ok and Ireland and the UK is better. Regards. Redking7 (talk) 19:26, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

The European Union, note that the names of the Member States of the European Union must always be written and abbreviated according to the Interinstitutional Style Guide rules and that neither “Republic of Ireland” nor “Irish Republic” should be used when referring to the Irish State. This also includes Ireland's geographical name. --Domer48_'fenian' 20:39, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

This isn't the European Union. Mooretwin (talk) 23:04, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

We would not expect anything less from you when confronted with a clear statement of fact. --Domer48_'fenian' 23:08, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

The same could be said about you. Mooretwin (talk) 23:11, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

And again, you just can't help yourself can you? --Domer48_'fenian' 23:19, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

And again, you just can't help yourself can you? Mooretwin (talk) 23:25, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Cut that out you two, or they're be no ice cream for either of you! Domer48, the EU policy is a very pertinent and interesting datapoint for Names of the Irish state. But Wikipedia is not obliged to follow EU Interinstitutional style guide rules on this or any other matter. The criteria on which they base their decisions are not the same as those on which we base ours. jnestorius^(talk) 04:48, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Well verifiability is one thing we have in common. Based no doubt on reliable sources and not the original research of editors who wish to ignore our policies. What the EU link does illustrate is that Ireland is the name of the Country and State and is the same criteria which we base our decisions. You are right, I should stop feeding into that puerile nonsense. --Domer48_'fenian' 08:00, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

No-one's denying that the official name is "Ireland". Mooretwin (talk) 08:45, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

This discussion is now split between here and the Collaboration project (my bad). Redking7, the point about the border was made on that page. In hindsight using the border was poor choice of example. (A better one might be to describe a recent increase in shoppers in Newry as coming from the Republic of Ireland). --rannṗáirtí anaiṫnid (coṁrá) 08:49, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

I'd be opposed to the proposal (reasonable as it is); we should stick with the current guidelines until the name of the Ireland articles is sorted out. I'm especially dubious about the "ban" on "the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland"; that usage is not only legally correct and EU correct but is also common usage. You'd need to have the intelligence of a newt not to know what it refers to. Sarah777 (talk) 10:15, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

"Common usage"? I have to say, I've never heard anyone refer to "the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland". Mooretwin (talk) 09:31, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

The border was a bad example. --rannṗáirtí anaiṫnid (coṁrá) 09:17, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Poll on Ireland article names

A poll has been set up at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Ireland_Collaboration/Poll on Ireland article names. This is a formal vote regarding the naming of the Ireland and Republic of Ireland and possibly the Ireland (disambiguation) pages. The result of this poll will be binding on the affected article names for a period of two years. This poll arose from the Ireland article names case at the Arbitration Committee and the Ireland Collaboration Project. The order that the choices appear in the list has been generated randomly. Voting will end at 21:00 (UTC) of the evening of 13 September 2009 (that is 22:00 IST and BST).

[edit] Series of proposals as WP:IECOLL

I've opened a series of proposals on the user of "Ireland" to identify the state and the island in articles, titles and lists at the IECOLL page. --rannṗáirtí anaiṫnid (coṁrá) 20:33, 21 September 2009 (UTC)