The british isles and Ireland.

Although Northern Ireland is regarded cartographically as 6 counties and smaller than the larger province of Ulster including Donegal etc, and like Scotland and Wales, it is separate from England, but is it both a state and a country or just a state. George Best played for Northern Ireland and not Ireland or England, so are the people from Northern Ireland, Northern Irish or are they more Irish or more British?

Also is using "the UK" as opposed to just "Britain" a bit annoying? If the UK is short for the United Kingdom of Britain and Northern Ireland, and if just the UK is just used, is that sort of roughly describing England, Scotland and Wales, without NI?

To illustrate the confusion / fear of the issue, it is interesting that there are nearly twice as many in the poll that recognise the british isles than pollers that don't care, but there were about 20 posters who indicated they didn't care or regarded it as a geographical term to about zero posters who recognised the british isles with regard to ireland, indicating anonymous opinions are in fear somehow of the openly discussed opinions. Is this a fair enough synopsis, looking at the poll figures?

The british isles as a term usually seems to be just sat in the background minding its own business to some extent, but I think there is more of any every day juxtaposition of using the english language as the main language in ireland but to some degree regretting the historical anglicising of place names, with a push for the return of previous gaelic names (An Dangan) and common terms (Bruscar) and a shared use of gaelic in official and government matters, affecting both the geographical and political language use.

Previous quote = Great Britain may well be a translation of the French term Grande Bretagne, which is used in France to distinguish Britain from Brittany (in French: Bretagne) ... Since the English court and aristocracy was largely French-speaking for about two centuries after the Norman Conquest of 1066, the French term naturally passed into English usage ... Could be its the French's fault.

Julep = "well i would think someone as well travelled as palin would know that Irish people are not british and i think any british person with an ounce of common sense would know that deliberately calling an Irish person "british" is fairly insulting considering our history. like i said, he came across as quite condescending and seems to be stuck in the past regarding Irish independence and citizenship."

Several posts discussed Michael Palin - but all forgetting he is after all Michael Palin ie; he is well travelled, from a top university etc, but he was an anchor man of the Monty Python crew and very tongue in cheek and very humorous, he was obviously being cheeky, don't think for one minute this fine chap was being serious, for god sakes. The Irish are meant to have a sense of humour, not a chip on their shoulder.

Monty Python had a cracker of a scene in The Life of Brian, - "What did the Romans do for us?". Is it a bit like that with the British being the unwelcome guests of the Irish? What did the British do for us? - Well ... err ... they built bridges and aqueducts, roads and railways and developed a bit of the architectural infrastructure of the country. But apart from building bridges and aqueducts, roads and railways and developing a bit of the architectural infrastructure of the country ... what did the facking British do for us? Well ... they gave us the language we speak helping with the development of business and commerce in doing trade with the largest world economy America and with English being the international language of computers, commerce and the internet, it put us in a good position as a world leading exporter in computer software and helped with the IT boom and the setting up of large American corporate medical manufacturing facilities and various things that helped push along the Celtic Tiger.

But apart from building bridges and aqueducts, roads and railways and developing a bit of the architectural infrastructure of the country, and giving us the language we speak helping with the development of business and commerce in doing trade with the largest world economy America and with English being the international language of computers, commerce and the internet, putting us in a good position as a world leading exporter in computer software, helping with the IT boom and the setting up of large American corporate medical manufacturing facilities and various things that helped push along the Celtic Tiger ... what did the facking British do for us?

Well ... err ... they gave us all them classic television comedies from the 70's, 80's, 90's and a lot of other telly stuff, plus most of the newspapers and magazines and other media, making up a lot of what we read, also exporting a wide range in the brands of food and products and services that we use every day, big supermarkets and national chains of various superstores etc etc. But apart from all that crap ... what did the facking British do for us?