   #copyright

British Isles

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Geography of Great
Britain

   Location of the British Isles
   Enlarge
   Location of the British Isles

   The British Isles are a group of islands off the northwest coast of
   continental Europe consisting of Great Britain, Ireland, and a number
   of smaller surrounding islands and islets. The term "British Isles" can
   be confusing (see British Isles (terminology)) and is objectionable to
   some people in Ireland. See the Terminology section below for details
   of the controversy.

   There are two sovereign states located on the islands: the United
   Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the Republic of
   Ireland. The group also includes the Isle of Man, a United Kingdom
   crown dependency. Both states, but not the Isle of Man, are members of
   the European Union. Between 1801 and 1922, Great Britain and Ireland
   together formed the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In
   1922, Ireland left the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom, except for
   six counties in the north east of the island, which became known as
   Northern Ireland.

   The islands encompass an area south to north from Pednathise Head to
   Out Stack, Shetland in the United Kingdom, and west to east from
   Tearaght Island in the Republic of Ireland to Lowestoft Ness in the
   United Kingdom, containing more than 6,000 islands, amounting to a
   total land area of 121,674  square miles (315,134 km²). The British
   Isles are largely low lying and fertile, though with significant
   mountainous areas in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and the north of
   England. The regional geology is complex, formed by the drifting
   together of separate regions and shaped by glaciation.

   The islands were named after the Priteni, an ancient name for the Irish
   and British pre-Roman inhabitants; however, on its own, the dominant
   modern meaning of the adjective " British" is "of Great Britain or of
   the United Kingdom or its people", so the term "British Isles" can be
   mistakenly interpreted to imply that the Republic of Ireland is part of
   the United Kingdom. The Irish government's policy is that the term is
   not used by the government and is without any official status, as
   stated by Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern in 2005; the media
   in the Republic of Ireland also rarely use it. Irish people taking this
   view object to any use of the term, and avoid referring to the group of
   islands as a whole.

Geography

   A map of the British Isles
   Enlarge
   A map of the British Isles
   Satellite Image of the British Isles (excluding the Shetland Islands)
   and part of northern Continental Europe.
   Enlarge
   Satellite Image of the British Isles (excluding the Shetland Islands)
   and part of northern Continental Europe.

   The island-group is made up of more than 6,000 islands, the two biggest
   being Great Britain and Ireland. Great Britain, to the east, covers
   83,698 square miles (216,777 km²), over half of the total landmass of
   the group; Ireland, to the west, covers 32,589 square miles
   (84,406 km²). The other larger islands are situated to the north and
   west of the group, in the Hebrides and Shetland Islands.

   The islands that constitute the British Isles include:
     * Great Britain
          + Northern Isles (including Orkney, Shetland and Fair Isle)
          + Hebrides (including the Inner Hebrides, Outer Hebrides and
            Small Isles)
          + Islands of the lower Firth of Clyde (including the Isle of
            Arran and Bute)
          + Anglesey (in Welsh Ynys Môn)
          + Farne Islands
          + Isles of Scilly
          + Isle of Wight
          + Portsmouth Islands (including Portsea Island and Hayling
            Island)
          + Islands of Furness
          + Isle of Portland
          + See also:
               o List of islands of England
               o List of islands of Scotland
               o List of islands of Wales
     * Ireland
          + Ulster: Arranmore, Tory Island
               o Northern Ireland: Rathlin Island
          + Connacht: Achill Island, Clew Bay islands, Inishturk,
            Inishbofin, Inishark, Aran Islands
          + Munster: Blasket Islands, Valentia Island, Cape Clear, Sherkin
            Island, Great Island
          + Leinster: Lambay Island, Ireland's Eye
          + See also: List of islands of Ireland
     * Isle of Man
          + See also: List of islands of Isle of Man

   The Channel Islands are sometimes stated as being in the British Isles
   , though geographically they are not part of the island group, being
   close to the coast of France.

   The islands are at relatively low altitudes, with central Ireland and
   southern Great Britain particularly low lying. The Scottish Highlands
   in the northern part of Great Britain are mountainous, with Ben Nevis
   being the highest point in the British Isles at 1,344  metres (4,409
   ft). Other mountainous areas include Wales and parts of the island of
   Ireland, but only seven peaks in these areas reach above 1,000 metres
   (3,281 ft). Lakes on the islands are generally not large, although
   Lough Neagh in Northern Ireland is an exception, covering
   147 square miles (381 km²); the largest freshwater body in Great
   Britain is Loch Lomond at 27.5 square miles (71.1 km²). Neither are
   rivers particularly long, the rivers Severn at 219 miles (354 km) and
   Shannon at 240 miles (386 km) being the longest.

   The British Isles have a temperate marine climate, the North Atlantic
   Drift ("Gulf Stream") which flows from the Gulf of Mexico brings with
   it significant moisture and raises temperatures 11 degrees Celsius (20°
   F) above the global average for the islands' latitudes. Winters are
   thus warm and wet, with summers mild and also wet. Most Atlantic
   depressions pass to the north of the islands, combined with the general
   westerly circulation and interactions with the landmass, this imposes
   an east-west variation in climate.

Geology

   An interactive geological map is available.

   The British Isles lie at the juncture of several regions with past
   episodes of tectonic mountain building. These orogenic belts form a
   complex geology which records a huge and varied span of earth history.
   Of particular note was the Caledonian Orogeny during the Ordovician
   Period, ca. 488-444 Ma and early Silurian period, when the craton
   Baltica collided with the terrane Avalonia to form the mountains and
   hills in northern Britain and Ireland. Baltica formed roughly the north
   western half of Ireland and Scotland. Further collisions caused the
   Variscan orogeny in the Devonian and Carboniferous periods, forming the
   hills of Munster, south-west England, and south Wales. Over the last
   500 million years the land which forms the islands has drifted
   northwest from around 30°S, crossing the equator around 370 million
   years ago to reach its present northern latitude.

   The islands have been shaped by numerous glaciations during the
   Quaternary Period, the most recent being the Devensian. As this ended,
   the central Irish Sea was de-glaciated (whether or not there was a land
   bridge between Great Britain and Ireland at this time is somewhat
   disputed, though there was certainly a single ice sheet covering the
   entire sea) and the English Channel flooded, with sea levels rising to
   current levels some 4,000 to 5,000 years ago, leaving the British Isles
   in their current form.

   The islands' geology is highly complex, though there are large amounts
   of limestone and chalk rocks which formed in the Permian and Triassic
   periods. The west coasts of Ireland and northern Great Britain that
   directly face the Atlantic Ocean are generally characterized by long
   peninsulas, and headlands and bays; the internal and eastern coasts are
   "smoother".

History

   History of the British Isles

   By chronology
     * Prehistoric Britain
     * Iron Age Britain
     * Roman Britain
     * Sub-Roman Britain
     * Medieval Britain
     * Early Modern Britain
     * Modern Britain

   By nation
     * History of England
     * History of Northern Ireland
     * History of Ireland
     * History of Scotland
     * History of Wales

   By topic
     * Constitutional history
     * Economic history
     * Military history
     * Social history

         History of Ireland
   series
   Early history
   Early Christian Ireland
   Early medieval and Viking era
   Norman Ireland
   Early Modern Ireland 1536–1691
   Ireland 1691–1801
   Union with Great Britain
   History of the Republic
   History of Northern Ireland
   Economic history

   The British Isles has a long and complex shared history. While this
   tends to be presented in terms of national narratives, many events
   transcended modern political boundaries. In particular these borders
   have little relevance to early times and in that context can be
   misleading, though useful as an indication of location to the modern
   reader. Also, cultural shifts which historians have previously
   interpreted as evidence of invaders eliminating or displacing the
   previous populations are now, in the light of genetic evidence,
   perceived by a number of archaeologists and historians as being to a
   considerable extent changes in the culture of the existing population
   brought by groups of immigrants or invaders who at times became a new
   ruling élite.

Prehistory

   At a time when the islands were still joined to continental Europe,
   Homo erectus brought Palaeolithic tool use to the south east of the
   modern British Isles some 750,000 years ago followed (about 500,000
   years ago) by the more advanced tool use of Homo heidelbergensis found
   at Boxgrove. It appears that the glaciation of ice ages successively
   cleared all human life from the area, though human occupation occurred
   during warmer interglacial periods. Modern humans appear with the
   Aurignacian culture about 30,000 years ago, famously with the " Red
   Lady of Paviland" in modern Wales. The last ice age ended around 10,000
   years ago, and Mesolithic hunter-gatherers spread to all parts of the
   islands by around 8,000 years ago, at a time when rising sea levels now
   cut off the islands from the continent. The immigrants came principally
   from the ice age refuge in what is now the Basque Country, with a
   smaller immigration from refuges in the modern Ukraine and Moldavia.
   Three quarters of the ancestors of people of the British Isles may have
   arrived in this wave of immigration.

   Around 6,500 years ago farming practices spread to the area with the
   Neolithic Revolution and the western seaways quickly brought megalithic
   culture throughout the islands. The earliest stone house still standing
   in northern Europe is at Knap of Howar, in Orkney which also features
   such monuments as Maes Howe ranking alongside the Callanish stone
   circle on the Isle of Lewis, Newgrange in Ireland, and Stonehenge in
   southern England along with thousands of lesser monuments across the
   isles, often showing affinities with megalithic monuments in France and
   Spain. Further cultural shifts in the bronze age were followed with the
   building of numerous hill forts in the iron age, and increased trade
   with continental Europe.

Pretani, Romans and Anglo-Saxons

   The oldest surviving historical records of the islands preserve
   fragments of the travels of the ancient Greek Pytheas around 320 BC and
   describe Great Britain and Ireland as the islands of Prettanike with
   their peoples the Priteni or Pretani, a name which may have been used
   in Gaul. A later variation on this term as the Cruithne would come to
   refer to certain groups. Ireland was referred to as Ierne (the sacred
   island as the Greeks interpreted it) "inhabited by the race of
   Hiberni", and Great Britain as insula Albionum, "island of the
   Albions". These terms without the collective name appear in the 4th
   century writings of Avienus which preserve fragments of the Massaliote
   Periplus of the 6th century BC. Later scholars associated these tribal
   societies with the Celts the Ancient Greeks reported in what is now
   south-west Germany, and subgrouped their Celtic languages in the
   British Isles into the Brythonic languages spoken in most of Great
   Britain, and Goidelic in Ireland and the west of modern Scotland. They
   perceived these languages as arriving in a series of invasions, but
   modern evidence suggests that these peoples may have migrated from
   Anatolia around 7000 B.C. through southern and then western Europe.
   Genetic evidence indicates that there was not a later large-scale
   replacement of these early inhabitants and that the Celtic influence
   was largely cultural. In the Scottish highlands northwards the people
   the Romans called Caledonians or Picts spoke a language which is now
   unknown. It is also possible that southern England was settled by
   Belgic tribes.

   During the first century the Roman conquest of Britain established
   Roman Britain which became a province of the Roman Empire named
   Britannia, eventually extending on the island of Great Britain to
   Hadrian's Wall with tribes forming friendly buffer states further north
   to around the Firth of Clyde and the Firth of Forth, and military
   expeditions beyond that into Caledonia. The interaction of the Romans
   with Ireland appears to have largely been limited to some trade. From
   the 4th century raids on Roman Britain increased and language links
   have led to speculation that many Britons migrated across the English
   Channel at this time to found Brittany, but it has been contended that
   Armorica was already Brittonic speaking due to trade and religious
   links, and the Romans subsequently called it Brittania.

   The departure of the Romans around 410 left numerous kingdoms across
   the British Isles. Settlement in Sub-Roman Britain by peoples
   traditionally called the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes created Anglo-Saxon
   kingdoms ("the Heptarchy") over much of what is now England and
   south-east Scotland. To the north, the Irish Dál Riatans, also known by
   the name Scotti expanded their influence to western Scotland.

National formation

   The Vikings arrived in Britain and Ireland in the 790's with raids on
   Lindisfarne, Iona, and the west of Ireland. They provided another wave
   of immigration, settling in Orkney and Shetland and then Western Isles,
   Caithness, Sutherland, Isle of Man, Galloway, in various places around
   Ireland, Northumbria, East Anglia and Mercia. Wessex prevented the
   further expansion of the Vikings, and achieved a united kingdom of
   England in 927, which was then ruled by both English and Viking kings
   until 1066. Further north, in 900 A.D. Donald II was the first king of
   Alba rather than king of the Picts. His successors amalgamated all the
   kingdoms north of England into the kingdom of Alba and fixed its
   southern border on the Tweed in 1018. Wales was divided into a number
   of British kingdoms, apart from one short period of unification, and
   also suffered from viking raids in the tenth century. Ireland was
   divided among around eighty to a hundred petty kingdoms grouped under
   larger regional kingdoms and then a weak High King. The Vikings founded
   Dublin in 852 and established several other coastal strongholds around
   Ireland. The Viking kingdom of Dublin went on to dominate much of
   Ireland, but their power was broken by Brian Boru in 1014 who
   effectively united Ireland, but only until his death.

Norman immigration

   The next wave of immigration were Viking descendants, the Normans. The
   Norman Conquest of 1066 brought England under their rule and then
   extended their influence and power to the rest of the British Isles.
   The Normans were centralisers and expansionists. Their lands (and those
   of their successors, the Plantagenets) within the British Isles were
   part of more extensive land holdings in France and elsewhere, and held
   within a feudal framework. They controlled Wales by the end of the 11th
   century, only to partially lose it again several times owing to revolts
   until 1283 when Edward I successfully enforced Plantagenet supremacy.
   In 1072 the Normans forced the Scottish king Malcolm III to submit to
   their feudal overlordship, something they would regularly assert during
   the mediaeval period. The Normans did not supplant the Scottish
   political structure, but had great influence over it, eventually
   supplying the kings of the Scots from 1150, and then asserting
   independence of the Scottish Crown from that of England. The Scottish
   Crown gradually gained control of Norse areas, annexing the kingdoms of
   Mann and of the Isles in 1266, and Orkney and Shetland from Norway in
   1472. The Normans were initially invited to Ireland, here they asserted
   overlordship, resulting in 1184 with the Pope authorising the feudal
   Lordship of Ireland. This fell under the English crown with the
   accession of John. Formal taxation and government during the middle
   ages was generally restricted to an arc around Dublin called the Pale.

   During the Middle Ages, the Normans slowly intermarried with the
   previous populations and adopted their language and customs. In
   England, the anglicisation of the Norman and Plantagenet elite was
   driven by the slow erosion of their lands elsewhere, but it was 1362
   before the Langue d'oïl, Anglo-Norman gave way to Middle English to
   become the language of the law courts.

Protestant reformation and civil wars

   The feudal system decayed and by the end of the sixteenth century was
   replaced by a system of centralised states. The English throne had come
   under the Welsh Tudors, who centralised government in England, Ireland,
   and Wales. In 1603 James VI of Scotland brought England and Scotland
   into personal union and promoted the existence of a modern British
   identity.

   These changes happened at the same time as the Protestant reformation
   where the Roman Catholic church had been replaced by national churches
   to which all people were expected to adhere to. Failure to do so
   resulted in prosecution for recusancy and heavy fines, and recusants
   laid themselves open to accusations of treason and loss of land. By
   1600 there was a wide range of religious belief within the islands from
   Presbyterian Calvinists (who were the majority in much of Scotland) and
   Independents to episcopal Calvinists (in the Church of Ireland and
   parts of Scotland) to Protestant Episcopalians that retained formal
   liturgy (especially the Church of England) to Roman Catholicism (which
   retained a large majority in Ireland).

   James, and his son, Charles I, favoured political and religious
   centralisation and uniformity throughout the British Isles. They
   favoured episcopal, Armininian churches with a formal liturgy, which
   antagonised many Protestants. In addition, James, although he followed
   a policy of relative religious toleration, worsened the position of
   Irish Catholics by expanding the policy of plantation in Ireland, most
   notably in the Plantation of Ulster where forfeited lands from
   Catholics were settled by Scottish and English Protestants and by
   barring Catholics from serving in pubic office. Charles tried to force
   central, personal government. He attempted to bypass institutions he
   could not control and impose a uniform non-Calivinistic settlement
   throughout the islands.

   The result was the Bishops Wars#First Bishops War in Scotland in 1639,
   when the Scottish Presbyterians rebelled against Charles' religious
   policies. The crisis rapidly spread to Ireland, in the form of the
   Irish Rebellion of 1641 and then to England, where Parliament refused
   to raise an army for Charles to fight in Scotland or Ireland, fearing
   that it would next be used against them. the English Civil War broke
   out in 1642. Collectively, these conflicts are known as the Wars of the
   Three Kingdoms, a shifting series of conflicts and alliances within
   Britain and Ireland. The King's supporters were known as the Royalists
   and had forces in England, Scotland (mostly episcopalian and Catholic
   highlanders), and Ireland. The English Parliamentary forces (mostly
   presbyterian and independents) fought against them, but were defeated
   in England by 1645. The Scottish presbyterians (the Covenanters) were
   allied to the English Paliament, while the Irish Catholic Confederates
   were loosely allied with the Royalists.

   By 1649 Parliamentary forces ruled England and executed Charles and the
   Covenanters had secured Scotland. An alliance between the Catholic
   Confederates and the Royalists in Ireland resulted in the parliamentary
   conquest of Ireland, followed by a brutal guerrilla campaign which
   officially ended in 1653. Charles II repudiated the Irish alliance in
   1650 in order to enter one with the Covenanters instead and invaded
   England. He was defeated in 1651 and the result was that the entire
   British Isles were brought under the English parliamentary army. There
   was religious toleration of Protestant denominations (though no
   episcopalian church), but Catholics were strongly repressed. In Ireland
   they were disenfranchised and dispossessed with Catholic land ownership
   dropping from 60% to 8% and their land was confiscated to pay off the
   Parliament's debts. Some of the land was given to another wave of
   Protestant immigrants, especially former soldiers, but these were not
   sufficient to replace the existing Irish, so Ireland became a land
   largely owned by Protestant landlords with Catholic tenants.

The return of the Stuarts

   The restoration of Charles II in 1660 reversed many of the Commonwealth
   measures: the three kingdoms were separated again, the episcopalian
   Churches of England and Ireland re-established, a Presbyterian Church
   of Scotland established, and Protestant nonconformism repressed. A
   small proportion of the confiscated lands in Ireland were restored,
   bringing Catholic ownership up to 20%. In1685 brought Charles' brother,
   James II, a Catholic, to the thrones. James suspended the laws
   discriminating against those not adhering to the national churches;
   but, he attempted personal rule with a large standing army and
   heavy-handedly attempted to replace Anglicans with Catholics. This
   alienated the English establishment who invited the Dutch William,
   Prince of Orange to depose James in favour of his daughter, Mary. On
   William's landing, James fled first to France and then to Ireland where
   the government remained loyal to him. Here he was defeated, and the
   position of the Protestant Ascendancy cemented with the imposition of
   Penal Laws there that effectively denied nearly all Catholics (75% of
   the population) any sort of power or substantial property.

   James and his descendants attempted to recover the throne several times
   over the next sixty years, but failed to gain sufficient active support
   and were consistently defeated.

Kingdom of Great Britain and social revolutions

   The 1707 Act of Union united England and Scotland in the Kingdom of
   Great Britain. The next century saw the start of great social changes.
   Enclosure had been taking place over a long period in England, but the
   agricultural revolution accelerated the process by which land was
   privatised, commercialised, and intensively exploited, and caused it to
   spread throughout the British Isles. This resulted in the displacement
   of large numbers of people from the land and widespread hardship. In
   addition, the industrial revolution saw the displacement of cottage
   industries by large-scale factories and the rapid growth of industrial
   towns and cities. The British Empire grew substantially, stoking the
   growth in industrial production, bringing in wealth, giving rise to
   large-scale emigration, and making London the largest city in Europe.

   Social unrest and repressive government accompanied these upheavals.
   The ideals of the French Revolution were widely supported and led to a
   full-scale rebellion in Ireland. A result of the rebellion was the
   start of the end of Ascendancy hegemony in Ireland and its political
   unification with Great Britain in 1801. Unrest throughout the United
   Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland continued well into the 19th
   century, but was increasingly legitimised and able to find an outlet in
   Parliament from the Great Reform Act of 1832 onwards. The role of
   religion in determining political markedly decreased from the Catholic
   Relief Act in 1829 onwards. The social upheavals continued with
   widespread migration from the countryside to towns and cities and
   abroad. Ireland suffered a great famine from 1845 until 1849 which
   resulted in its population dropping by a third through death and
   migration. This included large-scale movements to Great Britain,
   especially to the north west of England and western Scotland.
   Emigration from the whole of the British Isles overseas continued,
   especially to the English-speaking parts of the British Empire, the
   United States, and other countries such as Argentina.

The 20th century

   Prosperity increased through the 19th and into the 20th century, and
   politics became increasingly popular and democratic. The Irish War of
   Independence and subsequent Irish Civil War led to the 1922 formation
   of the Irish Free State, which was a dominion until becoming a republic
   in 1949. Six Irish counties remained part of the United Kingdom as
   Northern Ireland, initially with devolved government. Since then there
   have been extensive periods of unrest. Both the United Kingdom and the
   Republic of Ireland joined the European Economic Community (now the
   European Union) in 1973. Currently there are devolved governments in
   Wales and Scotland, though in Northern Ireland the devolved assembly is
   currently suspended.

   Further waves of migration from Ireland to Great Britain took place
   during times of economic difficulty in the thirties, forties, and
   fifties, though since then it has grown more prosperous and its Gross
   Domestic Product per capita now exceeds that of the United Kingdom. The
   end of the British Empire in the latter half of the 20th century saw
   the end of large-scale emigration; instead, there was immigration to
   Britain, especially from the West Indies and the Indian sub-continent,
   and recently to both Britain and Ireland from eastern Europe.

Sport and Culture

   Despite the split between the Republic of Ireland and the United
   Kingdom, a limited number of sport or cultural events operate across
   the isles as a whole, especially where an all-Ireland team competes
   internationally. The British and Irish Lions is a rugby union team made
   up of players from the entire archipalego; they compete in tours of
   Southern Hemisphere rugby playing nations. Prior to 1979, the Ryder Cup
   was played between the United States and the British Isles, before it
   was expanded to include the whole of Europe. Bowls continues to have a
   British Isles championship.

   There can also be strong links in cultural activities. For example, the
   Mercury Music Prize is handed out every year to the best album from a
   British or Irish musician or group, though other musical awards are
   considered on a national basis; for example, U2 won the best
   international group award at the 2001 Brit awards.

   Other organisations are sometimes organised across the islands; for
   example the Samartitans.

Terminology

   The term British Isles is in widespread use, and is defined as "Great
   Britain and Ireland and adjacent islands". However the term carries
   additional meanings; political, economic, cultural and geopolitical,
   reflecting historical divisions and the fact that the British Isles in
   general coincided with the geographic area of the former United Kingdom
   of Great Britain and Ireland (1801—1922). The use of the term British
   Isles has on occasion been interpreted as implying a continued
   political association with Britain, an implication which causes the
   term to be both unacceptable and controversial to many people in
   Ireland, a sovereign state that became independent from the United
   Kingdom some eighty years ago.

   Problems over terminology are summed up by the columnist Marcel
   Berlins, writing in The Guardian in 2006. He gives his opinion that
   "although purely a geographical definition, it is frequently mixed up
   with the political entities Great Britain, or the United Kingdom. Even
   when used geographically, its exact scope is widely misunderstood". He
   also acknowledges that some people view the term as representing
   Britain's colonial past, when it ruled the whole of Ireland.

Origins of the term

   The prefix "Brit-" is derived from the Latin Britto of classical times.
   This was itself one of several variations on the αι Βρεττανιαι, the
   Brittanic Isles, peopled by the Ρρεττανοι, Priteni or Pretani. These
   names were used by Greek and Roman geographers and were derived from a
   Celtic language term which is likely to have reached them from the
   Gauls.

   Throughout Book 4 of his Geography, Strabo is consistent in spelling
   the island Britain (transliterated) as Prettanikee; he uses the terms
   Prettans or Brettans loosely to refer to the islands as a group. On
   some interpretations he also included Iceland (called Thule) in the
   group.

   Pliny the Elder writing around AD 70 uses a Latin version of the same
   terminology in section 4.102 of his Naturalis Historia. He writes of
   Great Britain: Albion ipsi nomen fuit, cum Britanniae vocarentur omnes
   de quibus mox paulo dicemus. ("Albion was its own name, when all [the
   islands] were called the Britannias; we will speak of them in a
   moment."). In the following section, 4.103, Pliny describes the places
   he considers to make up the Britannias, including Great Britain,
   Ireland, Iceland, some of the Friesan Islands, possibly Cornwall, which
   was sometimes mistakenly supposed to be a separate island, and other
   places which are uncertain but may include the mainland of Denmark, the
   Faroes, and parts of the coast of Norway.

   Ptolemy includes Ireland, which he calls Hibernia, as being part of the
   island group he calls Britannia. He titles Book II, Chapter 1 of his
   Geography as Hibernia, Island of Britannia. Since classical times, a
   meaning of "British" is to refer to the ancient Britons, and was used
   in this way by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (specifically excluding the
   English, Scots, Picts and Latin readers), through Early Modern times to
   the present day Peter Heylyn, who was to coin the term British Isles in
   English, used British in this way to refer to the ancient Britons,
   stating that Britt meant paint.

   The classical name for all the islands associated with Great Britain
   and Ireland was used by continental mapmakers in Latin or French from
   the 16th century onwards, such as Gerardus Mercator ( 1512. Ortelius
   makes clear his understanding that England, Scotland and Ireland were
   politically separate in 1570 by the full title of his map: "Angliae,
   Scotiae et Hiberniae, sive Britannicar. insularum descriptio" which
   translates as "England, Scotland and Ireland, that I describe [to be]
   the British islands".

   The first use in English of "British Isles" was by Peter Heylin (or
   Heylyn) in his Microcosmus: a little description of the great world in
   1621, a collection of his lectures on historical geography. He used
   this term for both Great Britain and Ireland (as well as the other
   islands) by reasoning that all the pre-Roman inhabitants of the islands
   would have been ancient Britons owing to the close proximity of the
   islands to each other, that "ancient writers call this Iland a Brttiʃh
   Iland", and a quote from Tacitus that the habits and disposition of the
   people in Ireland were not much unlike the "Brittaines". The use of the
   term as a historical term (along with others) continues to have a wide
   use within the United Kingdom to describe the whole of the British
   Isles in a geographical sense.

Perspectives in Britain

   As a general rule, the use of the term British Isles to refer to the
   archipalego is common and uncontroversial within Great Britain. It is
   commonly understood as being a politically neutral geographical term.
   Despite this, many within the UK still misuse the term. This can be
   explained by confusion between the many similar terms in use within the
   islands

Perspectives in Ireland

   At the end of the 16th century British also came to mean as pertaining
   to the island of Great Britain, and this use grew very quickly with the
   accession of James VI of Scots to the English throne. It was used in an
   Irish context to differentiate those from Great Britain from native
   Irish in 1641. As a result of Irish nationalism and eventual secession,
   the use of the name "British Isles" is highly controversial in Ireland
   because of the perception that its use implies a continued
   constitutional relationship between the sovereign states of the
   Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom. This perception can lead to
   the incorrect belief that the United Kingdom retains sovereignty over
   the Republic. Due to these geopolitical connotations, the use of the
   term in the Republic of Ireland can be controversial. However such
   concerns rarely surface in Britain.

   According a written answer given by the Irish Minister for Foreign
   Affairs Dermot Ahern, British Isles is not an officially recognised or
   used term, and no branch of the Irish government, including the
   Department of Foreign Affairs and the Irish Embassy in London,
   officially uses the term. He added that officials in the Embassy of
   Ireland, London, continued to monitor the media in Britain for any
   abuse of the official terms as set out in the Constitution of Ireland
   and in legislation, including the name of the State, the President,
   Taoiseach and others.

   Many bodies avoid describing the Republic of Ireland as being part of
   the British Isles. Some believe that Ireland left the British Isles
   when it left the United Kingdom in 1922. The term "British Isles" is
   occasionally used at governmental level in Ireland, as when a cabinet
   minister, Síle de Valera, delivered a speech containing the term,
   contrary to stated government policy, in 2002. British Isles has been
   used in a geographical sense in Irish parliamentary debates, though not
   by government ministers.

   A survey in Northern Ireland found unionists who considered the British
   Isles to be a natural geographical entity, considering themselves
   primarily British with a supplementary Irish identity. In contrast,
   nationalists considered their community to be that of the Irish nation
   as a distinct political community extending across the whole of
   Ireland. Identities were diverse and multi-layered and Irishness was a
   highly contested identity, and nationalists expressed difficulty in
   understanding unionist descriptions of Britishness.

   The overall opinions of Irish people about the term have never been
   formally gauged. Politicians from the Irish Unionist and Northern
   Ireland Unionist traditions do readily use the term "British Isles" The
   contrast between Unionist and Nationalist approaches to the term was
   shown in December 1999 at a meeting of the Irish cabinet and Northern
   Ireland executive in Armagh. The First Minister of Northern Ireland,
   David Trimble, told the meeting


   British Isles

    This represents the Irish government coming back into a relationship
   with the rest of the British Isles. We are ending the cold war that has
    divided not just Ireland but the British Isles. That division is now
   going to be transformed into a situation where all parts work together
                  again in a way that respects each other.


   British Isles

   In contrast, the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, avoided any use of the term
   in his address to the meeting.

   At a gathering of the British-Irish Inter-Parliamentary Body (15th
   plenary session, in 1998), the sensitivity about the term became an
   issue. Referring to a plan for a "Council of the Isles" which was being
   supported by both Nationalists and Unionists, British MP for Falkirk
   West Dennis Canavan was paraphrased by official notetakers as having
   said in a caveat:


   British Isles

    He understood that the concept of a Council of the Isles had been put
    forward by the Ulster Unionists and was referred to as a "Council for
   the British Isles" by David Trimble. This would cause offence to Irish
      colleagues; he suggested as an acronym IONA-Islands of the North
                                  Atlantic.


   British Isles

   In a series of documents issued by the United Kingdom and Ireland, from
   the Downing Street Declaration to the Belfast Agreement, relations in
   the British Isles were referred to as the East-West strand of the
   tripartite relationships defined.

   In October 2006, Irish educational publisher Folens announced that it
   was removing the term British Isles from its popular school atlas from
   January 2007. This atlas is the Irish edition of one published in the
   United Kingdom by Philip's.

Alternative terms

   There have been several suggestions for replacements for the term
   British Isles.

   Sometimes, an ambiguous phrase such as "these Isles" or "the Isles" is
   used, thus utilising the same logic used when referring to the Persian
   Gulf as "the Gulf". "These Islands" was used in Strand Three of the
   Belfast Agreement to establish the British-Irish Council, and has been
   described as the favoured term of Irish politicians.

   Probably the most common alternative term in modern usage is " Britain
   and Ireland". This is very common and almost entirely uncontroversial,
   although it may be felt to neglect smaller islands in the archipelago
   and is ambiguous concerning the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands.

   Although somewhat less common, another widely used term is The British
   Isles and Ireland. Similary to "Great Britain and Ireland", this has
   been used in a variety of areas; among others the BBC on occasion,
   religion, nursing, zoological publications, academia, and other
   sources. This form of title is also used in some book titles and in
   various legal publications. The precise reasoning for the use of such
   terminology is not typically set out where it is used, nor the intended
   definitions of either component made explicit. Some may be using
   British Isles as a synonym or near synonym of "British Islands". They
   may simply use the expanded term to avoid causing offense, without
   necessarily having a distinct meaning of "British Isles" in mind. This
   is particularly so in areas like charities, academia, publishing,
   nursing or law where information is supplied or documents sold Ireland
   or where their publications are used by Irish people, where simply
   using British Isles might be controversial.

   In the context of the Northern Ireland peace process the term Islands
   of the North Atlantic (IONA), a term initially created by then
   Conservative Party MP Sir John Biggs-Davison, has been used as a
   neutral term to describe the "British Isles", but in a wider context
   the term might be misunderstood as including Iceland, Greenland, the
   Azores and other islands.

   IONA has been used by among others the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern.


   British Isles

    The Government are, of course, conscious of the emphasis that is laid
    on the East-West dimension by Unionists, and we are, ourselves, very
   mindful of the unique relationships that exist within these islands —
       islands of the North Atlantic or IONA as some have termed them.


   British Isles

   It has also been adopted by the British National Party, in their
   'Project-IONA', an attempt to make a collection of the cultural
   artefacts of the islands. The party does, however, use the term British
   Isles elsewhere; for example in their declared wish for a return of
   "Eire as well as Ulster as equal partners in[to] a federation of the
   nations of the British Isles"

   Others have interpreted the term more narrowly to mean the Council of
   the Isles or British-Irish Council. Peter Luff MP told the British
   House of Commons in 1998 that


   British Isles

   In the same context, there will be a council of the isles. I think that
   some people are calling it IONA — the islands of the north Atlantic,
            from which England, by definition, will be excluded.


   British Isles

   His interpretation, as Ahern's comment earlier shows, is not widely
   held, particularly in Ireland, where IONA is seen as a parallel to
   either the British Islands or the British Isles. In 1997 the leader of
   the Green Party, Trevor Sargent, discussing the Strand Three (or
   East-West) talks between the Republic and the United Kingdom, commented
   in Dáil Éireann:


   British Isles

    I noted with interest the naming of the islands of the north Atlantic
       under the acronym IONA which the Green Party felt was extremely
                                appropriate.


   British Isles

   His comments were echoed by Proinsias De Rossa, then leader of
   Democratic Left and later President of the Irish Labour Party when both
   parties merged, who told the Dáil "The acronym IONA is a useful way of
   addressing the coming together of these two islands."

   Anglo-Celtic Isles has been used in academia for the isles. This
   reflects the supposed ethnic make up of the islands of the ' Celtic'
   peoples — the Irish, Manx, Scottish, Cornish and Welsh — and the '
   Anglo-Saxon' peoples, the English.

   The British government currently uses British Islands (as defined in
   the Interpretation Act, 1978) to refer to the United Kingdom of Great
   Britain and Northern Ireland, together with the Crown Dependencies: the
   Bailiwicks of Jersey and of Guernsey (which in turn includes the
   smaller islands of Alderney, Herm and Sark) in the Channel Islands; and
   the Isle of Man.

   Some academics in the 1990s and early 2000s also used the term
   northwest European archipelago. Usage however appears sporadic in
   historiography and rarely repeated outside it, to date.

   The name "the West European Isles" is one translation of the islands'
   name in Irish and Manx Gaelic.—but explicit "British Isle" terms also
   exist in Irish and Manx. A somewhat similar usage exists in Iceland.
   "Westman" is the Icelandic name for a person from Ireland and Great
   Britain and "Western Lands" is the translation of the name for these
   islands in Icelandic.
   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Isles"
   This reference article is mainly selected from the English Wikipedia
   with only minor checks and changes (see www.wikipedia.org for details
   of authors and sources) and is available under the GNU Free
   Documentation License. See also our Disclaimer.
