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Satellite photo: Ireland is the island on the left and Great Britain is on the right

There is dispute and disagreement over the term British Isles, particularly in relation to Ireland. The term is defined in dictionaries as "Great Britain and Ireland and adjacent islands".^[1] However, the association of the term "British" with the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland,^[2] as well as its association with the island of Great Britain, causes the term to be regarded as objectionable or inappropriate to many Irish people.^[3][4] Alternative terms suggested include common terms like "Britain and Ireland", 'the British and Irish Isles', "these islands" or "these isles" and rarer terms like "Anglo-Celtic Isles", "The Celtic Isles", "The Anglo-Celtic Archipelago", "Islands of the North Atlantic" (IONA), "Northwest European Archipelago" or "The Celtic Archipelago".^{[citation needed]}

The dispute is partly semantic: to some the term is a value-free geographic one, while to others the term can be a value-laden political one.^{[citation needed]} That the British Isles were all, with the exception of the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man, included in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland until 1922, when most of Ireland left, is also highly relevant to some. Although early variants of the term date back to Ancient Greek times, the term fell into disuse for over a millennium and was introduced into English in the late 16th or early 17th centuries by English and Welsh writers whose writings have been described as propaganda and politicized^[5][6][7]. The term was not in wide use in Britain before at least the second half of the 17th century. The term was widely accepted from the late 18th century to at least the early 20th and problems with the term date mostly to the period after Irish independence.^{[citation needed]}

The island of Ireland is currently occupied by two states: Ireland occupies five sixths of the island and Northern Ireland, part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, occupies the remaining one sixth. The respective names of the two states: Ireland and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland were themselves also the subject of a long dispute between the Irish and British governments. 78% of the people living in Northern Ireland label themselves as "British" to some degree and 77% say that they are "Irish" to some degree. 23% of the population say that they are not at all "Irish" and 22% say that they are not at all "British". (See People of Northern Ireland.)

No branch of the Government of Ireland officially uses the term British Isles,^[8] and although it is on occasion used in a geographical sense in Irish parliamentary debates, it is often used in a way that excludes Ireland. A spokesman for the Irish Embassy in London has said use of the term would be discouraged.^[9]

Its use is also avoided in relations between the governments of Ireland and the United Kingdom, who generally employ the term these islands.^[10][11]

The term "British Isles" is sometimes used in the same way as British Islands.^{[citation needed]}

Perspectives in Britain

Euler diagram of the British Isles

In general, the use of the term British Isles to refer to the archipelago is common and uncontroversial within Great Britain,^[12] at least since^{[citation needed]} the concept of Britishness was gradually but widely accepted in Britain after the 1707 Act of Union. In Britain it is commonly understood as being a politically neutral geographical term, although the term is sometimes used to describe the UK or Great Britain alone.^{[13][14][15][16][17]}

In 2003 Irish newspapers reported an British Government internal briefing that advised against the use of British Isles^[18][19] and there is evidence that its use has been increasingly avoided in recent years in some fields of use, such as by cartographers and in some academic work, such as Norman Davies's history of Britain and Ireland called The Isles: A History. As a pure geographical term in a technical context (such as geology and natural history), there is less evidence of alternative terms being chosen. Recent histories of Great Britain and Ireland, published by major British academic publishers like the Oxford and Cambridge University presses, have discussed the acceptability of the term the British Isles in Ireland, although one has continued to use the term "for convenience".^[20] Recognition of the issues with the term, as well as problems over definitions and terminology was also discussed by the columnist Marcel Berlins, writing in The Guardian in 2006. Starting by saying "At last, someone has had the sense to abolish the British Isles", 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 view the term as representing Britain's imperial past, when it ruled the whole of Ireland.^[21] Another historian of British and Irish history has described the term as "politically loaded"^[22].

Perspectives in Ireland

Republic of Ireland

The perspective within the state of Ireland (which rules twenty-six of the thirty-two counties in the island of Ireland) is often quite different from the view in Britain. From the Irish perspective, the term British had never applied to Ireland until at least the late 16th century^[23] and onwards, a period that coincided with the Tudor conquest of Ireland, the subsequent Cromwellian activities in Ireland, then the Williamite accession in Britain and the Williamite War in Ireland, all of which resulted in severe impact on Irish people, landowners and native aristocracy, e.g. the Flight of the Earls and the Flight of the Wild Geese. From that perspective the term "British Isles" is not a neutral geographical description but is an unavoidably political term. Use of the name "British Isles" is often rejected in the Republic of Ireland and amongst Irish Nationalists in Northern Ireland because its use implies a primacy of British identity over all of the islands, which includes the Irish state, the British territories of the Isle of Man and Channel Islands as well as the United Kingdom, and many feel that the term does not apply to what is now the Republic of Ireland since its secession from the United Kingdom.^{[24][25][26][27]}

Many bodies, including the Irish Government, avoid describing the Ireland as being part of the British Isles. The term "British Isles" is occasionally used at governmental level in Ireland, as when a cabinet minister, Síle de Valera, delivered a speech at the opening of a drama festival containing the term in 2002.^[28] British Isles has been used in a geographical sense in Irish parliamentary debates, including by government ministers,^[29][30] although it is often used in a way that defines the British Isles as excluding the Republic of Ireland.^{[31][32][33][34]} In October 2006, Irish educational publisher Folens announced that it was removing the term from its popular school atlas from January 2007. The decision was made after the issue was raised by a Geography teacher. Folens stated that no parent had complained directly to them over the use of "British Isles", and that they had a policy of acting first on the appearance of a "potential problem".^[35][36] This attracted some press attention in the UK and Ireland, during which a spokesman for the Irish Embassy in London said, "The British Isles has a dated ring to it, as if we are still part of the Empire".^[37]

Perspectives in Northern Ireland

Different views on terminology are probably most clearly seen in Northern Ireland (which covers six of the thirty-two counties in Ireland), where the political situation is difficult and national identity is contested. A survey^{[citation needed]} in Northern Ireland found that unionists generally considered the British Isles to be a natural geographical entity, considering themselves primarily British with a supplementary Irish identity. Another survey highlighted the British and Irish identity of the Protestant community, showing that 51% of Protestants felt "Not at all Irish" and 41% only "weakly Irish"^[38][39] In contrast, nationalists considered their community to be that of the Irish nation, a distinct cultural and 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.^[40]

The overall opinions of people in Northern Ireland about the term, like the opinions of those in the Republic of Ireland and Great Britain, have never been formally gauged. Politicians from the Irish Unionist traditions do readily use the term "British Isles"^[41][42] 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:

In contrast, the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, did not use the term in his address to the meeting.^[43]

At a gathering of the British-Irish Inter-Parliamentary Body in 1998, the sensitivity about the term became an issue. Referring to plans for the then-planned British-Irish Council, which was being supported by both Nationalists and Unionists, British MP for Falkirk West Dennis Canavan was paraphrased by official note takers as having said in a caveat:

In a series of documents issued by the United Kingdom and Ireland, from the Downing Street Declaration to the Good Friday Agreement (Belfast Agreement), relations in the British Isles were referred to as the East–West strand of the tripartite relationships defined.^[45]

Alternative terms

There are several terms that are used as alternatives for the term British Isles.

These Islands

These Islands or these Isles are purposely vague terms recognising that the ‘the British Isles’, has proved increasingly irksome to the Irish.^[46] They have been used since the end of the 20th century ^[46] using the same logic that denotes the Persian Gulf as the Gulf. These Islands was used in Strand Three of the Good Friday Agreement to establish the British-Irish Council, and has been described as the favoured term of Irish politicians.^[47] The term These Islands is also used frequently by the current SNP Scottish Government, both in official and unofficial contexts. Clearly these terms are only useful when context has been established beforehand or when used within 'these islands'.

(Great) Britain and Ireland

Probably the most common alternative term in modern usage is "Great Britain and Ireland", or more simply, "Britain and Ireland". This is very common and almost entirely uncontroversial, made up of the geographical names of the two major islands. However, it is very similar to the name of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the state which preceded the modern UK, until the secession of what would become the state of Ireland.

British Isles and Ireland

Another term that is sometimes used is British Isles and Ireland. Similar to "Great Britain and Ireland", this has been used in a variety of contexts — among others religion,^[48] nursing,^[49] zoological publications,^[50] academia,^[51] and other sources. This form of title is also used in some book titles^[52] and legal publications.^[53] This usage, however, implies that Northern Ireland is not part of the British Isles, which causes problems in itself.

United Kingdom (or UK) and (Republic of) Ireland (or ROI)

Sometimes the term "UK & Ireland" is used to refer to the archipelago, however this excludes the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands, which except for some specific legal purposes (e.g. Nationality Law) are not part of the UK. This term is also a more precise way of referring specifically to the two countries alone in cases where the more inclusive term "British Isles" would be incorrect.

Islands of the North Atlantic (or IONA)

In the context of the Northern Ireland peace process the term Islands of the North Atlantic, and its acronym IONA, was a term created by then Conservative Party MP Sir John Biggs-Davison.^[54] It has been used as a neutral term to mean the British Isles or the two main islands, without referring to the two states.

IONA has been used by, among others, the Irish Taoiseach (Prime Minister), Bertie Ahern:

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

His interpretation is not widely held, particularly in Ireland. In 1997 the leader of the Irish Green Party, Trevor Sargent, discussing the Strand Three (or East–West) talks between the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom, commented in Dáil Éireann (the Irish House of Representatives):

His comments were echoed by Proinsias De Rossa, then leader of Democratic Left and later President of the Irish Labour Party, who told the Dáil, "The acronym IONA is a useful way of addressing the coming together of these two islands."^[58]

Anglo-Celtic Isles

Anglo-Celtic Isles has been used in academia for the isles.^[59][60] This reflects the supposed ethnic make up of the islands of Celtic peoples — the Irish, Manx, Scottish, Cornish and Welsh — and the Anglic people — the English, but ignoring the Danes, Normans and later immigrants.

Northwest European Archipelago

Some academics in the 1990s and early 2000s also used the term Northwest European archipelago.^[61] Usage however appears sporadic in historiography and rarely repeated outside it, to date.

West European Isles

The name the West European Isles is one translation of the islands' name in the Gaelic languages of Irish^[62] and Manx^[63], alongside equivalent terms to British Isle^[64] and Manx.^[65] In Irish, Éire agus an Bhreatain Mhór, literally Ireland and Great Britain, is the more common term.^[66]

A somewhat similar usage exists in Iceland. Westman is the Icelandic name for a person from Gaelic areas of Britain and Ireland (Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man), and the Western Lands is the translation of the name for the islands in Icelandic.^[67]

Pretanic Isles

A return to the Greek term Pretan(n)ic Isles has been suggested and has seen some usage in academic contexts, particularly in reference to the islands in a pre-Roman context.^[68]

Insular

Insular art and Insular script are uncontroversial terms in art history and paleography for the early medieval art and script of all the islands. Insular Celtic is a similar term in linguistics. However this adjective is used only in relation to contexts originating over a thousand years ago.

Names of the islands through the ages

In classical times, several Greco-Roman Geographers used derivatives of the Celtic languages' term "Pretani", like "Brit-" or "Prit-" with various endings to describe the islands to the north west of the European mainland, although several included islands not currently viewed as part of the "British Isles", e.g. Thule. Later in the Roman era the term Britannia came to mean more specifically the Roman province of Britain.

Other early classical geographers and also later native sources in the post-Roman period used the general term oceani insulae, simply meaning islands of the ocean. Great Britain was called "Britannia" and Ireland was called "Hibernia" and also, between about the fifth and eleventh centuries, "Scotia". The Orkneys ("Orcades") and Isle of Man were typically also mentioned in descriptions of the islands. No specific collective term for the islands was used other than "islands of the ocean".

The term "British Isles" entered the English language in the seventeenth century as the description of Great Britain, Ireland and the surrounding islands, but was not in common use until the first half of the nineteenth century^[69] and, in general, the modern notion of "Britishness" only started to become common after the 1707 Act of Union.^[70] While it is probably the most common term used to describe the islands, use of this term is not universally accepted and is sometimes rejected in Ireland.^[71]

Other descriptions are also used, including "Great Britain and Ireland", "The British Isles and Ireland", "Britain and Ireland", and the deliberately vague "these isles", as well as other less common designations like "IONA" (Islands of the North Atlantic), "The Anglo-Celtic Isles", etc.

Pretanic Islands and Britanniae

The earliest known names for the islands come from Greco-Roman writings. In some cases sources included the Massaliote Periplus, a merchants' handbook from around 500 BC that describes searoutes,^[72][73] and the travel writings of the Greek Pytheas from around 320 BC. Although the earliest texts have been lost, excerpts were quoted or paraphrased by later authors. The main islands were called Ierne, equating to the term Ériu for Ireland,^[74] and Albion for modern-day Great Britain. These later writers referred to the inhabitants as the ??etta???, Priteni or Pretani, probably from a Celtic languages term meaning "people of the forms".^[75], and Pretannia as a place-name was Diodorus's rendering in Greek of this self-description. It is often taken as a reference to the practice by the inhabitants of painting or tattooing their skin, though as it is unusual for an ethnonym or self-description to describe appearance, this name may have been used by Armoricans.^[76] There is considerable confusion about early use of these terms and the extent to which similar terms were used as self-description by the inhabitants.^[77] From this name a collective term for the islands was used, appearing as a? ??eta???a? ??s?? (Pretanic Islands)^[78] and a? ??etta??a? (Brittanic Isles).^[79] Cognates of all these terms are still used.^[80]

In 55 and 54 BC Caesar's invasions of Britain brought first hand knowledge, and in his Commentarii de Bello Gallico he introduced the term Britannia.^[81]

Around AD 70 Pliny the Elder, in Book 4 of his Naturalis Historia, describes the islands he considers to be Britanniae as including Great Britain, Ireland, Orkney, smaller islands such as the Hebrides, Isle of Man, Anglesey, possibly one of the Friesan Islands, and islands that have been identified as Ushant and Sian. He refers to Great Britain as the island called Britannia, while noting that its former name was Albion. The list also includes the island of Thule, most often identified as Iceland, although some express the view that it may have been the Faroe Islands, the coast of Norway or Denmark or possibly Shetland.^[82]

Ptolemy included essentially the same main islands in the Britannias. He was writing around AD 150, though he used the now lost work of Marinus of Tyre from around fifty years earlier.^[83] His first description is of Ireland, which he called Hibernia. Second was the island of Great Britain, which he called Albion. Book II, Chapters 1 and 2 of his Geography are respectively titled as Hibernia, Island of Britannia and Albion, Island of Britannia.^[84] Ptolemy included Thule in the chapter on Albion, although the coordinates he gives have been mapped to the area around modern Kristiansund in western Norway.^[85]

Following the conquest of AD 43 the Roman province of Britannia was established,^[86] and Roman Britain expanded to cover much of the island of Great Britain. An invasion of Ireland was considered, but this was taken no further and Ireland remained outside the Roman Empire.^[87] The Romans failed to consolidate their hold on the Scottish Highlands, and the northern extent of the area under their control, which at times was defined by the Antonine Wall across central Scotland, stabilised at Hadrian's Wall across the north of England by about AD 210.^[88] Inhabitants of the province continued to describe themselves as Brittannus or Britto, and gave their patria (homeland) as Britannia or as their tribe.^[89] The vernacular term Priteni came to be used for the barbarians north of the Antonine Wall, with the Romans using the tribal name Caledonii more generally for these peoples who after AD 300 they called Picts.^[90]

The post-Roman era saw Brythonic kingdoms established in all areas of Britain except the Scottish Highlands, but coming under increasing attacks from Picts, Scotti and Anglo Saxons. At this time Ireland was dominated by the Gaels or Scotti, who subsequently gave their name to Ireland and then to Scotland, where it still applies.

Oceani insulae

In classical geography. the world of the Mediterranean was thought to be surrounded by a fast flowing river, personified as the Titan Oceanus. As a result, islands off the north and west shores of continental Europe were termed (in Latin) the Oceani Insulae or Islands of the Ocean. For example, in AD 43 various islands, including Britain, Ireland and Thule, were described as "Septemtrionalis Oceani Insulae", meaning Islands of the Northern Ocean, by Pomponius Mela, one of the earliest Roman geographers.^[91]

This description was also used in indigenous sources of the post-Roman period, which also used the term "Oceani Insulae" or "Islands of the Ocean" as a term for the islands in the Atlantic and elsewhere. One such example is the Life of Saint Columba, a hagiography recording the missionary activities of the sixth century Irish monk Saint Columba among the peoples of modern-day Scotland. It was written in the late seventh century by Adomnán of Iona, an Irish monk living on the Inner Hebridean island.^[92] No Priteni-derived collective reference is made. Jordanes writing in Getica (AD 551) also describes the various islands, particularly in the western Ocean as "islands of the ocean", naming various islands in the North Atlantic, and believing Scandinavia to be one of them.^[93] Jordanes subsequently gives a description of Britain, but does not mention Ireland.

Another native source to use the term is the Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum of Bede written in the early eighth century. Bede's work does not give a collective term for the archipelago, referring to Brittania solely as the island "formerly called Albion" and treating Ireland separately. As with Jordanes and Columba, he refers to Britain as being Oceani insula or "island of the ocean".^[94]

Isidore of Seville's Etymology, written in the early seventh century and one of the most used textbooks in Europe throughout the Middle Ages,^[95] similarly lists Britain (Britannia), Ireland (called 'Scotia or Hibernia), Thule, and many other islands simply as "islands" or "islands of the Ocean" and uses no collective term.

In the seventeenth century, Peter Heylyn in Microcosmus described the Classical conception of the Ocean and so included in the Iles of the Ocean consisted of all the classically known offshore islands, that is Zeeland, Denmark, the British Isles, and those in the Northerne Sea.^[96]

British Isles

The term British Isles came into use in English at the same time as the term British Empire. This map shows the British Isles (red) at the centre of the empire (pink) at its height in 1897 where England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales are referred to as the Home Nations.

In his Historia Regum Britanniae of around 1136, Geoffrey of Monmouth responded to the slights of English historians with a theme of the sovereignty of Britain which exalted Welsh national history, portraying a once unified Britannia, founded by Brutus of Troy, defended against Anglo-Saxon invasion by King Arthur of the Britons who was now sleeping, one day to return to the rescue. By the end of the century, this adaptation of myths common to Wales, Cornwall and Brittany had been adopted in the service of England, with Henry II of England enthusiastically taking up Arthurian legend, and Edward I of England putting on pageantry to show the Welsh that he was Arthur's heir. The Welsh and the Scots Edward Bruce used the legends to find common cause as one "kin and nation" in driving the English out of Britain.^[97] Both Welsh rebels and English monarchs continued such claims, particularly Henry Tudor who had Welsh ancestry and claims of descent from Arthur. His son Henry VIII incorporated Wales into England, but also laid claim to be an heir of Arthur as did his successor Elizabeth I of England.^[98]

The rediscovery of Ptolemy's Geographia by Maximus Planudes in 1300 brought new insight, and circulation of copies widened when it was translated into Latin in 1409.^[99][100] This spread Ptolemy's naming of Hibernia and Albion as Island[s] of Britannia.^[101] The Latin equivalents of terms equating to "British Isles" started to be used by mapmakers from the mid sixteenth century onwards, for example Sebastian Münster in Geographia Universalis, a 1550 re-issue of Ptolemy's Geography, uses the heading De insulis Britannicis, Albione, quæ est Anglia, & Hibernia, & de cuiutatibus carum in genere.^[102] Gerardus Mercator produced much more accurate maps, including the British Isles in 1564.^[102][103] Ortelius, in his atlas of 1570, uses the title "Angliae, Scotiae et Hiberniae, sive Britannicar. insularum descriptio". This translates as "A Representation of England, Scotland and Ireland, or Britannica's islands".^[104]

The geographer and occultist John Dee, of Welsh family background,^[105] was an adviser to Queen Elizabeth I of England, and also prepared maps for several explorers. He helped to develop legal justifications for colonisation by Protestant England, breaking the duopoly the Pope had granted to the Spanish and Portuguese Empires. Dee coined the term British Empire and built his case in part on the claim of a British Ocean including Britain and Ireland as well as Iceland, Greenland and possibly extending to North America, using alleged Saxon precedent to claim territorial and trading rights.^[5] Current scholarly opinion is generally that "his imperial vision was simply propaganda and antiquarianism, without much practical value and of limited interest to the English crown and state."^[5] The Lordship of Ireland had come under tighter English control as the Kingdom of Ireland, and diplomatic efforts interspersed with warfare tried to also bring Scotland under the English monarch. Apparently Dee used the term Brytish Iles in his writings of 1577 which developed his arguments claiming these territories.^[106] This appears to be the first use of a recognisable version of the modern term.

Elizabeth was succeeded by her cousin king James VI of Scotland, who brought the English throne under his personal rule as king James I of England, and proclaimed himself as 'King of Great Brittaine, France and Ireland'.^[107] However, the states remained separate until the monarchy was overthrown in the civil wars of the Three Kingdoms and the Commonwealth of England briefly ruled all before the restoration of the monarchy restored separate states.

The Oxford English Dictionary states that the first published use in English of "British Isles" was in 1621 (before the civil wars) by Peter Heylin (or Heylyn) in his Microcosmus: a little description of the great world,^[108] a collection of his lectures on historical geography. Writing from his English political perspective, he grouped Ireland with Great Britain and the minor islands by three asserting points:^[109]

• The inhabitants of Ireland must have come from Britain as it was the nearest land.
• He notes that ancient writers, such as Ptolemy, called Ireland a "Brtti?h Iland".
• He cites the observation of the first century Roman writer Tacitus that the habits and disposition of the people in Ireland were not much unlike the "Brittaines",^[110]

Modern scholarly opinion^[111][112] is that Heylyn "politicized his geographical books Microcosmus ... and, still more, Cosmographie" in the context of what geography meant at that time. Rather, Heylyn's geographical work must be seen as political expressions concerned with proving or disproving constitutional matters and "demonstrated their authors' specific political identities by the languages and arguments they deployed." In an era when "politics referred to discussions of dynastic legitimacy, of representation, and of the Constitution ... [Heylyn's] geography was not to be conceived separately from politics."

Following the Acts of Union of 1707 the Kingdom of Great Britain and conflict with France brought a new popular enthusiasm for Britishness, mostly in Britain itself,^[113] and the term British Isles came into common use despite the persistent stirrings of Irish nationalism. A desire for some form of Irish independence had been active throughout the centuries, with Poyning's Law a common focus of resentment. After the hugely turbulent sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, a sort of nationalism surfaced among the Irish Protestant population and eventually lead to the legislative independence of the Irish Parliament under Grattan's Parliament — followed after the Act of Union in 1800 by renewed assertiveness of the Irish Catholics, who first agitated for Catholic Emancipation and later for Repeal of the Union under Daniel O'Connell.

Subsequently the Great Irish Famine, the Land War, the failure of William Ewart Gladstone and Charles Stuart Parnell to get partial independence or a Bill for Home Rule through the Westminster Parliament lead to the events of and the eventual total secession/independence of most of Ireland from the United Kingdom and the end of British rule in most of Ireland.

Footnotes