How can anyone be proud to be anti Zionist

E2A: Wrong thread

Exactly.

Better to keep things pleasant - the topics we discuss relating to CITME are controversial enough!

I think we substantially agree but…
the word is not on your passport. Éire is, a completely different word.

And again, having said that, this is not primarily about the fada at all. Fadas are often omitted from names without much fuss as explained upthread, in Ireland too. It’s about the historical usage of the word in the UK and the intentions behind that usage.
I agree completely about not assuming ill-intent when someone uses it on MN.

I’m not offended. The reference is obsolete now. Too old to smart

For me it just demonstrates the posters mindset.

Yes - but it doesn’t help to bring people together if you assume offence where none is intended .

Well that’s it exactly.

There is never a day when you can't learn something.

I agree completely about the complexity.
I just think that it’s unreasonable to assume everyone knows about the use of fada and is being insulting by omitting it. ( not you - other posters)
I’ve learnt something today and I find it more interesting than most ( probably because I have an Irish heritage)
I just haven’t enjoyed the overblown accusations.

Yes - it was a mistake . It would have been helpful if posters explained the significance of the error without assuming that the poster was ill intentioned.
Too many posters on here are using a mistake to try to paint someone as a bigot who was deliberately trying to cause offence.
Tbh - if it was meant to cause offence it was incredibly subtle and could only come from someone very well informed about Irish language and the use of the fada.
Im from an Irish background and I wouldn’t have noticed the lack of the fada or thought anything was wrong with writing Eire . The word is on my Irish passport .

Of course the fact that a discussion about Zionism managed to throw up the complicated situation of Northern Ireland, the UK and the Irish republic and it's various monikers is possibly the best comment on how complex things are when it comes to geography, culture and identity.

Especially relevant because a lot of people in Ireland - particularly Northern Ireland - are descendants of Protestants who were sent there to displace the native Catholics. And at that point I'll bow out, knowing only broad brush strokes.

There was no need or expectation to use Irish words at all though.

If you were to write a French word, you’d probably look it up to make sure you’d the proper spelling first, and that it meant what you thought it meant.

PP seemed to indicate that she was under the impression that Irish people would prefer Eire to Ireland.
I think it was just a mistake.

Now that we have all been educated about the use of the fada and what terms are acceptable or unacceptable to Irish posters on here - can we get on with the topic . Irish history is interesting but we don’t need to bring it into everything.

For the final time. The poster wasn’t actually trying to use the irish word for Ireland. They used a word that has been used tactically by the British government in days gone past.

Some of us think that that indicates a certain colonial mindset. Some others think the poster is just uninformed.

And we are none the wiser as the poster hasn’t come back to clarify.

You say "no one expects that" but someone on this thread has been castigated for not knowing that an Irish word with a fada has a completely different meaning to the same word without.

In solidarity with the person getting criticised, I admitted I also didn't know that. I also don't know if accent marks on French words can completely change the meaning. This is not me being wilfully ignorant but I chose German not French to study at school.

Agree that we should be taught more Irish history in English schools. Most Journalists seem to have given up any idea of educating their readers these days. Which makes me sound about 80.

I know people won’t know the language.
No one expects that.

It’s the not knowing the history that can still cause problems today unfortunately. Small ones as on this thread or huge ones like the issues with the border at Brexit.
Government officials, politicians, journalists etc should make themselves aware at least. Brexit showed up a lot of gaps in understanding around the situation in Northern Ireland.

I agree with a job in government they would have been made aware and chose to not use the fada.

Having said the above, I’m also sure that the UK government were made aware of the alternative meaning of a fadaless Eire at the time they used it. They never corrected it.

I agree with most of your post @Tilesarebad but just wanted to point out that while the Irish language is one of the UK’s native languages, it isn't a language taught in English schools.

So anyone bought up in the English school system - which is probably most of us on MN - will not have learnt any Irish language at school and not much Irish history either.

So I think you are right to give people the benefit of the doubt, thank you.

Gets upset about obscure punctuation mark used incorrectly in a non native language...
Do you mean the language is not the native one of the person who used it?
Because the Irish language is one of the UK’s native languages and the fada is no more obscure in that language than an acute accent is in French, for example.

Anyway, the issue is not primarily the fact that the fada was left out. Nobody expects people to be fluent enough to use the Irish form of the name. That’s the point actually.

Lots of Irish names used in the UK (and in Ireland tbh) should have a fada but don’t, even though, strictly speaking, the meaning and pronunciation of the word is changed, and often not for the better. Orla is an example, or Sean. I doubt people get hassled about it in general? People just pronounce the names as if the fadas were there and ignore the alternative meaning (if indeed they know it, which they most likely don’t).

In this particular case however, it’s the history of the tactical use of ‘Eire’ by the UK establishment that’s the issue. I know people often aren’t aware of that history unfortunately. But that’s why it shouldn’t be used in English if you don’t want to cause upset. The reasons it should be avoided are historical ones and, though most users are certainly unaware of this, its deliberate use can still indicate a certain mindset today.

Personally, I prefer to give people the benefit of the doubt and trust that pp probably wasn’t aware of the issues.

Should I also educate you on how to spell Israel? Stop, you're too funny 🤣

Yes polite in the way she debates - even if you disagree with the opinions of others (which we frequently do on this board) you can debate without attacking the person.

I don’t know why anyone is surprised by that. Look at the Northern Irish unionist support for Israel or the flood of anti Irish sentiment being shared Israel’s supporters online which harks back to times I thought were gone.

Polite? justifying the deaths of innocent people. Insulting anyone who points out that’s wrong. Accusing people of anti semitism for doing so and finally minimising her use of an obsolete term the British government used for Ireland. Unless you actually believe she was trying to write in Irish.

You clearly have a very different idea of what constitutes good manners.

It’s been a nice bit of derailing but tbh the details of Irish language are no more known to me than those of say, the Welsh language.

Ireland may be the centre of your world but not of the actual world.

Yes, heaven forbid we educate Brits about the name of our country. I mean it's only been a 100 years, you can't possibly expect that they would have have caught on in that time. Someone else on this thread thought 'Southern Ireland' was an acceptable way to say Ireland 😳 Maybe sometime in the next 100 they'll catch up to the rest of the world and have the capacity to learn a single word but I wouldn't hold my breath!