To point out yet again to the geographically challenged of Britain....

[AnnabelleLee]

THAT northern Ireland is in the UK. Ireland is an entirely separate country. Like,properly different,with its own currency and culture and laws and all that.
FFS.

Maryz here is a link to the constitution of 1922.

Can I also make the pedantic point that the OP is entirely wrong in stating that Ireland has its own currency.

I think I need to re-read that bit Janine - I was always taught that the Irish Free State was the term used by the British half of the treaty lot (as in the House of Commons of Southern Ireland (as it was at the time).

Mad, The British Isles is a geographical term, not a political one. It includes all the islands around here - Britain, all the Scottish islands, the Isle of Man, the island of Ireland and all the sundry bits and pieces of rock sticking out of the sea. It has no political significance at all - but you will find few Irish people like to use the term, apart from on Geography exam papers.

You know, Janine - that bit of history is interesting. I don't know whether you were taught it at school, but I do know that for me (Catholic school) we skipped over everything between 1916 and the second world war, with a little bit of a nod to 1921-ish.

I think it was too close to the bone for so many people that they didn't want to talk about it. And I know friends at Protestant schools in Dublin learned very different history to what I learned.

I need to look at that patch of history again (if I can get my head around it).

limited I also hate and loathe the term Brit

Might I share that I, as a non-Brit, totally like that term...as to me it allows me to describe people from Britain as one nation and one national group sort of being inclusive.
Will it be inclusive as in regardless if your parents or grand-parents were/are Irish/Scottish/Welsh/English or from India or Bengladesh or Caribean or regardless of your ethnicity and or religion, they are to me British.

For me it's such a multi-cultural term

Ok thanks Maryz

I'm Irish, Maryz and now teach Irish history at third-level. I know that what I learned in secondary school (and even as an undergrad) was v different, along the lines of what you mentioned. I also remember that whereas the European history course ran to 1970, the Irish history LC course conveniently stopped in 1966, with the glorious 50th anniversary of the Rising, and without having to open the massive can of worms of the Troubles.

Shit. What a headfuck

maryz The British Isles is a geographical term, not a political one. It includes all the islands around here - Britain, all the Scottish islands, the Isle of Man, the island of Ireland and all the sundry bits and pieces of rock sticking out of the sea. It has no political significance at all - but you will find few Irish people like to use the term, apart from on Geography exam papers.

^^ See, this is what I thought and learned as well, but tarantula has stated earlier that it actually was never a geographical term recognised worldwide

"Brit" is a very user-friendly term, and perfectly accurate insofar that it describes someone from Britain. It is a pity that so many British people are getting so precious about their local identity that the term offends them. The distinctions between the various parts of the island of Britain, or the UK as a whole, are of no relevance or importance to 99.9999999% of people round the globe, and from their perspective, such differences are probably pretty minimal anyway.

btw afaik Ireland was Britain when my father was born there and he served in the British Army in WWII.

It doesn't entirely surprise me to hear that some Irish schools skipped over everything between 1916 and WWII.

But just because we don't like it, doesn't mean it's not so.

Brit can be an awful insult though. It has none of the sort of semi-affectionate ribbing meaning that, for example "Pom" does in Australia, or "Aussie" does.

It's more offensive, imo. More like Yank, or some of the more racist terms used for people from various countries in the "far east".

And West Brit is particularly offensive - my mum is Irish, born and reared here. But she is Protestant and spent some of her early life in the UK (her father fought in the British Army during the war). She has spent most of her life being referred to rudely as a "West Brit" which is imo just a cheap insult.

worldcitizen I understand what you say.

toadinthehole you have to have heard it as a filthy insult. I congratulate you if you've never had that experience.

The term "British Isles" is still used in Geography books today - I accept what tarantula says, but I don't think everyone agrees.

Janine, I have relatives on both sides of my family who had massive fallings out during the Civil War, and who still don't talk about it today. Brother against brother type of thing. I think it's a brave person who commits anything to a history book about that time, as so much was fudged, and lied about and hidden

Well technically Northern Ireland is IN Ireland but for many (unjust) reasons it is governed by Great Britain at this point in time. It was not always so and it may not always be so.

Thanks maryz. For a moment I thought I was going mad there

Maryz really??? It's an insult???

I mean I can see that Brit can also be expressed like yank, for example depending on context and tone...but I and so many others I know find that such a great all-inclusive term for all these different folks in the UK/GB.

limited Ireland was never [in] Britain. It was in the United Kingdom, along with Britain. Lots of Irish people did join the British forces during WWII - Ireland was then still part of the Commonwealth - although, shamefully, they had to change out of their British army uniforms before coming back to Ireland on leave. The Dublin gvmt even arranged for shedloads of civilian clothes to be brought to the ports.

West Brit is a particularly horrible term, I agree. Brit is horrible too, and I would never use it.

I expect I probably did, but having not dwelt on it, don't really care.

"Pom" can be an insult, depending on circumstances, but similarly it has never bothered me. It is an old-fashioned expression anyway. I live in NZ and haven't ever heard anyone younger than 40 use it.

Yes world.

As in "Those fucking Brits think they can come over here and tell us what to do"

It's rarely "We welcome Brits who want to holiday here".

Elsewhere in the world it might be a friendly description of British people. But not in a Dublin pub - and not in the North either, where the most common graffiti would always have been "Brits Out".

Oh okay....

Like the Venn diagram but they missed Britain which is England and Wales. British Isles is a geographical term but has no meaning politically, a bit like Scandinavia or Iberia? Sorry if I'm repeating what others have already pointed out!

I wonder if any other countries/states have the same muddle as us?

I am now more confused than ever.

I have British and Irish passports and am thinking of binning both and becoming something much less complicated.

Yes, world, maryz is right.

I though OP meant currency that was different to the UK. i.e. The Euro