to ask everyone to get the name of my country right?

[runnybottom]

Its not "Eire" unless you are speaking/writing in Irish, its Ireland. Its definitely not Southern Ireland. Its not even "Republic of Ireland"

Its just Ireland.

PS> Yes I do realise there a bigger things to worry about, just bugs me a teeny bit is all.

Teamcullen, if you are writing a letter to spain, do you put Espana on the envelope?!

Mag - you're right. Eire is the Irish name for the island of Ireland (according to Wikipedia, so it must be right).

norn iron lol!

Traffic cone, that is crazy logic.

If you are writing to Finland, do you put Suomi on the envelope? and do you expect the guys at the depot to know the name of EVERY Country in its own language.

sorry but that is ridiculous. And wrong.

You write the address in your OWN language.

stleger, you're from ireland but more importantly you're from CORK. The republic of Cork

I say Southern Ireland as it shortens the conversation about where the Irish side of my family live. They all do the same too when over here.

I am from Belfast. Just amazingly, incredibly lucky enough to live in Cork like .

How did I know this was about Ireland before I opened the thread?

I remember many years ago watching the Holiday programme on BBC1 and at the start it was announced that Anthea Turner would be doing a piece from "Southern Ireland". It turned out to be from DONEGAL ffs!!! I was so irrationally irked by this that I still remember it, and it was probably 20 years ago!

FWIW, I would put Ireland or Republic of Ireland on mail if I was sending it from abroad. Eire is fine but unnecessary 'cos we all speak English here .

On the tangent, agree with Magdaly and Surprise.

Trafficcone - come back and explain yourself! Crazy talk indeed.

I'm from Norn Iron too and confess to using "down south", "the south" and "the republic". But not on an envelope, obviously.

It does kind of say 'Eire' on the stamps though. In fairness like. Cork only appears on signposts after a long bit of road out of Dublin (we know Inchicore well due to various misunderstandings). You need to follow the road to Limerick until Cork suddenly appears on signs. As long as we all know where we stand...

I'm quite fond of "The Auld Sod", meself. Although I always smile when Northern Irish people call us "Mexicans" (south of the border and all that)

Éire is correct, as is Ireland, given that we are a bilingual country with an emphasis on speaking Hiberno-English.

I've only ever heard English people say Eire in conversation though, and then I wonder where they're talking about for a second Don't people down south call Norn Iron "the north" too though?

Yes they do, and round these parts they actually say they're going "down the North" for a bit of shopping .

I was told by someone who lives in Donegal that it's very insulting to use Eire.

Just want to say how shocked I am about Gerry - so awful! Totally gutting. Poor Gerry - a true broadcasting legend. There is no comparrison in the UK (is that allowed?)
I am Irish, and live in Ireland, but grew up in Wales.
I always say UK because it annoys me when people refer to England meaning Scotland and Wales as well! Gah!

Dublin - this infuriates me too. In fact, there have been a couple of posts here that talk about English people and England, when they probably mean the UK . The Queen of England is a particular bugbear, esp as we all pay for her - it's the UK guys, not England.

I will miss Gerry Ryan too. Used to listen to him when myself and the Mr were over there on holiday seeing his millions of rellies Also have listened to the station that has the 'Naked Bus' and thought it absolutely hilarious. Finally, on a Hibernian radio note - they don't half get away with loads of swearing that would never been allowed over here!

Also agree with Dublingal and Maisie about the England/UK thing - incredibly annoying!

Finally (got there in the end) the written word is all about communication, so common sense would dictate that the name 'Ireland' is used since English is the common language between sender and sendee (and all the carriers in between)!

When I moved here to Belfast from the United States and started working here my Dublin native boss said I should address envelopes going outside of Northern Ireland but still on the island of Ireland as Republic of Ireland. Or RoI.

Which to me stands for Return on Investment.

Also, The official Republic of Ireland website on its Geography page, calls it The Republic of Ireland.

So I do believe that is its official name.

I grew up in Ireland and I was told at school, in Ireland, to always put Republic of Ireland on any correspondence if I was posting from outside of Ireland so am going to continue to do so ....

Magaly- I dont write to spain, so I dont put anything on the envelope. My point was that DH writes Eire on the envelope and we have never been told that it wrong. He probably picked up the habit from his parents, who would have wrote letters home alot when he was growing up.

If we are speaking about the country or where his family live we say Ireland, or more often than not, Dublin. Otherwise we are often asked do we mean Northern or southern.

As for his family, when we speak to them, they refare to Ireland as Home and the UK as England.

Maisie, yes after 14 years living in the UK I now notice people doing this too. They talk about English money. We must get some English money for the rugby in Wales tomorrow. .

ha ha!