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It's only a country under certain definitions of "country" as it's not an independent geopolitical entity (see Quebec, Catalonia, ...). It's formally part of t

It's only a country under certain definitions of "country" as it's not an independent geopolitical entity (see Quebec, Catalonia, ...). It's formally part of the UK and as such as the Union Jack as a flag. Anything other than that has issues re: rioting and bad blood, but there's a number of them that has been used from time to time. One could argue, and I'm sure the unionists do, that it's a direct continuation of the Irish of the Empire (see Taiwan). As we're seeing in the news, it's also become a logical impossibility as treaty relations require it to be both open and closed to the EU. It's totally tangled up in and (seemingly) totally ignored by English politics. EDIT: I am of two minds re: flagging. It's not really appropriate in a narrow sense for HN, but it's one of the many issues left over from the 20th century that are unresolved. People should be aware of such places so they understand when some events happen.

zarzavat 4y ago
Does anyone actually claim that Northern Ireland is a country? The UK claims it as a province, Ireland claims it as a part of Ireland, and independence (as opposed to unionism or Irish reunification) is not very popular unlike in Scotland or Wales. It seems that Northern Ireland is claimed as a country mostly by analogy to the other constituent countries of the UK. A foolish consistency...
- unmole 4y ago
  > Ireland claims it as a part of Ireland With the Good Friday Agreement, Ireland recognised Northern Ireland as a part of the UK. You probably already knew this but I just wanted to clarify for anyone else reading.
  - PeterisP 4y ago
    Unlike almost all other treaties about borders, in the Good Friday Agreement Ireland does not recognize Northern Ireland as a perpetual part of the UK and does not recognize unconditional sovereignty of UK over NI - it's a recognition of the current situation as reflecting the current wishes of the population but explicitly leaves the long-term outcome open ended, stipulates that UK sovereignty is conditional upon NI population wishing to stay part of UK and mandates that if that choice of NI people changes, then UK has a binding obligation to cede Northern Ireland, no matter what people in England/Scotland/Wales would vote for.
    - sgt101 4y ago
      Treaties like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schengen_Agreement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schengen_Agreement?
      - patrickk 4y ago
        Interestingly, the UK and ROI are not in Schengen[1], but jointly have a Common Travel Area[2], which means Irish passport holders can live and work in the EU and in the UK, post Brexit. British and Irish citizens can generally live and work in the other country without visas. [1] https://old.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/ms97x/venn_diagram_illustrating_all_the_different/ https://old.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/ms97x/venn_diagram_... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Travel_Area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Travel_Area
        ftyers 4y ago
        And vote too... I think the only election that can't be voted for is English people resident in Ireland for the president (for obvious reasons... there is no equivalent vote in England).
      - PeterisP 4y ago
        No, the treaties which actually set the borders and acknowledge or cede sovereignty, for example the Paris Peace treaties of 1947 setting some of the post-WW2 borders, and many others, usually being peace treaties following some conflict that changed the borders. Schengen is about regulating travel over the existing borders, Schengen is not a border treaty about where the exactly the borders lie and which country has full sovereignty over some land. While in colloquial language Schengen can be described as "eliminating borders", of course that is only a limited metaphor/analogy and the Schengen treaty does not challenge or change the validity of borders between countries in the Schengen area - even if it's trivial for people to cross over some Schengen border, it is not questioned that the sovereignty and laws change across that line.
  - asveikau 4y ago
    I thought "Ireland" refers to the island as a whole and "Republic of Ireland" is the non UK part. By this definition, Northern Ireland is part of Ireland and the inhabitants are still called Irish. I don't know a ton of Irish people but I think I've heard them say it like that too? On the other hand, there seem to also be contexts where "Ireland" is shorthand for "Republic of Ireland".
    - unmole 4y ago
      The sovereign state that consists of 26 counties on island referes to itself as Ireland. Variations of The Republic are used for disambiguation but are not used officially. > Northern Ireland is part of Ireland The island yes. But not the Republic of the same name. > and the inhabitants are still called Irish. A large portion of the inhabitants see themselves as Irish. But there is also a large portion who see themselves as British. These are not necessarily exclusive categories as some of them see themselves as both British and Irish. There are also those who see themselves as Northern Irish. Full disclaimer: Not Irish or British, just have an unhealthy interest in the situation.
    - a_paddy 4y ago
      "Ireland" is the official name of the country as per it's constitution. The "Republic of Ireland" is a description of the country given its status as a republic, and has been commonly mistaken as the name of the country due to editorial choices by some UK media. Even Wikipedia erroneously catalogues "Ireland" under "Republic of Ireland".
      - PostOnce 4y ago
        Wikipedia doesn't have it wrong per se, it's just that it can't have two articles by the same name (Ireland the island, and Ireland the nation, only one of those can be at /wiki/Ireland), so I guess they opted for Ireland to mean the island, and then the page for the country is /wiki/Republic_of_Ireland... However! That page makes it clear that the name of the country is Ireland: Ireland (Irish: Éire [ˈeːɾʲə] (listen)), also known as the Republic of Ireland (Poblacht na hÉireann), since Ireland there takes precedence. In conclusion, I think it's just a technical limitation.
- skissane 4y ago
  > Does anyone actually claim that Northern Ireland is a country? It is standard UK government terminology to call it a "constituent country". To just give one random example – https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/eat-out-to-help-out-statistics-geographic-breakdown/eat-out-to-help-out-statistics-geographic-breakdown-commentary https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/eat-out-to-help-out... – HRMC statistics updated in February this year speak of "Four constituent countries within the UK" > independence (as opposed to unionism or Irish reunification) is not very popular unlike in Scotland or Wales I don't think the term "country" for the primary first-level subdivisions of the UK necessarily has anything to do with independence. The term has been used that way for decades, including back in the days when Scottish or Welsh independence were rather fringe positions. It is still used today by many people who oppose the Scottish and Welsh independence movements. So the fact that Northern Ireland independence has very few advocates, is not in itself an argument against Northern Ireland being a "constituent country". > The UK claims it as a province Calling it a "province" is controversial. Ireland is traditionally divided into four provinces; Northern Ireland is the six eastern counties of the Province of Ulster, but its three western counties are part of the Republic. Unionist sources often like to identify Northern Ireland with the Province of Ulster; nationalists view this conflation as inaccurate, disrespectful, and politically biased. Due to both the arguments that the term is technically incorrect, and the desire not to inflame the nationalist community, the UK government generally avoids the term "province" for Northern Ireland. Nationalists obviously aren't big fans of the term "country" either, but it is not as strongly associated with the unionist viewpoint as "province" is, so they don't find it as upsetting. Officially, the UK does not claim "Northern Ireland" to be a "province". I'm not sure if, officially speaking, the UK claims "Northern Ireland" to be anything at all, other than "Northern Ireland", and theirs. Even the original Act of the UK Parliament creating it (Government of Ireland Act 1920) never explicitly said what kind of things the two entities it was attempting to create ("Northern Ireland" and "Southern Ireland") actually were. I believe that was intentional, to try to maximise the chances of the Act being accepted by competing viewpoints (an intention which largely failed to be achieved, but its authors tried.) Similarly, the Good Friday Agreement never states what "Northern Ireland" actually is. Any answer to that question is likely to upset somebody, so both the UK and Irish governments have decided to avoid all that potential upset by avoiding endorsing any official answer to the question.
- ralferoo 4y ago
  I'm British and I have always considered NI to be one of the four countries that make up the United Kingdom. They are all countries in their own right, and the UK is also considered a country for most purposes. Although I think it's weird the number of (mostly foreign) entities that only provide GB as an option for country rather than UK.
  - andyjohnson0 4y ago
    > Although I think it's weird the number of (mostly foreign) entities that only provide GB as an option for country rather than UK. For some reason that I've never understood, the ISO-3166-1 alpha-2 and alpha-3 codes for The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland are "GB" and "GBR" [1]. That might have some bearing on this. As a brit as well, and as commentary for others who don't live here, my perception is that the term "Great Britain" isn't used a lot nowadays - either as an informal synonym for "the country called the UK", or as the formal name for "the part of the UK that isn't Northern Ireland". It does get used for things like "Team GB" (the UK Olympic team branding, which includes athletes from NI) and probably other sports-related stuff. Its all very confusing... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ISO_3166_country_codes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ISO_3166_country_codes
    - tankenmate 4y ago
      The reason is that the ISO codes were inherited, via a long winding path, from the postal system. That's why you'll see that the Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey have codes as well (even though they are not independent sovereign states). And of course Ireland has a code. But then after the postal codes were created came partition, and the Unionists called themselves British, so wouldn't have wanted a code that made them felt less British, and so whereas they would have been under the Ireland code before partition they joined GB after partition.
- AJRF 4y ago
  Interestingly I get a sense among most young people in Northern Ireland that they are pro-union while very distinctly categorising NI as a country in itself. There is a party called the Alliance party that is attempting to offer an alternative to tribal politics of DUP/SF and they did quite good in recent election. Even with that being said, I think most younger people see the Union as a good thing, if even in just the economic sense. Somewhat less so than before Brexit but still the finances of NI look dire if they left the union.
  - basisword 4y ago
    From what I’ve read, polling disagrees with you. Younger people tend to be much more in favour of Unity. I also wouldn’t confuse the Alliance vote with support for the Union. A lot of people who want a border poll in the medium term, also want sane, modern representation in the short term. Alliance is the answer to that.
  - sentinalien 4y ago
    https://www.irishnews.com/news/northernirelandnews/2022/05/03/news/opinion-poll-shows-sinn-fe-in-most-popular-among-post-good-friday-agreement-generation-2658426/ https://www.irishnews.com/news/northernirelandnews/2022/05/0... That is incorrect, Sinn Fein are the most popular party with the younger demographic and Alliance are popular among middle aged people. The antediluvian politics of the DUP is more popular among the 18-34 cohort than Alliance.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- maccard 4y ago
  Can you back up any of the very very _very_ bold claims you've made in this post? This comes across as someone who has absolutely no experience whatsoever with the situation and is is making a snap judgement based on their feelings > The UK claims it as a province, Ireland claims it as a part of Ireland, This is just nonsense. Neither the UK or Ireland claim anything of the sort. > independence is not very popular What does that have to do with its status as a country?
  - zarzavat 4y ago
    > What does that have to do with its status as a country? Generally in a country you would expect to find some people (not necessarily the majority) who believe in the idea of that country as an independent, sovereign nation. Northern Ireland doesn’t have that. The vast majority of people in Northern Ireland want it to either be part of UK or of Ireland, and to the extent an independence movement exists it’s notable only for how incredibly un-popular it is. Why does it matter? Because if the population of a putative “country” don’t in fact see it as a country but rather as a territory of somewhere else, then the “country” descriptor would appear to have been externally applied.
    - logifail 4y ago
      > The vast majority of people in Northern Ireland want it to either be part of UK or of Ireland, and to the extent an independence movement exists it’s notable only for how incredibly un-popular it is I wonder what the mainland thinks? On that theme, I've ever pondered would happen if one were to hold a referendum in England, Wales and Northern Ireland about Scotland leaving the UK and becoming a sovereign state. Not least because of the Barnett formula[0], asking the Scots what they think of independence is surely only part of the puzzle. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnett_formula https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnett_formula
    - maccard 4y ago
      You've built your own definition of a country there, and it's such a dated definition of a country even Wikipedia straight up disagrees with you [0]. When talking about NI in particular, the rules are flexed but there is no doubt that it is not a requirement for a country to be an independent sovereign nation. > the “country” descriptor would appear to have been externally applied. You've made two generous leaps here - that the population don't consider it to be a country, and that the fact that an externally applied label on a state is invalid. It's incredibly dismissive of you to think that the people of NI don't think of it as country for a dtart, but your second point is just plain wrong. I can call Crimea a disputed territory with confidence, despite Russia claiming it's independent, for example. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Country
- EdwardDiego 4y ago
  > Northern Ireland (Irish: Tuaisceart Éireann [ˈt̪ˠuəʃcəɾˠt̪ˠ ˈeːɾʲən̪ˠ] (listen);[7] Ulster-Scots: Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom that is variously described as a country, province, territory or region. From Wiki, there's a bunch o links after that very first sentence. More from wiki: > For example, the websites of the Office of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom[99] and the UK Statistics Authority describe the United Kingdom as being made up of four countries, one of these being Northern Ireland.[100] Other pages on the same websites refer to Northern Ireland specifically as a "province" as do publications of the UK Statistics Authority.[101][102] The website of the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency also refers to Northern Ireland as being a province[103] as does the website of the Office of Public Sector Information[104] and other agencies within Northern Ireland.[105] Publications of HM Treasury[106] and the Department of Finance and Personnel of the Northern Ireland Executive,[107] on the other hand, describe Northern Ireland as being a "region of the UK". The UK's submission to the 2007 United Nations Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names defines the UK as being made up of two countries (England and Scotland), one principality (Wales) and one province (Northern Ireland).[108] And Ireland definitely doesn't claim it as part of the Republic.
  - tankenmate 4y ago
    > And Ireland definitely doesn't claim it as part of the Republic. It should be noted that up until the Belfast Agreement (Good Friday Agreement) the Republic of Ireland constitution did claim all 32 counties as part of the Republic. A part of the Good Friday Agreement was amendments to the RoI constitution. On the flip side was a formal requirement for a border poll if it appeared to the UK Secretary of State that a majority of NI would want a border poll.
    - EdwardDiego 4y ago
      Yeah, I didn't bother mentioning the constitution because it doesn't affect the current situation.
imgabe 4y ago
Lots of things that aren't countries have flags. Every US state has a flag. Every gender identity and sexuality has a flag. McDonald's has a flag. You don't need to be a country to have a flag.
- bryanrasmussen 4y ago
  I suppose Eddie Izzard would have had to drastically change his routine if McDonalds had shown up in India first https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEx5G-GOS1k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEx5G-GOS1k
himinlomax 4y ago
England is a country. Scotland is a country. Wales is a country. Northern Ireland is ...

zarzavat 4y ago

Does anyone actually claim that Northern Ireland is a country? The UK claims it as a province, Ireland claims it as a part of Ireland, and independence (as opposed to unionism or Irish reunification) is not very popular unlike in Scotland or Wales. It seems that Northern Ireland is claimed as a country mostly by analogy to the other constituent countries of the UK. A foolish consistency...

unmole 4y ago
> Ireland claims it as a part of Ireland With the Good Friday Agreement, Ireland recognised Northern Ireland as a part of the UK. You probably already knew this but I just wanted to clarify for anyone else reading.
- PeterisP 4y ago
  Unlike almost all other treaties about borders, in the Good Friday Agreement Ireland does not recognize Northern Ireland as a perpetual part of the UK and does not recognize unconditional sovereignty of UK over NI - it's a recognition of the current situation as reflecting the current wishes of the population but explicitly leaves the long-term outcome open ended, stipulates that UK sovereignty is conditional upon NI population wishing to stay part of UK and mandates that if that choice of NI people changes, then UK has a binding obligation to cede Northern Ireland, no matter what people in England/Scotland/Wales would vote for.
  - sgt101 4y ago
    Treaties like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schengen_Agreement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schengen_Agreement?
    - patrickk 4y ago
      Interestingly, the UK and ROI are not in Schengen[1], but jointly have a Common Travel Area[2], which means Irish passport holders can live and work in the EU and in the UK, post Brexit. British and Irish citizens can generally live and work in the other country without visas. [1] https://old.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/ms97x/venn_diagram_illustrating_all_the_different/ https://old.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/ms97x/venn_diagram_... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Travel_Area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Travel_Area
      - ftyers 4y ago
        And vote too... I think the only election that can't be voted for is English people resident in Ireland for the president (for obvious reasons... there is no equivalent vote in England).
    - PeterisP 4y ago
      No, the treaties which actually set the borders and acknowledge or cede sovereignty, for example the Paris Peace treaties of 1947 setting some of the post-WW2 borders, and many others, usually being peace treaties following some conflict that changed the borders. Schengen is about regulating travel over the existing borders, Schengen is not a border treaty about where the exactly the borders lie and which country has full sovereignty over some land. While in colloquial language Schengen can be described as "eliminating borders", of course that is only a limited metaphor/analogy and the Schengen treaty does not challenge or change the validity of borders between countries in the Schengen area - even if it's trivial for people to cross over some Schengen border, it is not questioned that the sovereignty and laws change across that line.
- asveikau 4y ago
  I thought "Ireland" refers to the island as a whole and "Republic of Ireland" is the non UK part. By this definition, Northern Ireland is part of Ireland and the inhabitants are still called Irish. I don't know a ton of Irish people but I think I've heard them say it like that too? On the other hand, there seem to also be contexts where "Ireland" is shorthand for "Republic of Ireland".
  - unmole 4y ago
    The sovereign state that consists of 26 counties on island referes to itself as Ireland. Variations of The Republic are used for disambiguation but are not used officially. > Northern Ireland is part of Ireland The island yes. But not the Republic of the same name. > and the inhabitants are still called Irish. A large portion of the inhabitants see themselves as Irish. But there is also a large portion who see themselves as British. These are not necessarily exclusive categories as some of them see themselves as both British and Irish. There are also those who see themselves as Northern Irish. Full disclaimer: Not Irish or British, just have an unhealthy interest in the situation.
  - a_paddy 4y ago
    "Ireland" is the official name of the country as per it's constitution. The "Republic of Ireland" is a description of the country given its status as a republic, and has been commonly mistaken as the name of the country due to editorial choices by some UK media. Even Wikipedia erroneously catalogues "Ireland" under "Republic of Ireland".
    - PostOnce 4y ago
      Wikipedia doesn't have it wrong per se, it's just that it can't have two articles by the same name (Ireland the island, and Ireland the nation, only one of those can be at /wiki/Ireland), so I guess they opted for Ireland to mean the island, and then the page for the country is /wiki/Republic_of_Ireland... However! That page makes it clear that the name of the country is Ireland: Ireland (Irish: Éire [ˈeːɾʲə] (listen)), also known as the Republic of Ireland (Poblacht na hÉireann), since Ireland there takes precedence. In conclusion, I think it's just a technical limitation.
skissane 4y ago
> Does anyone actually claim that Northern Ireland is a country? It is standard UK government terminology to call it a "constituent country". To just give one random example – https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/eat-out-to-help-out-statistics-geographic-breakdown/eat-out-to-help-out-statistics-geographic-breakdown-commentary https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/eat-out-to-help-out... – HRMC statistics updated in February this year speak of "Four constituent countries within the UK" > independence (as opposed to unionism or Irish reunification) is not very popular unlike in Scotland or Wales I don't think the term "country" for the primary first-level subdivisions of the UK necessarily has anything to do with independence. The term has been used that way for decades, including back in the days when Scottish or Welsh independence were rather fringe positions. It is still used today by many people who oppose the Scottish and Welsh independence movements. So the fact that Northern Ireland independence has very few advocates, is not in itself an argument against Northern Ireland being a "constituent country". > The UK claims it as a province Calling it a "province" is controversial. Ireland is traditionally divided into four provinces; Northern Ireland is the six eastern counties of the Province of Ulster, but its three western counties are part of the Republic. Unionist sources often like to identify Northern Ireland with the Province of Ulster; nationalists view this conflation as inaccurate, disrespectful, and politically biased. Due to both the arguments that the term is technically incorrect, and the desire not to inflame the nationalist community, the UK government generally avoids the term "province" for Northern Ireland. Nationalists obviously aren't big fans of the term "country" either, but it is not as strongly associated with the unionist viewpoint as "province" is, so they don't find it as upsetting. Officially, the UK does not claim "Northern Ireland" to be a "province". I'm not sure if, officially speaking, the UK claims "Northern Ireland" to be anything at all, other than "Northern Ireland", and theirs. Even the original Act of the UK Parliament creating it (Government of Ireland Act 1920) never explicitly said what kind of things the two entities it was attempting to create ("Northern Ireland" and "Southern Ireland") actually were. I believe that was intentional, to try to maximise the chances of the Act being accepted by competing viewpoints (an intention which largely failed to be achieved, but its authors tried.) Similarly, the Good Friday Agreement never states what "Northern Ireland" actually is. Any answer to that question is likely to upset somebody, so both the UK and Irish governments have decided to avoid all that potential upset by avoiding endorsing any official answer to the question.
ralferoo 4y ago
I'm British and I have always considered NI to be one of the four countries that make up the United Kingdom. They are all countries in their own right, and the UK is also considered a country for most purposes. Although I think it's weird the number of (mostly foreign) entities that only provide GB as an option for country rather than UK.
- andyjohnson0 4y ago
  > Although I think it's weird the number of (mostly foreign) entities that only provide GB as an option for country rather than UK. For some reason that I've never understood, the ISO-3166-1 alpha-2 and alpha-3 codes for The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland are "GB" and "GBR" [1]. That might have some bearing on this. As a brit as well, and as commentary for others who don't live here, my perception is that the term "Great Britain" isn't used a lot nowadays - either as an informal synonym for "the country called the UK", or as the formal name for "the part of the UK that isn't Northern Ireland". It does get used for things like "Team GB" (the UK Olympic team branding, which includes athletes from NI) and probably other sports-related stuff. Its all very confusing... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ISO_3166_country_codes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ISO_3166_country_codes
  - tankenmate 4y ago
    The reason is that the ISO codes were inherited, via a long winding path, from the postal system. That's why you'll see that the Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey have codes as well (even though they are not independent sovereign states). And of course Ireland has a code. But then after the postal codes were created came partition, and the Unionists called themselves British, so wouldn't have wanted a code that made them felt less British, and so whereas they would have been under the Ireland code before partition they joined GB after partition.
AJRF 4y ago
Interestingly I get a sense among most young people in Northern Ireland that they are pro-union while very distinctly categorising NI as a country in itself. There is a party called the Alliance party that is attempting to offer an alternative to tribal politics of DUP/SF and they did quite good in recent election. Even with that being said, I think most younger people see the Union as a good thing, if even in just the economic sense. Somewhat less so than before Brexit but still the finances of NI look dire if they left the union.
- basisword 4y ago
  From what I’ve read, polling disagrees with you. Younger people tend to be much more in favour of Unity. I also wouldn’t confuse the Alliance vote with support for the Union. A lot of people who want a border poll in the medium term, also want sane, modern representation in the short term. Alliance is the answer to that.
- sentinalien 4y ago
  https://www.irishnews.com/news/northernirelandnews/2022/05/03/news/opinion-poll-shows-sinn-fe-in-most-popular-among-post-good-friday-agreement-generation-2658426/ https://www.irishnews.com/news/northernirelandnews/2022/05/0... That is incorrect, Sinn Fein are the most popular party with the younger demographic and Alliance are popular among middle aged people. The antediluvian politics of the DUP is more popular among the 18-34 cohort than Alliance.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
maccard 4y ago
Can you back up any of the very very _very_ bold claims you've made in this post? This comes across as someone who has absolutely no experience whatsoever with the situation and is is making a snap judgement based on their feelings > The UK claims it as a province, Ireland claims it as a part of Ireland, This is just nonsense. Neither the UK or Ireland claim anything of the sort. > independence is not very popular What does that have to do with its status as a country?
- zarzavat 4y ago
  > What does that have to do with its status as a country? Generally in a country you would expect to find some people (not necessarily the majority) who believe in the idea of that country as an independent, sovereign nation. Northern Ireland doesn’t have that. The vast majority of people in Northern Ireland want it to either be part of UK or of Ireland, and to the extent an independence movement exists it’s notable only for how incredibly un-popular it is. Why does it matter? Because if the population of a putative “country” don’t in fact see it as a country but rather as a territory of somewhere else, then the “country” descriptor would appear to have been externally applied.
  - logifail 4y ago
    > The vast majority of people in Northern Ireland want it to either be part of UK or of Ireland, and to the extent an independence movement exists it’s notable only for how incredibly un-popular it is I wonder what the mainland thinks? On that theme, I've ever pondered would happen if one were to hold a referendum in England, Wales and Northern Ireland about Scotland leaving the UK and becoming a sovereign state. Not least because of the Barnett formula[0], asking the Scots what they think of independence is surely only part of the puzzle. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnett_formula https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnett_formula
  - maccard 4y ago
    You've built your own definition of a country there, and it's such a dated definition of a country even Wikipedia straight up disagrees with you [0]. When talking about NI in particular, the rules are flexed but there is no doubt that it is not a requirement for a country to be an independent sovereign nation. > the “country” descriptor would appear to have been externally applied. You've made two generous leaps here - that the population don't consider it to be a country, and that the fact that an externally applied label on a state is invalid. It's incredibly dismissive of you to think that the people of NI don't think of it as country for a dtart, but your second point is just plain wrong. I can call Crimea a disputed territory with confidence, despite Russia claiming it's independent, for example. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Country
EdwardDiego 4y ago
> Northern Ireland (Irish: Tuaisceart Éireann [ˈt̪ˠuəʃcəɾˠt̪ˠ ˈeːɾʲən̪ˠ] (listen);[7] Ulster-Scots: Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom that is variously described as a country, province, territory or region. From Wiki, there's a bunch o links after that very first sentence. More from wiki: > For example, the websites of the Office of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom[99] and the UK Statistics Authority describe the United Kingdom as being made up of four countries, one of these being Northern Ireland.[100] Other pages on the same websites refer to Northern Ireland specifically as a "province" as do publications of the UK Statistics Authority.[101][102] The website of the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency also refers to Northern Ireland as being a province[103] as does the website of the Office of Public Sector Information[104] and other agencies within Northern Ireland.[105] Publications of HM Treasury[106] and the Department of Finance and Personnel of the Northern Ireland Executive,[107] on the other hand, describe Northern Ireland as being a "region of the UK". The UK's submission to the 2007 United Nations Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names defines the UK as being made up of two countries (England and Scotland), one principality (Wales) and one province (Northern Ireland).[108] And Ireland definitely doesn't claim it as part of the Republic.
- tankenmate 4y ago
  > And Ireland definitely doesn't claim it as part of the Republic. It should be noted that up until the Belfast Agreement (Good Friday Agreement) the Republic of Ireland constitution did claim all 32 counties as part of the Republic. A part of the Good Friday Agreement was amendments to the RoI constitution. On the flip side was a formal requirement for a border poll if it appeared to the UK Secretary of State that a majority of NI would want a border poll.
  - EdwardDiego 4y ago
    Yeah, I didn't bother mentioning the constitution because it doesn't affect the current situation.

imgabe 4y ago

Lots of things that aren't countries have flags. Every US state has a flag. Every gender identity and sexuality has a flag. McDonald's has a flag. You don't need to be a country to have a flag.

bryanrasmussen 4y ago
I suppose Eddie Izzard would have had to drastically change his routine if McDonalds had shown up in India first https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEx5G-GOS1k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEx5G-GOS1k

himinlomax 4y ago

England is a country. Scotland is a country. Wales is a country. Northern Ireland is ...