Category talk:Ireland

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This is perhaps ok as a "placeholder" if what is intended is a temporary place for articles. But there are already two categories: "Island of Ireland" and "Republic of Ireland". So a category of "Ireland" is redundant and ambiguous.

Ikari 23:31, 8 Jun 2004 (UTC)

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"Do you mean the Island of Ireland or the Republic of Ireland?"

Huh? I-- I don't know that! Auuuuuuuugh! -- Itai 16:32, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Forced partition of articles

Articles and subcategories related to Ireland should not be assigned to this category.

Says who? Who decided this?

For most purposes, using the suitably ambiguous "Ireland" is much less likely to give offence than FORCING the slotting into categories "Republic of Ireland", "Northern Ireland" or "Island of Ireland".

GAH! Furthermore, it's even WORSE to insist on only ONE of those categories being used! Instead, people SHOULD use the category "Ireland" where more than one of the above is involved - which is a LOT of situations.

Zoney 10:31, 18 Jun 2004 (UTC)

For most purposes, using the suitably ambiguous "Ireland" is much less likely to give offence than FORCING the slotting into categories "Republic of Ireland", "Northern Ireland" or "Island of Ireland".

"Republic of Ireland" and "Northern Ireland" are very useful categories to have. Articles only go into the most precise category to which they belong so if there are going to be categories called "Republic of Ireland" and "Northern Ireland" then it is in the nature of things that people have to put articles that apply to only one jurisdiction into that category and not into the category we use for the whole island.

Putting an article directly into the category "Northern Ireland" and not directly into "Ireland" as well is not a political statement. Any article in the category "Northern Ireland" is indirectly in the category "Island of Ireland" because "Northern Ireland" is a subcategory of "Island of Ireland". Places are simply categorised by the name of the smallest useful geographical unit to which they apply. So, similarly, putting Glasgow directly in "Scotland" and only indirectly in "United Kingdom" is not an endorsment of Scottish separatism.

GAH! Furthermore, it's even WORSE to insist on only ONE of those categories being used! Instead, people SHOULD use the category "Ireland" where more than one of the above is involved - which is a LOT of situations.

People definitely should put an article into a category designating the whole of Ireland when it applies to both parts of Ireland. But if there is to be a separate category for the Republic (which is highly useful) then a category called "Ireland" can only mean the island. If it is the island that is refered to then there is no purpose in using a deliberately ambiguous title.

In any case either "Ireland" or "Island of Ireland" has to go. "Island of Ireland" was created a while ago and now contains an awful lot of articles and subcategories so if you think that this category should be abolished and replaced by the current "Ireland" category i think that is a matter to be discussed on the "Island of Ireland" categorytalk page. In the meantime it's not a good idea to add more articles to the parallel "Ireland" category because the mess of having two parallel categories containing lots of articles will have to be cleaned up eventually.

Ikari 04:00, 8 Jul 2004 (UTC)

There is a debate on Categories for deletion at the moment about the reorganisation of the category hierarchy regarding Ireland. Personally, I think that everything in Category:Island of Ireland should be moved to Category:Ireland, but consensus needs to be reached in some form. — OwenBlacker 15:38, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Moved from WP:CFD

[edit] Irish reorganization

I'd like to ask that all of the following category names be disambiguated to include one of the following words: "Republic" "Northern" "island" "language" "ethnicity".

There are also currently 3 subcategories and 18 articles in Category:Ireland, which need to be moved to a less ambiguous place, as per the category's header.

(Also, something should be done with the childless orphans, Category:Transport_in_Ireland and Category:People_from_Northern_Ireland. -- Beland 05:47, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC))

(Oh, and Category:Sport_in_the_Republic_of_Ireland. -- Beland 05:55, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC))

In the course of reorganization...

Top-level island-wide subjects (for example, Category:Irish_mythology) should be cross-referenced from the top-level of the Republic and the North. And so on for second-level subjects, etc., as needed.

Some subjects are clearly separable; I'm not sure whether they should be cross-referenced from Category:Island of Ireland. For example, right now, we have Category:Towns_of_Ireland, which contains only Category:Towns_in_Northern_Ireland and Category:Towns_in_the_Republic_of_Ireland. Clearly, Category:Towns_of_Ireland should be deleted, but should the two subcategories then be included directly in Category:Island of Ireland?

Some categories are mixed. For example, in sports, some teams represent the island (like the Irish rugby union), and others represent one part or the other. Should there be a combined sports category, listing both Republic and Northern articles and subcategories?

The top-level structure looks like this as of 8 Sep:

Category:Northern_Ireland
Category:Airports_of_Northern_Ireland
Category:Counties_in_Northern_Ireland
Category:History_of_Northern_Ireland
Category:Northern_Ireland_people
Category:Northern_Ireland_political_parties
Category:Towns_in_Northern_Ireland
Category:Ireland
Category:Companies_of_Ireland
Category:Elections_in_Ireland
Category:Irish_cuisine
Category:Republic_of_Ireland
Category:Counties_of_the_Republic_of_Ireland
Category:History_of_the_Republic_of_Ireland
Category:Irish_Defence_Forces
Category:Military_of_the_Republic_of_Ireland
Category:Politics_of_the_Republic_of_Ireland
Category:Towns_in_the_Republic_of_Ireland
Category:Island_of_Ireland
Category:Counties_of_Ireland
Category:History_of_Ireland
Category:Irish_culture
Category:Irish_institutions
Category:Irish_mythology
Category:Irish_people
Category:Irish_political_parties
Category:Limerick_topics
Category:Northern_Ireland
Category:Provinces_of_Ireland
Category:Religion_in_Ireland
Category:Republic_of_Ireland
Category:Sport_in_Ireland
Category:Sport_in_Northern_Ireland
Category:Towns_of_Ireland
Category:Transportation_in_Ireland
Category:Ulster

The only extant replacement for the childless orphan Category:Northern_Irish_culture would be Category:Irish_culture. I'm not sure whether or not it should be deleted. -- Beland 05:47, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

There is a reasonable case for merging Sport_in_Ireland and Sport_in_Northern_Ireland as most sports I can think of i.e. Hurling, Gaelic football, rugby etc are all-Ireland and would need to be put into both categories. The main sport that isn't all-Ireland is soccer which could easily be solved by subcategories Republic_of_Ireland_soccer and Northern_Ireland_soccer.GordyB 20:53, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

No, I disagree quite strongly.
I don't see why all the categories need to be disambiguated. Certainly categories like Category:History of Ireland 1801-1922 shouldn't be altered — the articles are about the history of the whole island, before there was the division between the six counties in the North and the 26 in the Republic. I think the current situation where everything is in a category with a somewhat awkward name is definitely suboptimal. Why can we not have a category of Ireland, with subcategories of Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland; many of the articles in the category tree are about the whole island, and can go in subcats of Ireland and those which are only about one of the two nations on the island can go into the appropriate subcat. Most English speakers around the world couldn't give a fig for the awkward lexical gymnastics we go through so as not to offend small minorities of the people who care about the specifics.
Effectively, I'm suggesting that the hierarchy above (in preformatted text) be left as-is, but with Category:Island of Ireland deleted and its contents moved to Category:Ireland. I don't think Category:Ireland is ambiguous, if it then contains subcats of Category:Northern Ireland and Category:Republic of Ireland. — OwenBlacker 15:21, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC)
I completely agree. A precedent may be found at Category:Korea. -Sean Curtin 00:09, Sep 15, 2004 (UTC)
Sounds like good plan in the spiriti of cats. --Jerzy(t) 03:31, 2004 Sep 15 (UTC)

I'm not really offended by use of the short phrase "Ireland" to denote the whole of the island, but when I started to browse the category scheme, I was pretty confused about which subcategories and articles applied to which entities.

I started to notice there was a problem when it became clear that at least one person assumed "Sport in Ireland" means "Sport in the Republic of Ireland". Then I noticed the fact that "Republic of Ireland" seems to be poorly populated compared to "Ireland", and I began to suspect that this was a general phenomenon.

I'll agree that Category:History of Ireland 1801-1922 is a good candidate for being an exception, even though most Americans, at least, won't know that this was a period of Irish unification unless they visit the category and read the header.

The main benefit of including the word "island" in all general-Ireland categories is that it will become immediately obvious when people classify articles in the wrong place because they didn't bother to see if the category existed or was the right one. With the "island" proposal, these would quickly show up in Category:Orphaned categories from an automated scan. --Beland 05:47, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Just add a preamble to each category stating that it is an all-Ireland category or one for purely R of I or NI articles. I created a British Sport category for articles that could not be put in English sport, Scottish sport etc. and added the preamble with links to the other categories.GordyB 16:59, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

In the cases of Category:Constitution_of_Ireland and Category:Presidents_of_Ireland using the word "republic" would not be correct in renaming of these. The Constitution of Ireland and President of Ireland legally exist irrespctive of ideas of assigning Republic/Northern Ireland identifiers to disambig. Djegan 22:03, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I strongly oppose deleting or renaming 'Irish' categories.
Does anyone seriously think that a category such as Category:Religion_in_Ireland isn't useful or historically valid?
Categories relating to Irish culture, geography etc should certainly not be reorganised as NI/RoI categories. Island_of_Ireland suggests a geographical bent to related categories which would clearly be inappropriate. The very existence of RoI categories should be enough to make it obvious what the 'Irish' categories refer to. If there is a problem here, perhaps it's insufficient use of RoI categories in the circumstances where that is appropriate.
In my view, only matters which relate primarily to NI or RoI since 1921 should be divided exclusively into NI and RoI categories. For example, most of the history of any given Irish town relates to the period before partition.
Another example: Irish writers since 1921 may usefully be categorised as RoI or Northern Ireland writers but they're very clearly part of a literary culture which predates partition and their categorisation as 'Irish writers' is quite arguably more important.Palmiro 15:23, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I agree completely with Palmiro. For instance, the 'Irish poets' cat lists poets from all over the island of Ireland writing in English, Irish, or (not infrequently) both. They're Irish poets. If you studed Irish poetry at university, you might encounter any or all of them. Please leave these things as they are unless there is some mutually exclusive element. But be wary of apparent exclusivities. You could not write the history of one of the entities from, say, 1922 until today without heavy inclusion of the other! Filiocht 08:17, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I strongly disagree with partitioning the Irish categories into Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland, except where appropriate. It is much better for any non-political topics to be ambiguously "Irish". This avoids politicisation. For a start, concerning famous people who have to be put into categories, for some people it is entirely inappropriate to force them into some kind of "Republican"/"Northerner" categorisation. Ireland is also a much shorter and easier term to apply. It's also correct whether RoI or NI is the place of origin. zoney ♣ talk 12:43, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Well, it seems people have rather complex opinions on this topic. Let me ask some more specific questions so we can try to come to some agreement.... -- Beland 06:24, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Strongly separated categories

1.) Which things should be split up into Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland, with no overlap?

My best guesses based on the discussion so far and current practice:

  • Airports
  • Counties
  • Cities
  • Towns
  • Militaries

Is anything missing from this list? Anything that's here that shouldn't be? What about politicians, political parties, elections, companies, airlines, banks, education systems, etc.? Things that are totally or partly mixed we can deal with in a subsequent discussion - to start with, I'm just asking which things are completely separate? -- Beland 06:24, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

  • There are not so many airports (certainly in NI), it makes sense to keep them together, without unnecessary subdivision.
  • There are not so many cities, it makes sense to keep them in cities in Ireland.
  • For the towns, any subdivision is good, and as such, having RoI/NI split is good, although we could/should go further and have Category:Towns in Limerick, Category:Towns in Armagh, Category:Towns in Westmeath, i.e. split by county. This would make correlating the lists of towns for the County pages (see County Cork) much easier. This method of division makes it more geographical and less political.
  • Counties should not be split. There's 32 traditional counties, of the whole island. Northern Ireland has its own "administrative" county/borough divisions, there's pages for these, e.g. Down (district) and they should be in a NI category. Similarly if we ever have pages for the RoI county-level authorities (there's not 26, there's more, because Tipperary is split in 2, and Dublin into 4, with city councils in Limk, Cork, etc.) they go into an RoI category. (We do have North Tipperary and South Tipperary, causing problems as they don't belong with the traditional counties, and duplicate the main county info. So I think rebranding to reflect the local authorities and having a category for those is in order. In summary I propose:
  • Military organisation articles should be divided, though paramilitaries should perhaps not be.
  • Essentially, the other items you suggested, the best solution is to handle them as they arise. If it ends up not well organised, bring it up on talk pages and ask for reorganisation. It's not necessarily possible to discern in advance (in some cases before the articles are there) what categories will be needed. We will pay attention to categories on the Wikipedia:Irish wikipedians' notice board though, and consider it as something to have an eye kept on, and something to try to keep organised. zoney ♣ talk 10:22, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
    • Agree completely. Filiocht 10:30, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I also agree with Zoney's suggestions. Political institutions etc in general should probably also be separate, insofar as there are relevant categories (local authorities, political parties, politicians). The small number of all-Ireland parties can happily sit in the Category:Irish_political_parties and perhaps the Republic-only parties should be cleared out of it (PDs and Clann na Poblachta are currently in there - did the Clann ever organise in the North?)
For paramilitaries it's a bit more complicated as the loyalist ones have only been organised in the North (with the exception of the Ulster Volunteers in the remaining three Ulster counties pre-1921) While we're on the topic, perhaps it would be an idea to rename Category:Terrorist_organizations_in_Northern_Ireland as Category:Paramilitary_organizations_in_Northern_Ireland? Given that this is the word most commonly used in Ireland for these organisations and given all the POV-type problems with the term terrorist this might be appropriate. The main problem is that there is a broader Category:Terrorist_organizations which the current one fits into more handily.Palmiro 19:27, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

2.) How should completely separate items be handled?

  • A. Include "Foo of Northern Ireland" and "Foo of the Republic of Ireland" each in their own country and the meta-category ("Ireland" or "Island of Ireland" or whatever we decide to call it.)
  • B. Include a "see also Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland" in the meta-category.
  • C. Include a "Foo of Northern Ireland" and "Foo of the Republic of Ireland" in a meta sub-category, "Foo in Ireland" or "Foo on the Island of Ireland" or whatever we decide to call it.

I recommend A, and I dislike C. Please feel free to make additional suggestions. -- Beland

[edit] Redundant Irish sportspeople

-- Beland 03:36, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

No as to the third pair:
Category:Northern_Ireland_footballers
should be a sub-category of
Category:Northern_Irish_football
and (by some collection of intemediate categories) also a descendant of
Category:People
But Category:Northern_Irish_football
cannot be a descendant of
Category:People
since some of its descendants will be team histories, tournament articles, articles on rules and strategy, etc., rather than exclusively bio articles.
--Jerzy(t) 05:25, 2004 Sep 15 (UTC)

I'd rather have Irish sport and Northern Irish sport than Sport in Ireland and Sport in Northern Ireland. At least they start with the name of the country, at the moment in the list of sport by countries every other countries' sport section is English sport, Scottish sport etc. to find the Irish entries you need to look under 'S'GordyB 22:10, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

You need to have Category:Footballers from Northern Ireland and Category:Football in Northern Ireland. "Northern Irish" is a modern "fudge", not accepted by many people in the region. Ultimately, people from the area are more likely to call themselves Irish, British, both or simply say they are "from Northern Ireland". It's a sticky issue - certainly the crude use of "Northern Irish" is to be avoided. zoney ♣ talk 10:23, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Note that in the specific case of soccer, we have the Football Association of Ireland and the Irish Football Assocation governing the sport south and north respectively. Northern Irish is not widely used here as an adjective, partly because it is ambiguous (Donegal is 'Northern Irish' but not in Northern Ireland, for instance). Category:Footballers from Northern Ireland and Category:Football in Northern Ireland follow the most common usage of us natives and are more valid than the alternatives. Filiocht 10:47, Dec 1, 2004 (UTC)
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