Category talk:British people of Irish descent

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This category was nominated for deletion, renaming, or merging with another category on 2007 April 19. The result of the discussion was keep.

This category was nominated for deletion, renaming, or merging with another category on 2007 May 11. The result of the discussion was keep.

Where is the evidence that any of these people have "one Irish grandparent, or two Irish grandparents". Why the arbitrary choice anyway? Martine McCutcheon has a Scottish stepfather, who despite the name may well be of Irish descent. But I mean, is that enough? 130.159.254.2 12:12, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

What actually is the point of this? It seems arbitrary to me. Our islands have a history of migration and marriage between communities, and I don't think it's rare for an Englishman to have some Irish blood or vice versa. Furthermore, why is there no category for people of English/Welsh/Scottish descent in Ireland? This seems to me simply propaganda. --kingboyk 02:28, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

It has a long and convoluted history. I originally created it as Irish British people to denote Irish people who had lived most of their life in Great Britain like Oscar Wilde, Richard Brinsley Sheridan etc. It was then split to Irish people in Great Britain and this category, but unfortunately the more verifiable and useful cat was deleted. Arniep 09:00, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the above criticism. Where is the evidence or the citations for the majority of these people? The only evidence I can possibly see in many of the cases is the surname criterion, and that is an especially bad way to gauge the ancestry of anyone. I would be very surprised, if the majority of these people listed are a quarter "Irish" in any way. Globaltraveller 14:52, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Why on earth do Irish-Scots have their own category? What sense does it make to have to have one category supposedly covering Great Britain but then take Scotland out of it? Either split this into separate England, Wales, Scotland cats or do away with the Scottish subcat.195.93.21.70 13:46, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

How do I go about nominating this for deletion again? It's an absolutely ridiculous category. Irish Americans I suppose I can understand,similarly Irish Australians but Irish Britons is just farcical. Tony Adams was a notoriously patriotic Englishman who captained his nation on countless occassions. The fact that he may have had a granny from Donegal doesnt strike me as even remotely significant. The Irish as a nation can point to a massively rich history of native Irish men and women achieving fame and recognition. They continue to do so today with some of the most influential musicians, actors, businessmen,(and countless other categories) alive. Why then the frankly tacky attempt to pin the Irish tag on people who identify themselves, often passionately with their birth nation rather than that of their grandparents? Really, dreadful nonsense.

[edit] Tracy Neve

Tracy Neve should be added to this list.

[edit] Sarah Harding

Sarah Harding should be added to this list. Her grandmother (my great aunt) was born and raised in Cabra, Dublin. =Anne Boleyn=Anne Boleyn should be added as her paternal grandmother, Margaret Butler,daughter of the Irish Earl of Ormond,was born in Kilkenny Castle.jeanne (talk) 10:31, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] I'm doing a bit of a trim

I am going through this category and removing the entries which are there only by assertion or consist only of a category, with no assertion in the text. Previous sweeps like this have yielded the removal of up to 90% of a category. Could people please remember that, per WP:V and WP:BLP, when adding this category there needs to be a verifiable assertion that the person's ethnicity is significant to their notability. This is especially important when dealing with articles on living people. Can I also ask, who came up with the criterion on a quarter "Irish blood"? It looks like original research to me, and I propose to remove it. What should it be replaced with? --John (talk) 04:42, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I've trimmed the arbitrary criterion and borrowed some text from a sub cat. What do people think? Any help with the trim would be appreciated; it's an enormous job. --John (talk) 05:51, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, I've finished removing the entries which did not satisfy WP:V. Let's try to keep the category factual in future. For reference, a surname is not sufficient to establish ethnicity. --John (talk) 21:00, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

These removals have generated comment at my talk, as I feared they might, so I thought I'd make this further comment here. You'll notice two main differences if you browse the category now, as compared to before my clean-up. One, it is much shorter. As in previous ethnic categories I've looked at, most members of the category were there either only as an assertion, or else not at all but merely as a category.

The second difference is that now, the category is more accurate, as all the entries on it are verifiable to a reasonable source (whether IMDB can truly be considered as such is another matter for another forum).

I hope you'll agree with me that the category is more accurate now. It is thus more useful to the user, as well as adhering more closely to our standards. --John (talk) 05:02, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

John, it's one thing to ask for sources, but it's another thing to blindly remove articles from the category without at least doing some basic checks. You removed from this category both Clare Short and Kevin McNamara, two politicians whose articles clearly assert their Irish ancestry and for whom it is highly relevant because campaigning on Irish issues was a major feature of their political careers, a fact which you could easily have confirmed by a very quick bit of googling. Being Irish is not a negative attribute like being labelled a criminal, and does not need to be instantly removed per WP:BLP.

In future, where Irish ancestry is asserted in the text but is unreferenced or inadequately referenced, please just use a {{fact}} tag rather than immediately removing the article from the category. And above all, please start using a bit of common sense: if there wasn't a reference for Gordon Brown being Scottish, you wouldn't remove the relevant categories, you'd tag the point or go and find a reference. In removing rubbish from this category, you have not only failed to apply that common sense, you have also reduced the usefulness of the category by removing some of the most notable people from it. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:01, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

The most interesting part of your comment is your insistence on "common sense". I often find people who appeal to "common sense" do so because they have little else to support their arguments. I think you'll find that the policies WP:V and WP:BLP trump the essay you referred me to. I'll continue to ensure our ethnic categories adhere to our core values as described in these policies; it would be great to think you could help me rather than sniping, and making bad-faith accusations at every turn in future. --John (talk) 03:21, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

John, my assumption of good faith crashing went out the window when you persisted in arguing against the retention of Clare Short in this category despite my producing a reliable ref to support it, and when continued to pursue the removal of Kevin McNamara from the category. Asking for references is great, but how on earth do you think you are improving wikipedia by removing from a category two of the most prominent people who belong in it? This looks like you disrupting Wikipedia to make a point :( --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 03:44, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm glad you agree that asking for references is great. That's essentially what I am doing. It's great that you've provided references to restore two entries to the category (though you should remember to put them in articles rather than just on talk in future). --John (talk) 05:08, 11 May 2008 (UTC)