Home Nations

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A map of the Home Nations of the UK
*Red: England *Green: Northern Ireland *Blue: Scotland *Yellow: Wales

"Home nation" (common noun) redirects here; home nation is also used to refer to the host country of multi-sport events (eg. the Olympics), or other international sports championships.

Home Nations (often written as the common noun home nations) is a collective term used to refer to the four constituent countries of the United Kingdom (UK) as separate entities, and distinct from the UK as states:

The British media frequently^{[citation needed]} use the term Home Nations to include Ireland as a whole, often when referring to sporting events. Although the Republic of Ireland is no longer part of the UK, it is generally considered to have an especially close sporting relationship with Britain. British television channels like Sky Sports and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) give plentiful coverage to the Irish national rugby union and football teams, while Irish channels like Radio Telefís Éireann (RTÉ) cover British events such as the Premier League however they don't use the term home nations with reference to Ireland.

Occasionally the term Home Countries is used.^[1]

[edit] Sporting events

'Home Nations' is often used in reference to sporting events in which each nation competes separately, such as rugby union's Six Nations Championship and the now defunct British Home Championship in association football.

Between 1883 and 1909, what is now the Six Nations was played between England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales and was known as the Home International Championship; it reverted to that name when, from 1932 to 1939, France was excluded from the tournament even though, by then, Ireland had been partitioned into Northern Ireland (part of the UK) and the independent Irish Free State (Republic of Ireland from 1949). The term continues to be used in rugby union and rugby league:^[2] the Ireland national rugby union team and Ireland national rugby league team both draw players from the Republic and Northern Ireland. The term "Home Union" is used to refer to the four national governing bodies.^[3]

In football, the British Home Championship (also known as the Home International Championship) was an annual competition contested between the UK's four national teams, England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland (later, Northern Ireland), between 1884-1914, 1919-1939, and 1946-1984.

Other sports which use the term "Home Nations" include boxing, cricket,^[4] curling,^[5] cycling,^[1] disabled sports,^[5] fencing, hockey, golf, mountaineering, rowing, rugby league, skiing, swimming and tennis.

The term is also used to refer to the seven representative teams — England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey — from the British Islands that participate in the Commonwealth Games.^[1]