What to call the 'British Isles'?

[♥ Lily ♥]

Albion is the ancient name for the main British Isle of Great Britain. (The reason why our island is called 'Great Britain' is due to it being the largest sized island within the thousands of British Isles.)

Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales) has a total 6,289 islands, mostly in Scotland: http://www.sovereignty.org.uk/featur...icles/uk6.html

Albion is an alternative name for the island of Great Britain. It is sometimes used poetically to refer to the island, but has fallen out of common use in English. The name for Scotland in most of the Celtic languages is related to Albion: Alba in Scottish Gaelic, Albain (genitive Alban) in Irish, Nalbin in Manx and Alban in Welsh and Cornish. These names were later Latinised as Albania and Anglicised as Albany, which were once alternative names for Scotland.

New Albion and Albionoria ("Albion of the North") were briefly suggested as names of Canada during the period of the Canadian Confederation. Arthur Phillip, first leader of the colonisation of Australia, originally named Sydney Cove "New Albion", but later the colony acquired the name "Sydney".

The White Cliffs of Dover along the south coast of England may have given rise to the name Albion. (Sailors and travellers would recognise our island by the white cliffs along the coast.)

The Common Brittonic name for the island, Hellenised as Albíōn (Ἀλβίων) and Latinised as Albiōn (genitive Albionis), derives from the Proto-Celtic nasal stem *Albi̯iū (oblique *Albiion-) and survived in Old Irish as Albu (genitive Albann). The name originally referred to Britain as a whole, but was later restricted to Caledonia (giving the modern Scottish Gaelic name for Scotland, Alba). The root *albiio- is also found in Gaulish and Galatian albio- ("world") and Welsh elfydd (elbid, "earth, world, land, country, district"). It may be related to other European and Mediterranean toponyms such as Alpes, and Albania. It has two possible etymologies. It may derive from the Proto-Indo-European root *albho-, meaning "white" (cf. Latin albus). This is perhaps in reference to the white southern shores of the island, though Celtic linguist Xavier Delamarre argued that it originally meant "the world above, the visible world", in opposition to "the world below", i.e., the underworld. Alternatively it may derive from the Proto-Indo-European root *alb-, meaning "hill".


The Codex Vatopedinus's Ptolemy's map of the British Isles, labelled "Ἀλουΐων" (Alouíōn, "Albion") and Ἰουερνία (Iouernía, "Hibernia"). c. 1300

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albion

Some people here still like to use the ancient term of 'Albion' for our island, such as the English singer and musician Pete Doherty, who made a song called 'Albion'.


I'm not too keen on the term 'Albion' though, incase people misinterpret it with 'albinos'. (We already get teased for being pale, so I think the term 'Albion' would result in people twisting the word and making crude jokes.)

It's like the demonym for people who live on the Greek island of Crete is a 'Cretan', and that term makes me cringe as it sounds like 'cretin' (which is an offensive slang term for a very stupid person.)

The Isle of Man is unique as they have a Celtic language, the world's oldest Viking Parliament and customs (still in use to this day,) a unique flag, and Manx cats are born without tails.

The Isle of Wight is apt as the cliffs surrounding it are white.

[Voskos]

British isles are not sovereign anymore due to anglosphere influence. Which is rather sad by the way.

[♥ Lily ♥]

As for the British Isles as a whole (which includes Ireland - from a geographic viewpoint,) ... I dunno, you could just call all 6000+ British Isles as 'The Isles' - as some people in the U.K. and U.S. and other nations already sometimes do... or just call the inhabitants as 'The Islanders.'



I guess something more specific is needed to distinguish it from other islands around the globe... I think British Isles is fine.

[Dawnbringer]

90% of Irish Americans have converted to Protestantism, the only Irish Catholics live in large cities, rare to find an Irish Catholic in average America.

Surveys in the 1990s show that of Americans who identify themselves as "Irish", 51% said they were Protestant and 36% identified as Catholic. In the South, Protestants account for 73% of those claiming Irish origins, while Catholics account for 19%. In the North, 45% of those claiming Irish origin are Catholic, while 39% are Protestant.

https://books.google.com/books?id=7f...antism&f=false

Among Irish Americans from the Northeastern U.S. the majority are still Catholic, and with all regions outside the Southern U.S they are still the largest group. Many Irish here intermarried with other groups, but they have historically done so with other Catholics. First with German Catholics who immigrated at about the same time, later with Southern Italian Catholics and Polish Catholics.

Most "Irish"-Americans from the Southern United States are descended from Ulster-Scots and thus not of true Irish Gaelic origin, but are rather mostly descended from the Scottish Lowlands. Many Scots-Irish Americans identify as Irish when they are ethnically distinct from the Irish-Catholics who came mostly to the Northeastern United States states in the mid-19th century to flee the Irish Potato Famine.

[PaleoEuropean]

Yea most live in Ny, Chicago, Boston etc. There are tons of pre-1900's non-Ulster Scots Irish all over that are not catholic. The South is full of Colonial/settler Irish, so is the west and the majority aren't catholic. They are few and far between in most areas of the country, most are Baptist, Pentecostal etc. Can find definite Irish families all over Texas, Appalachia, Arkansas, California who are not Catholics.

[Creoda]

Most Americans even of Irish or Scottish descent call themselves English or British which is pretty funny. The only time they call themselves Irish or Scottish is if they have Mc or Mac in their name.

They definitely don't on the US census.

Outside of England itself, I've never heard of Irish descended people identifying as English. It's blasphemy. Similarly, the only 'Irish' outside of Britain that tend to identify as British are Ulster Scots, who are of British descent. Their American Scots-Irish descendants on the other hand are far more likely to identify as Irish than British when they're in fact of mostly British descent.

[PaleoEuropean]

They definitely don't on the US census.

Outside of England itself, I've never heard of Irish descended people identifying as English. It's blasphemy. Similarly, the only 'Irish' outside of Britain that tend to identify as British are Ulster Scots, who are of British descent. Their American Scots-Irish descendants are far more likely to identify as Irish than British when they're in fact of mostly British descent.

Times are changing, 20-25 years ago, nobody identified as anything but British or English XD. The only people who identify as Irish are east coasters or people who's family immigrated in the 1900's that live elsewhere. You can go to places like Alabama and West Virginia that have large Irish populations of Southern Irish descent that identify as English or British, really depends on if they are catholic or not.

[Dawnbringer]

Times are changing, 20-25 years ago, nobody identified as anything but British or English XD. The only people who identify as Irish are east coasters or people who's family immigrated in the 1900's that live elsewhere. You can go to places like Alabama and West Virginia that have large Irish populations of Southern Irish descent that identify as English or British, really depends on if they are catholic or not.

All of my Irish ancestors immigrated in the 19th century. Most in the mid-19th century. All Catholics.

[PaleoEuropean]

All of my Irish ancestors immigrated in the 19th century. Most in the mid-19th century. All Catholics.

Yea but you live on the east coast, go to a place like Tennessee which has had steady Irish immigration and even had Irish immigrant fighting units during the Civil War. The east coast is a small scope of Irish people, Irish American history doesn't start at Ellis Island, even the Scots-Irish has a bunch of Irish and Anglo-Irish lumped into it. The vast majority of Irish people live in all over the Southern, Central and Western U.S.A I have traveled all over, I shit you not.

[Dawnbringer]

Yea but you live on the east coast, go to a place like Tennessee which has had steady Irish immigration and even had Irish immigrant fighting units during the Civil War. The east coast is a small scope of Irish people, Irish American history doesn't start at Ellis Island, even the Scots-Irish has a bunch of Irish and Anglo-Irish lumped into it. The vast majority of Irish people live in all over the Southern, Central and Western U.S.A I have traveled all over, I shit you not.

Of course they are widespread as Irish-Americans are second largest ethnic group in the U.S. by reported ancestry at around 10% of the overall population.

Look at this map, though:




The greatest concentration of self-reporting Irish-Amercians is in the Northeast.

Also, Ellis Island was established in 1892 when the vast majority of Irish immigration to the U.S. had already happened. Coffin ships went straight to New York or Boston harbor. I think your confusing the 19th century with the 1900s.

The Union Army had its own Irish brigade.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_...e_(Union_Army)

200,000 Irish natives fought in the Union Army, almost all of them Catholics.

40,000 Irish natives fought in the Confederate Army, also mostly Catholics at the time. Most of these Irish immigrants assimilated into Protestant Southern society, but not all. 19% of Southern Irish-Americans are Catholic after all.

The Irish in the Western U.S. are more assimilated into the general population than in the Northeast.

Irish-American history goes back far in the Northeast.