Who do you consider British?

[Graham]

It's not like Ireland spoke the P-Celtic Briton Language..For which the name Britain is connected too.

How far back does the terminology of the British Isles go..and if people referred to themselves as British a few centuries before 1707? Or if the term was a revival?

Romans?

Scotland & England were two different political entities & Nations during the Plantations of Ireland.

There was even a split between the Presbyterian Scots & Anglican English settlers in Ireland.

[Albion]

People with British Passports (not frauds) usually English, Irish, Welsh, Scottish, Islanders such as Isle of Man ect...

and I include South Irish too as I would like to live long enough to see the two parts come together, under British Flags, or under Irish Flags no matter to me, my aunt had a hotel in Belfast, It was bombed in 1983, and the whole family came to live in Brittan, the council gave them a 4 bedroom house, for the family of 19...

Whereas now if you're from outside of Europe you'll get a 6 bedroom house for 3.

There is a Council of the Isles. Its stated aim is to "promote the harmonious and mutually beneficial development of the totality of relationships among the peoples of these islands".

I don't think it will ever go back to the days when Ireland was part of the UK but there should be a close relationship that recognises the shared history and kinship that a lot of Irish and British people have. Most Irish people have relatives in the UK and this has been the case for generations. Possibly the Republic of Ireland could be part of some loose association with Britain. There was some talk of the Republic of Ireland rejoining the Commonwealth but I don't know if that will happen in the foreseeable future.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British...3Irish_Council

It's a good idea, but the council doesn't really do much. Its range of functions should be extended and it needs to adopt a larger profile. Also, England must be included. It is a disgrace that England isn't represented independently whilst the other nations are.

They aren't

Great Britain was created in 1707, between England/Wales & Scotland.

When Ireland joined in 1801..United Kingdom of Great Britain & Ireland was created.

The UK is a newer concept than the US, older than the similar EU. Funny that.

You're playing on technicalities. Ireland has been attached to England for centuries. The UK isn't newer than the USA, it's just changed its name a few times and incorporated and latter let Ireland go. Just because America took control of the Midwest, lost the southern states and regained them it doesn't make it a different country.

You need to research the history of the place names. 'British Isles' far pre-dates any other name given to these islands and was applied to the entire archipelago.
That the Normans changed the big island to 'Great Britain' doesn't change anything. Ireland is Ireland, GB should be called 'Albion' and the islands as a whole are 'British Isles'. The sooner people stop thinking of it in terms of politics, the better. Calling the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland 'Britain' is like calling the Netherlands 'Holland'. We only call it 'Britain' because UK of GB and NI is such a mouthful.

If NI left the union then somehow I don't think 'the United Kingdom of Albion' would catch on. Probably too close to 'Albania'.

[Incel King]

British could be every citizen of United Kingdom but in my book I consider as British all British Isles and folks native to them.

[Albion]

I'm not ignoring ethnicity. People from Ireland are Irish, people from Britain are British, which includes Scottish, Welsh, English etc... And they are both very similar.

Why consider them politically then? Forget politics, our ties go back further than 1707.

It's not like Ireland spoke the P-Celtic Briton Language..For which the name Britain is connected too.

They probably had a similar term. 'Prydain' (Britain) is just the preserved P-Celtic version (preserved via Welsh?)

How far back does the terminology of the British Isles go..and if people referred to themselves as British a few centuries before 1707? Or if the term was a revival?

Romans?

The Romans referred to the whole archipelago as the British Isles. The oldest known name for the largest island (GB) is 'Albion', although it seems to have been replaced by 'Britannia' by the Romans and then became 'Grande Bretagne' (Big Britain) to differ it from Brittany (Little Britain...)

Scotland & England were two different political entities & Nations during the Plantations of Ireland.

What does that have to do with anything?

There was even a split between the Presbyterian Scots & Anglican English settlers in Ireland.

Yes. More Presbyterian settled, but Ireland was still largely English-run. The Scots tried to nick NI but latter ended up settling there en mass anyway. It still strikes me as strange how the English settled and continually assimilated for 800 years and yet Scots who are ethnically related couldn't do the same.
Once republicanism became a native Irish / Catholic thing, they suddenly become unionist, protestant diehards over night.

[Smaug]

They all can be called British, even the Northern Irish I suppose.

[Graham]

Yes. More Presbyterian settled, but Ireland was still largely English-run. The Scots tried to nick NI but latter ended up settling there en mass anyway. It still strikes me as strange how the English settled and continually assimilated for 800 years and yet Scots who are ethnically related couldn't do the same.
Once republicanism became a native Irish / Catholic thing, they suddenly become unionist, protestant diehards over night.

Presbyterians were put under penel laws like the Catholics..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_Laws_(Ireland)

Scots have been settling Ulster, for like ever. The Catholics there are about as related to Scots as the protestants. It's only a bit older.

[Albion]

Albion:

Albion (Ancient Greek: Ἀλβίων) is the oldest known name of the island of Great Britain. Today, it is still sometimes used poetically to refer to the island. The name for Scotland in the Celtic languages is related to Albion: Alba in Scottish Gaelic, Albain in Irish, Nalbin in Manx and Alban in Welsh/Cornish/Breton. These names were later Latinized as Albania and Anglicized as Albany, which were once alternative names for Scotland. New Albion and Albionoria ("Albion of the North") were briefly suggested as possible names of Canada during the period of the Canadian Confederation.

The derivation of the name Albion is discussed by Eilert Ekwall in an article entitled "Early names of Britain" published in Antiquity in 1930.

Gallo-Romance Albiōn (cf. Middle Irish Albbu) derives from the Proto-Celtic * Alb-i̯en-, sharing the same stem as Welsh elfydd "earth, world", together with other European and Mediterranean toponyms such as Alpes and Albania has two possible etymologies, both plausible: either *albho-, a Proto-Indo-European root meaning "white" (in reference to the white southern shores of the island), or *alb-, Proto-Indo-European for "hill".

British Isles and Albion:

The early writer (6th century BC), whose periplus was translated by Avienus at the end of the 4th century (see Massaliote Periplus), does not use the name Britannia; instead he speaks of nesos 'Iernon kai 'Albionon: the islands of the Ierni and the Albiones. [Albion (GB) and Eire (Ireland)] Likewise, Pytheas of Massilia (ca. 320 BC) speaks of Albion and Ierne. [B]But Pytheas' grasp of the νῆσος Πρεττανική nêsos Prettaniké (Britanic island) is somewhat blurry, and appears to include anything he considers a western island, including Thule. [So he thought it included Iceland perhaps]

The name was used by Isadorus Charactacenis and subsequently by many classical writers. By the 1st century AD, the name refers unequivocally to Great Britain. The Pseudo-Aristotelian text De mundo (393b) has:
Ἐν τούτῳ γε μὴν νῆσοι μέγισται τυγχάνουσιν οὖσαι δύο, Βρεττανικαὶ λεγόμεναι, Ἀλβίων καὶ Ἰέρνη
"the largest islands they reached were two, called the Britannic [isles], Albion and Iernē."

Pliny the Elder, in his Natural History (4.16.102) likewise has:
"It was itself named Albion, while all the islands about which we shall soon briefly speak were called the Britanniae.[4] "

In his Geographia, Ptolemy, writing in the 2nd Century AD, uses the name "Albion" instead of the Roman name Brittania; possibly following the commentaries of Marinus of Tyre.[5]

In 930, the English King Æthelstan used the title: rex et primicerius totius Albionis regni[6] ("King and chief of the whole realm of Albion"). His nephew King Edgar styled himself Totius Albionis imperator augustus (August emperor of all Albion) in 970.[7]

Thus - 'British Isles' is correct, GB should be called 'Albion' and 'Britain' / 'Great Britain' is a misnomer by the Romans when they named their province and by Normans when they needed a name for the whole island.

[Graham]

If it weren't for all the invaders. We'd all be United singing kumbaya, holding hands, round a fire. Then melting marshmallows.

Living in harmony, peace & all that pish.

[Jackson]

Well, the way i consider it British = Someone from Britain. Britain = One of the Islands in the British Isles. So someone from Ireland is from the British Isles, but they are Irish, as they are from the second main island known as Ireland.

But maybe i've spent too long in the Republic of Ireland, and they've converted me over to their heretical thinking that the vast majority consider themselves Irish and not British.

So maybe the name Ireland is redundant, and shouldn't be used?

[Graham]

Albion you have Norn Irish ancestry from what I can remember?