What do people in the ROI call the 'British Isles'?

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john N

Irish people don't have a problem with this as Britain and the British Isles are named after a Celtic people who inhabited the region long before there were Anglo-Saxons -
The Romans called Britain Britannia after the Britons who were supplanted eventually by Anglo-Saxons and ended up in Wales, Cornwall, Britanny in France (where they speak the Celtic language "Breton") and Ireland...

The Irish word for England is "Sasana" (Saxon-land) and the Irish word for Wales is Breathnach Beag (little Britain) - English people are Sasanach and Welsh are Breathnach - There is an anglicised Irish name called Brunnock that comes from this....

The Romans called Ireland Hibernia which means "winterland"... and Scotland was called Caledonia..
The Irish Celts were dubbed "Scoti" which means raider or whatever... It is from this name that Scotland gets its name....

The Brythonic Celts (Wales, Cornwall, Britanny), called P-Celts, were a different Celtic people to the Goidelic Celts - Q-Celts (Isle of Mann, Scotland, Ireland)...

The reason for the P & Q is that the languages each gruop spoke derived from a common ancestor - The Q-Celts retained an Q sound in words such as "Ceann" (head) which changed in the P Celtic languages to P as in the Welsh "Penn" (also head)...

So I guess the answer is that Irish people don't really care......................

MUSICGUY

i'm from ROI and i don't take any offence to GB and ROI being called The British Isles,i'm not childish nd have better things to do,and anyway it's purely a geographical term
so i'd call them the british isles also

sure why would be offended anyway,the british aren't offended by the fact that the body of water that seperates us is called "The Irish Sea"

Avondrow

British Isles is geographical term, it does not have the same political connotation as Great Britain

boofuswoolie

HIBERNIA INSULA EST

BRITANNIA INSULA EST

That was good enough for Julius Caesar

PTOLEMY did not lump the islands in name either

It's a John Bull thing .....We sensible IRISH have scant regard for JB's fantasies

Anthropologically IRELAND, ISLE of MAN and SCOTLAND
are GAELIC CELTS
WALES ,CORNWALL and BRITTANY are BRYTON CELTS
We IRISH, are patient with BRITANNIC IGNORANCE
BTW, have you ever heard of THE BRITISH SEA ... I know the IRISH SEA and the CELTIC SEA and to the best of my humble nowledge, there is NO ROOM for Brit. one .. now take that!!

Orla C

'Hibernian Archipelago'! Oh that's funny .... never heard that one before.

I'm from Ireland and go with the designation 'British Isles' because it's geographical. However, if you're going to get political, you have to call them other names.

neonjack

you're right about the term 'british isles'. i'm from the republic and i've never heard of a different collective term. generally, it's the republic, the north, and most people would use the name 'england' when referring to england, scotland and wales.hope this helps.

david d

It is an offensive term, and confuses the issue. It's often used by Unionists as a political term, to imply a union where none really exists.

I use the Term 'Irish Isles' for mainland Ireland and it's islands, but in general I call all the islands the IONA
(islands of the north atlantic).

The term 'British' is a misnomer as it WAS used by the English to refer those places on these islands under English occupation.

Misty Blue

B0ll0x Irish people don't care.Yeah if your a D4 type.Doesn't go down well in Donegal.Ireland is Ireland.The British can please themselves.

Pyro

England rofl!! I know I know its wrong but I grew up with the land next door being England, I cant help it, I just blurt it out!!