British Isles

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For an explanation of often confusing terms like (Great) Britain, United Kingdom, British, Irish, England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, and the Republic of Ireland see British Isles (terminology).

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The British Isles is a geographical and ecological term for the archipelago of islands off the northwest coast of Europe, including Great Britain (the largest island in the group), the island of Ireland, the Isle of Man, and several thousand smaller adjacent islands. The geographical British Isles are not synonymous with the United Kingdom since the Republic of Ireland and crown dependencies such as the Isle of Man are usually included.

The term is generally understood to refer to the whole archipelago; south to north from Scilly to Shetland, and west to east from the Blasket Islands to East Anglia - containing more than 6,000 islands and totalling 315,134 km² (121,674 square miles) of land.

Due to the implications of the use of the adjective British, this nomenclature is not universally accepted, even within the archipelago.

1 Geography
2 Origin of the term British Isles
3 Political history
4 Problems with modern usage and controversy
5 Alternative terms
6 Footnotes
7 Further reading
8 See also
9 External links

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Geography

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Although there are more than 6 000 islands, the two biggest are Great Britain and Ireland. Great Britain, to the east, covers 216 777 km², over 2/3 of the total archipelago; Ireland, to the west, covers 84 406 km². The other larger islands are situated to the North-West of the archipalego, in the Hebrides and Shetland Islands.

In detail, then, the islands that constitute the British Isles are:

Great Britain
- Northern Isles (including Orkney, Shetland and Fair Isle)
- Hebrides (including the Inner Hebrides, Outer Hebrides and Small Isles)
- Islands of the lower Firth of Clyde (including the Isle of Arran and Bute)
- Anglesey (in Welsh: Ynys Môn)
- Isles of Scilly
- Isle of Wight
- Portsmouth Islands (including Portsea and Hayling Island)
- Islands of Furness
- List of islands of England
- List of islands of Scotland
- List of islands of Wales
Ireland
Isle of Man
- List of islands of Isle of Man

The following islands are sometimes also included, though are not geographically part of the archipelago:

Channel Islands<ref name="ci">The Channel Islands are included here by convention. Many geographers do not consider them part of the archipelago, as they are closer to France than to Great Britain.</ref>
Rockall<ref name="Rockall">Rockall is not on the same segment of continental shelf as that of the archipelago, but is regarded in Britain as included. Its status is disputed.</ref>

The islands have been shaped by numerous glaciations during the Quaternary Period, the most recent being the Devensian. As this ended, the central Irish Sea was de-glaciated (whether or not there was a land bridge between Great Britain and Ireland at this time is somewhat disputed, though there was certainly a single ice sheet covering the enitre sea) and the English Channel flooded, with sea levels rising to current levels some four to five thousand years ago, leaving the archipalego in its current form.

The islands are at relatively low altitudes, with central Ireland and southern Great Britain paticularly low lying. Outside of Scotland, which is in northern Great Britain and quite mountainous, only four peaks reach above 1 000 m. Ben Nevis is the highest point on the archipalego, at 1 344 metres. The islands do not contain large rivers or lakes either, with Lough Neagh in Northern Ireland an exception covering 147.39 mi². The rivers Severn and Shannon are the longest rivers.

The islands' geology is highly complex, though there are a large amount of limestone and chalk rocks, formed in the Permian and Triassic periods. The west coasts of Ireland and Northern Great Britain - that directly face the Atlantic Ocean - are generally characterized by long peninsulas and headlands and bays; the internal coasts and eastern coasts are 'smoother'.

The British Isles have a temperate marine climate, warmed by the North Atlantic Drift ('Gulf Stream') which flows to the British Isles from the Gulf of Mexico. Winters are thus warm and wet, with summers mild and still wet.

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Origin of the term British Isles

In classical times, foreign sources used "Brit-" or "Prit-" with various endings and native sources used oceani insulae meaning "islands of the ocean" or insularum meaning "islands". Only in modern times has British Isles entered the English language (although until recently the word British had always implied a connection with the whole archepelego of islands rather than just the United Kingdom, dating back to Old English [1]). This usage has been justified by terms used by classical geographers to describe the island group. The earliest literary reference of this form recorded is from 1621<ref name="OED">Microcosmus by Peter Heylin (ref: OED).</ref>

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Classical geographers

The inhabitants of Britain in classical times were called the Priteni or Pretani by classical writers of geographies, who named the group of islands after these inhabitants, using a transliteration into their own language such as Latin (e.g. Bretannae) or Greek (e.g. Βρηττανων). Irene was the word they used for the island of Ireland, after the Érainn of its southern coasts.

Throughout Book 4 of his Geography, Strabo is consistent in spelling the island Britain (transliterated) as Prettanikee; he uses the terms Prettans or Brettans for the islands as a group. For example, in Geography 2.1.18, "...οι νοτιωτατοι των Βρηττανων βορηιοτηροι τουτον ηισιν". (...the most southern of the Brettans are further north than this)<ref name="Roseman">Translation by Roseman, op.cit.</ref>. He was writing around AD 10, although the earliest surviving copy of his work dates from the 6th century.

Pliny the Elder writing around AD 70 uses a Latin version of the same terminology in section 4.102 of his Naturalis Historia. He writes of Great Britain: Albion ipsi nomen fuit, cum Britanniae vocarentur omnes de quibus mox paulo dicemus. (Albion was its own name, when all [the islands] were called the Britannias; I will speak of them in a moment). In the following section, 4.103, Pliny enumerates the islands he considers to make up the Britannias, listing Great Britain, Ireland, and many smaller islands.

Ptolemy is quite clear that Ireland – he calls it Hibernia – belongs to the group he calls Britannia. He entitles Book II, Chapter 1 of his Geography as Hibernia, Island of Britannia.

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Native sources

The early surviving discussion of the geography is almost exclusively in classical languages. The "British Isles" terminology of the classical geographers is found in modern English only in documents written after the Reformation.

The earliest indigenous source to use a collective term for the archipelago is the Life of Saint Columba, a hagiography recording the missionary activities of the sixth century Irish monk Saint Columba among the peoples of Scotland. Written in the late seventh century by Adomnán of Iona, an Irish monk living on the Inner Hebridean island with considerable Pictish interests, it must be considered an authority as regards the totality of relationships within the archipelago at that time. The collective term for the archipelago used within this work is Oceani Insulae meaning "Islands of the Ocean" (Book 2, 46 in the Sharpe edition = Book 2, 47 in Reeves edition) and it is used sparingly.

Another early native source to use a collective term is the Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum of Bede written in the early eighth century. The collective term for the archipelago used within this work is insularum meaning "islands" (Book 1, 8) and it too is used sparingly.

The term does not appear to have entered English language usage until after the Reformation. The earliest quotation of "British Isles" given by the authoritative Oxford English Dictionary is in 1621.

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Renaissance mapmakers

Continental mapmakers Gerardus Mercator (1512), Balthasar Moretus (1624), Giovanni Magini (1596), Abraham Ortelius (1570) and Sebastian Munster (1550) produced maps bearing the term "British Isles". Ortelius makes clear his understanding that England, Scotland and Ireland were politically nominally at least separate in 1570 by the full title of his map: "Angliae, Scotiae et Hiberniae, sive Britannicar. insularum descriptio" which translates as "a description of England, Scotland and Ireland, or the British Isles", additionally many maps from this period show Cornwall as a separate nation, most notably those of Mercator.

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Political history

Template:Splitsection Image:UK MAPS.jpg By the time the Romans left in the 5th century the peoples of the isles were differentiated into the Brythons in the lands that would become England, Cornwall, Wales and southern Scotland and the Picts in northern Scotland, while Ireland was dominated by several peoples (Attacotti, The Connachta, Ulaidh) including the Scotti (Scots) confederation who would shortly establish Dál Riata in western Scotland. In the following centuries Anglo-Saxons formed the kingdom of Wessex, pushing the British back into Wales, Cumbria, south-west Scotland and Dumnonia later to become Kernow (or Cornwall). Angles took over Northumbria and south-east Scotland. Viking invaders formed the Danelaw in eastern England and took over Caithness, the Hebrides, the Isle of Man and north-east Ireland, forming a settlement at Dublin. The Scots amalgamated with the Picts forming the Kingdom of Alba which by the early 11th century expanded to include the area of modern Scotland and Cumbria.

The Norman Conquest of 1066 brought England under Norman rule and their 1072 foray into Scotland left the first of a series of arguments as to whether the Scots accepted the suzerainty of the English kings. In 1171 King Henry II of England invaded Ireland, asuming the title Lord of Ireland. The Anglo-Normans settled as a ruling elite controlling much of Ireland, but over time the native Irish regained some territory and, outside the area of English authority around Dublin called the Pale, the Norman lords adopted the Irish language and customs and became known as the "Old English". This meant that Irish kingdoms such as Tir Eoghan, Tir Connall, Thomond, Laois, Ui Failghe and others remained free of English rule till the early 17th century.

In 1140 the Hebridean Islands, the Isle of Man and Antrim came under the Norse-Gael rule of the Lord of the Isles who kept a varying degree of independence until the Hebrides were forfeited to Scotland in 1493. From the early 13th century the Scots language of south east Scotland was spread throughout the Lowlands, but the Scottish Highlands remained Gaelic speaking and developed the semi-independent Scottish clan system. Wales came under English control with the Statute of Rhuddlan in 1284 and became part of the Kingdom of England by the Laws in Wales Acts 1535-1542. The English Kings became Kings of Ireland as well in 1541, ruling through an Irish Parliament.

Scotland was still independent despite a series of disputes and wars with England, then in 1603 King James VI of Scotland inherited the title James I of England, unifying the countries under a personal union of the crowns. While the governments of England and Scotland remained separate, King James proclaimed himself "King of Great Brittaine" on October 20th 1604, apparently with the political aim of creating a shared identity under his autocratic rule. Ireland was effectively being ruled as a colony of England and James expanded an existing policy of English settlers, adding Scots Presbyterians and creating the "Plantation of Ulster" at the expense of the existing Roman Catholics, both the native Irish and the "Old English". As the century progressed the Civil Wars of the Three Kingdoms brought Irish rebellion with massacres alienating Protestants from Catholics and making Irish Catholics embittered about the English, tensions further reinforced in the Jacobite war in Ireland.

Scottish economic weakness against English protectionism lead to merger of the governments in the 1707 Act of Union when the official name became The Kingdom of Great Britain, with pro-Hanoverian Scots enthusiastically adopting the term "North Britain" as an alternative to "Scotland" for example "The Royal Regiment of Scots Dragoons" were renamed "The Royal North British Dragoons" (later examples included the North British Magazine and the North British Railway). The Scottish Highlanders were still Gaelic speaking and were derisively called "Erse" (Irish) by the Lowlanders, but to end Jacobitism the Scottish clan system was crushed and they became fully British. A French-aided rebellion in Ireland in 1798 was defeated and Ireland was brought firmly under British government control by the 1800 Act of Union in what became the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

During the 19th century famine and emigration affected the Irish and the Scottish Highlanders. Irish nationalist attempts to win independence peaked in the early 20th century with the Anglo-Irish war of independence and the 1922 separation of the Irish Free State, later becoming the Republic of Ireland. The mostly Protestant northeast continued to be part of what was now the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, with a Northern Ireland Assembly which is at present suspended. Inspired by the Irish movement, nationalist parties developed in Scotland, Wales and Cornwall. More recently Scotland has gained Home Rule with a Scottish Parliament and Wales a degree of home administration with the Welsh Assembly, but both remain part of the unitary United Kingdom. Cornwall has not been granted any devolved power but a petition calling for a Cornish assembly has collected more than 50,000 signatures.

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Problems with modern usage and controversy

Today the term British is used to describe people or things belonging to either the island of Great Britain or the sovereign state the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. This can cause confusion or resentment (despite the geographical and historical nature of the term) because parts of the "British Isles" include the Republic of Ireland, the other sovereign state in the archipelago; and the crown dependencies the Isle of Man, Guernsey and Jersey which are direct possessions of the British Crown and not part of the United Kingdom.

Many people, particularly those from the Republic of Ireland, find the term British Isles unacceptable and even offensive because of this. In government literature from the Republic of Ireland it is sometimes assumed that the term British Isles does not include the Republic of Ireland itself [2] [3], moreover, it is also sometimes assumed that the term does not include the Republic of Ireland in British [4] [5] and Manx [6] usage; hence the occaisional use of the phrase '"British Isles and Ireland". The term British Isles is rarely used in Irish state documents, has been phased out of schoolbooks in the Republic of IrelandTemplate:Fact.

In modern times the Republic of Ireland is not included in the political usage of the Brit prefix. The 'Brit' in this geographical term reflects 'traditional' use for the archipelago as a whole (i.e. including the Republic of Ireland). However, the term British Isles may cause offence to those who interpret it politically, as implying a continued United Kingdom sovereignty over the Republic of Ireland, or that the Republic of Ireland is politically related to the United Kingdom in some sense, because of the political usage of the Brit prefix for just the United Kingdom.

Hostility to the term British Isles has often been caused by its misinterpretation; this was exemplified by an embarrassing and controversial faux pas by the then American First Lady Nancy Reagan during an Irish visitTemplate:Fact. The confusion caused by the term was also highlighted during a stop-over visit to the Republic of Ireland by then Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev, when he indicated that he presumed Ireland's head of state was Queen Elizabeth II, given that she was the British Queen and his officials said that Ireland was a part of the British Isles. Even those who should be familiar with its use are prone to mistakes - such as this article from the BBC, which refers to the 'country' of the British Isles.

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Alternative terms

There have been several suggestions for replacements for the term British Isles but none has yet won any wide acceptance, perhaps because for practical purposes the "issue" is of very little importance or interest. Sometimes, an ambiguous phrase such as "these Isles" or "the Isles" is used, thus utilising the same logic used when referring to the Persian Gulf as "the Gulf". "These Islands" was used in Strand Three of the Belfast Agreement to establish the British-Irish Council. In cases where what is being referred to is the two largest islands, the term "Great Britain and Ireland" [7] can be used, but this risks confusion with the common term "Great Britain and Northern Ireland".

In the context of the Northern Ireland peace process the term Islands of the North Atlantic (IONA), a term initially created by former Conservative Party MP Sir John Biggs-Davison, has been used as a neutral term to describe the 'British Isles', but in a wider context the term might be misunderstood as including Iceland, Greenland, the Azores and other islands. This term has also been appropriated by the British National Party [8], who use it to assert the 'Britishness' of the United Kingdom. This use shows how all toponyms - even those such as 'IONA', chosen for their apparent neutrality - can have political connotations.

A more geographically accurate and slightly less ambiguous phrase, "North-Western Europe", is starting to find favour, especially in Ireland; however, the term has often been used before to refer to northern France, Germany and the Low Countries. The phrase "North European Archipelago" is somewhat whimsical, but even more accurate. Both of these suffer, however, from political issues associated with the word "European", particularly in the United Kingdom.

The phrase "the Anglo-Celtic Isles" has also been suggested [9] and is in some use.

The term British Islands is not a potential alternative; this is an official term used for the United Kingdom and the Crown Dependencies [10], i.e. all of the isles except the Republic of Ireland.

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