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Post by Deleted on Jun 8, 2018 22:53:29 GMT
There has not been a moment in centuries of history when Ireland was called anything other than Ireland. People of Ireland are Irish. They are not "of an island group called Britain".
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Post by carlton43 on Jun 8, 2018 23:23:18 GMT
There has not been a moment in centuries of history when Ireland was called anything other than Ireland. People of Ireland are Irish. They are not "of an island group called Britain". Now you are just demonstrating wilful ignorance. Most places have had a succession of names and Ireland is no exception. May I venture Eire, Irish Free State and Hibernia? But there are many others. Never referred to Britain once, only British and the British Isles which are the correct geographical terms whether you like it or not. You can be stubborn and perverse at times. And I am not continuing with this dialogue. |
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Post by tiberius on Jun 9, 2018 2:24:37 GMT
British Isles is the correct term and Ireland is a nation which is part of it. Full stop.
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Post by justlooking on Jun 9, 2018 4:51:52 GMT
There has not been a moment in centuries of history when Ireland was called anything other than Ireland. People of Ireland are Irish. They are not "of an island group called Britain". Now you are just demonstrating wilful ignorance. Most places have had a succession of names and Ireland is no exception. May I venture Eire, Irish Free State and Hibernia? But there are many others. Never referred to Britain once, only British and the British Isles which are the correct geographical terms whether you like it or not. You can be stubborn and perverse at times. And I am not continuing with this dialogue. This may well help doktorb🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️Names of the Irish state source wiki Also you might be interested in The History of the British Isles just to counteract the statement you made Dok of "They are not"of an island group called Britain"" erm..... may I direct you to a quote from said Wiki link Today, the British Isles contain two sovereign states: the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom. There are also three Crown dependencies: Guernsey, Jersey and the Isle of Man. The United Kingdom comprises England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, each country having its own history, with all but Northern Ireland having been independent states at one point. The history of the formation of the United Kingdom is very complex.
The British monarch was head of state of all of the countries of the British Isles from the Union of the Crowns in 1603 until the enactment of the Republic of Ireland Act in 1949, although the term "British Isles" was not used in 1603. Additionally, since the independence of most of Ireland, historians of the region often avoid the term British Isles due to the complexity of relations between the peoples of the archipelago (see: Terminology of the British Isles). |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 9, 2018 6:42:08 GMT
There has not been a moment in centuries of history when Ireland was called anything other than Ireland. People of Ireland are Irish. They are not "of an island group called Britain". Now you are just demonstrating wilful ignorance. Most places have had a succession of names and Ireland is no exception. May I venture Eire, Irish Free State and Hibernia? But there are many others. Never referred to Britain once, only British and the British Isles which are the correct geographical terms whether you like it or not. You can be stubborn and perverse at times. And I am not continuing with this dialogue. Oh do piss off. "British Isles" is not a country, you can't be a British Islian. But yeah, please do this new trick of declaring yourself done with discussions. I'm really impressed. |
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Post by islington on Jun 9, 2018 9:09:02 GMT
Err ... Would anyone mind awfully if I dragged us back to the original topic?
What I've realized, as a result of the discussions earlier in the thread, is that the Irish express their geography in a manner that is subtly different from the English. This becomes evident if we take the example of County Durham, which on the face of it seems to be named in a similar way to most Irish counties. And yet, if someone told me he or she came from Durham, tout court, without any modifier, I'd take this to mean the city of Durham itself. If the reference had been to the county instead, I'd have expected the person to specify this. I think most English people would interpret the statement this way. And until the last couple of days, if an Irish acquaintance had said he or she was from (say) Roscommon, I'd have assumed this meant Roscommon town. I now realize, in the light of the discussion here, that such an assumption would be wrong and the reference would almost certainly to be to the county unless the town were actually specified.
So it's an example, far from the first, of the English and the Irish using what is apparently the same language to say slightly different things.
And just to be absolutely clear, when I proposed to call a seat 'Roscommon', it was the town that I had in mind. I now acknowledge that this is not a satisfactory approach in an Irish context because the name would not be generally understood in the intended sense.
Let me now move on to by far the largest province, Leinster, with 2504814, 55% of the total for the Republic as a whole, with an entitlement of 24.13 = 24 seats. I propose to deal with this by parcelling it up into more manageable chunks.
The first such chunk consists of Offaly, Westmeath and Longford. These three small counties in the centre of Ireland have a combined population of 201851 = 1.94 = 2 seats. These should not detain us long.
38 - Offaly: 101311
This also includes the substantial town of Athlone at the western end of Westmeath. I'd have liked to include the whole of Athlone LEA along with it, which would have been fine so far as this seat is concerned but would have left the following one short on numbers. So I ended up with a more fiddly boundary.
Offaly (the whole county): 76687 Athlone town: 15552 Athlone (no.1) Rural Area (except Muckanagh, Auburn, Killinure and Glassan EDs): 9072
39 - Westmeath and Longford: 100540
Longford (the whole county): 39000 Mullingar-Coole LEA: 29896 Mullingar-Kilbeggan LEA: 26012 Athlone LEA (parts not in the previous seat): 5632
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Post by islington on Jun 9, 2018 9:55:54 GMT
And pressing on rapidly, the next grouping is the counties of Louth and Meath with 307032 = 2.96 = 3 seats.
40 - Louth: 105581
Co. Louth with 122897 is too big for one seat and Meath with 184135 is too small for two, so some areas are going to have to be removed from Louth to be treated with Meath. This is tricky because Louth consists of a large town at either end with a lightly populated area in between. The only way I could see, if I wanted to keep a seat recognizably based on the county, was to remove a large inland area based on Ardee and leave Drogheda and Dundalk connected by a relatively narrow coastal strip. The seat is internally connected by secondary roads, although the M1 and rail line go further inland.
Drogheda LEA: 41925 Dundalk Carlingford LEA: 24589 Dundalk South LEA: 28493 Ardee LEA (5 coastal EDs plus Darver, Louth and Killanny EDs): 10574
41 - North Meath: 100406
Co. Meath combined with the 17316 persons displaced from Louth totals 201451 so it is fairly tight for two seats. The fact that I found the boundary so hard to draw results partly from the tight numbers but more particularly from the large town of Navan located right in the middle. Basically, if you draw a logical boundary across the county the numbers are heavily overbalanced towards whichever side of the line you decide to place Navan. The result is that the line has to be distorted to get both seats within range. Navan seems like a more natural fit in the north seat but I struggled to get the numbers to work so in the end I put it in the south seat at the expense of a somewhat convoluted boundary.
Laytown-Bettystown LEA: 31557 Kells LEA: 31534 Ashbourne LEA (except Donoughmore ED): 16170 Trim LEA (EDs of Cloughbrack, Kildalkey and Killaconnigan only): 3829 Ardee LEA (parts not in the previous seat): 17316
42 - South Meath: 101045
What's left.
Ratoath LEA: 31894 Navan LEA: 32934 Trim LEA (except the 3 EDs in the previous seat): 25223 Donoughmore ED: 10994
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obsie
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Post by obsie on Jun 9, 2018 13:02:26 GMT
Err ... Would anyone mind awfully if I dragged us back to the original topic?
What I've realized, as a result of the discussions earlier in the thread, is that the Irish express their geography in a manner that is subtly different from the English. This becomes evident if we take the example of County Durham, which on the face of it seems to be named in a similar way to most Irish counties. And yet, if someone told me he or she came from Durham, tout court, without any modifier, I'd take this to mean the city of Durham itself. If the reference had been to the county instead, I'd have expected the person to specify this. I think most English people would interpret the statement this way. And until the last couple of days, if an Irish acquaintance had said he or she was from (say) Roscommon, I'd have assumed this meant Roscommon town. I now realize, in the light of the discussion here, that such an assumption would be wrong and the reference would almost certainly to be to the county unless the town were actually specified.
So it's an example, far from the first, of the English and the Irish using what is apparently the same language to say slightly different things.
And just to be absolutely clear, when I proposed to call a seat 'Roscommon', it was the town that I had in mind. I now acknowledge that this is not a satisfactory approach in an Irish context because the name would not be generally understood in the intended sense.
Let me now move on to by far the largest province, Leinster, with 2504814, 55% of the total for the Republic as a whole, with an entitlement of 24.13 = 24 seats. I propose to deal with this by parcelling it up into more manageable chunks.
The first such chunk consists of Offaly, Westmeath and Longford. These three small counties in the centre of Ireland have a combined population of 201851 = 1.94 = 2 seats. These should not detain us long.
38 - Offaly: 101311
This also includes the substantial town of Athlone at the western end of Westmeath. I'd have liked to include the whole of Athlone LEA along with it, which would have been fine so far as this seat is concerned but would have left the following one short on numbers. So I ended up with a more fiddly boundary.
Offaly (the whole county): 76687 Athlone town: 15552 Athlone (no.1) Rural Area (except Muckanagh, Auburn, Killinure and Glassan EDs): 9072
39 - Westmeath and Longford: 100540
Longford (the whole county): 39000 Mullingar-Coole LEA: 29896 Mullingar-Kilbeggan LEA: 26012 Athlone LEA (parts not in the previous seat): 5632
Getting very close to home here for me.
I'd take out EDs from the east of Athlone RD rather than the west - Glasson is essentially a very chi-chi exurb of Athlone. Names-wise, I'd go with Offaly and Athlone for the first and Longford and North Westmeath or Longford and Mullingar for the second - Westmeath and Meath are the two counties where you need to be careful with locational adjectives. |
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obsie
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Post by obsie on Jun 9, 2018 13:28:30 GMT
And pressing on rapidly, the next grouping is the counties of Louth and Meath with 307032 = 2.96 = 3 seats.
40 - Louth: 105581
Co. Louth with 122897 is too big for one seat and Meath with 184135 is too small for two, so some areas are going to have to be removed from Louth to be treated with Meath. This is tricky because Louth consists of a large town at either end with a lightly populated area in between. The only way I could see, if I wanted to keep a seat recognizably based on the county, was to remove a large inland area based on Ardee and leave Drogheda and Dundalk connected by a relatively narrow coastal strip. The seat is internally connected by secondary roads, although the M1 and rail line go further inland.
Drogheda LEA: 41925 Dundalk Carlingford LEA: 24589 Dundalk South LEA: 28493 Ardee LEA (5 coastal EDs plus Darver, Louth and Killanny EDs): 10574
41 - North Meath: 100406
Co. Meath combined with the 17316 persons displaced from Louth totals 201451 so it is fairly tight for two seats. The fact that I found the boundary so hard to draw results partly from the tight numbers but more particularly from the large town of Navan located right in the middle. Basically, if you draw a logical boundary across the county the numbers are heavily overbalanced towards whichever side of the line you decide to place Navan. The result is that the line has to be distorted to get both seats within range. Navan seems like a more natural fit in the north seat but I struggled to get the numbers to work so in the end I put it in the south seat at the expense of a somewhat convoluted boundary.
Laytown-Bettystown LEA: 31557 Kells LEA: 31534 Ashbourne LEA (except Donoughmore ED): 16170 Trim LEA (EDs of Cloughbrack, Kildalkey and Killaconnigan only): 3829 Ardee LEA (parts not in the previous seat): 17316
42 - South Meath: 101045
What's left.
Ratoath LEA: 31894 Navan LEA: 32934 Trim LEA (except the 3 EDs in the previous seat): 25223 Donoughmore ED: 10994 Louth is always going to be awkward because of the geography, but if I was pushing anywhere out it would be Drogheda (a lot of the Laytown/Bettystown area (St. Mary's and Julianstown) is Drogheda suburbia and the dividing line is not clear on the ground anyway) I'd just make sure that whatever seat gets Drogheda includes "and Drogheda" in the name.
With Meath, you're dealing with a different problem in that the LEAs are the product of a cack-handed determination to make sure that all LEAs had at least six seats rather than having them reflect real-world relationships - the old RDs would be a better guide on that score.
Meath is Ireland's answer to Essex - partly more or less traditional rural and partly displaced capital-dwellers. I would keep Ratoath, Ashbourne and Laytown-Bettystown together as much as possible apart from the part of Laytown-Bettystown north of the Boyne. If you're going with adding rural Louth to Meath constituencies, I would make up whatever numbers are necessary from the Trim LEA by working your way along the old Dublin-Galway road towards Enfield and Kinnegad.
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Post by islington on Jun 9, 2018 14:03:44 GMT
Thanks, obsie, for comments and incidentally, before I forget, huge thanks also for the wonderful map of Irish administrative units to which you provided a link the other day.
As I continue to post, rather than try to second-guess the Irish perspective, I've decided to adhere to the names that I originally had in mind but I'm very receptive to alternative suggestions.
We next move on to Co. Kildare, which very obligingly has a population of 210312 = 2.03 = 2 seats to itself.
43 - Naas: 105042
There is a slight complication here in that an ED is split between Naas and Kildare-Newbridge LEAs. I don't want to split EDs except where they are currently divided by an administrative boundary, not merely an electoral boundary as here. So I am counting the ED in question (Droichead Nue Rural) with Kildare-Newbridge LEA. That small issue aside, this seat consists of the eastern, more Dublin-facing side of the county.
Naas LEA (except the part of Droichead Nua Rural it currently contains): 46855 Celbridge-Leixlip LEA: 36630 Maynooth, Straffan and Kilcock EDs: 21557
44 - Kildare: 105270
Athy LEA: 30684 Kildare-Newbridge LEA: 49944 Maynooth LEA (except the 3 EDs in the previous seat): 24480 Droichead Nua Rural ED (the part in Naas LEA): 162
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obsie
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Post by obsie on Jun 9, 2018 17:04:19 GMT
Thanks, obsie, for comments and incidentally, before I forget, huge thanks also for the wonderful map of Irish administrative units to which you provided a link the other day. may also be useful, although it doesn't show the 2014 LEAs, but it does give population breakdowns by townland (smallest units and meaningful in rural areas) and small areas (census divisions but with more generally rational boundaries than their GB or NI equivalents). Again, you're looking at an Essex-type situation except a little bit further up the self-perceived social scale on both sides. Either North or East Kildare for Naas and South or West Kildare for Kildare (yes I know it includes the furthest north of Kildare but nonetheless...) |
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colm
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Post by colm on Jun 9, 2018 22:23:48 GMT
Obsie can you drop me the link of the irish local admin units map that Islington mentioned above thanks.
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obsie
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Post by obsie on Jun 10, 2018 3:23:58 GMT
Obsie can you drop me the link of the irish local admin units map that Islington mentioned above thanks.
Downloadable version of the data at:
as well as at the OpenData portals for SpatialNI:
OSi ("ungeneralised" are the most detailed boundaries):
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Post by islington on Jun 10, 2018 10:10:01 GMT
Let me move on to the southern part of Leinster, namely the five counties of Carlow, Kilkenny, Laois, Wexford and Wicklow. These add up to 512550 = 4.94 = 5 seats. On the numbers, this should be fine but I had a lot of trouble with this area. To be frank I'm not entirely happy with some of the boundaries I'm proposing, but they are contiguous and compliant with the terms of the exercise so let me post them here so they can be shot at and hopefully improved. I'll start with the areas I found most difficult.
45 - Wicklow: 103341
The county is much too big for a single seat so it loses the area west of the Wicklow Mountains and other inland areas in the south of the county (although it retains Arklow and its rural hinterland). The boundary dividing Arklow LEA is clearly less than ideal.
Bray LEA: 34335 Greystones LEA: 24846 Wicklow LEA: 26472 Arklow LEA (the coastal EDs plus Dunganstown West and Ballyarthur EDs): 17688
46 - Carlow: 100458
I don't like this seat. It extends into three counties and the boundary with the Wexford seat is clearly unsatisfactory. In terms of names, it's really 'Greater Carlow' because the additions from Wexford and Wicklow nearly double the population of Co. Carlow itself.
from Carlow -
The whole county: 54612
from Wicklow -
Baltinglass LEA: 25267 Arklow LEA (parts not in the previous seat): 7762
from Wexford -
Enniscorthy LEA (12 EDs - Killoughrum, Mashalstown and Ballycarney EDs and everything north of them): 8948 Gorey LEA (Ballybeg, Ballyellis, Ferns, Kilbora, Kilcomb EDs only): 3869
47 - Wexford: 100381
Things get slightly more straightforward from this point.
Wexford LEA: 44593 Enniscorthy LEA (part not in the previous seat): 25455 Gorey LEA (part not in the previous seat): 30333
48 - Kilkenny: 104865
Obviously the name needs to reflect that it does not include the whole of Co. Kilkenny, and has a strong Wexford element, but I'll leave it to others to suggest alternatives.
KIlkenny City East LEA: 24720 Kilkenny City West LEA: 24379 Piltown LEA: 23644 New Ross LEA: 32122
49 - Laois: 103323
Again, please take the name merely as a marker.
Laois (the whole county): 80559 Castlecomer LEA: 22676
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obsie
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Post by obsie on Jun 10, 2018 11:17:06 GMT
My inclination would be to pair Arklow and the Tinahely end of Baltinglass with north Wexford, link Carlow town with Laois, put the remainder of Carlow together with mid-Kilkenny and join south Kilkenny with south Wexford through New Ross, but the Blackstairs being in the way between Carlow and Wexford as well as the rivers mean that there are no good options.
Update: One other option would be to pair Wicklow with Dublin, including the then Bray Urban District with Dublin, while combining the other four counties with Offaly/Westmeath/Longford and allowing the county breaches to gradually cascade upwards - Carlow with north Wexford, the rest of Wexford with south Kilkenny, the rest of Kilkenny with south-west Laois, the rest of Laois with eastern Offaly around Portarlington, and so on.
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YL
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Post by YL on Jun 10, 2018 11:18:50 GMT
Err ... Would anyone mind awfully if I dragged us back to the original topic? What I've realized, as a result of the discussions earlier in the thread, is that the Irish express their geography in a manner that is subtly different from the English. This becomes evident if we take the example of County Durham, which on the face of it seems to be named in a similar way to most Irish counties. And yet, if someone told me he or she came from Durham, tout court, without any modifier, I'd take this to mean the city of Durham itself. If the reference had been to the county instead, I'd have expected the person to specify this. I think most English people would interpret the statement this way. And until the last couple of days, if an Irish acquaintance had said he or she was from (say) Roscommon, I'd have assumed this meant Roscommon town. I now realize, in the light of the discussion here, that such an assumption would be wrong and the reference would almost certainly to be to the county unless the town were actually specified. So it's an example, far from the first, of the English and the Irish using what is apparently the same language to say slightly different things. And just to be absolutely clear, when I proposed to call a seat 'Roscommon', it was the town that I had in mind. I now acknowledge that this is not a satisfactory approach in an Irish context because the name would not be generally understood in the intended sense. Of course you already get this a bit in Northern Ireland, where "Antrim" and "Londonderry" are used in constituency names to refer to counties rather than towns/cities, though I assume "Armagh" in Newry & Armagh is intended to refer to the city. Even there, the usual usage of e.g. "South Armagh" refers to the county, not the city. |
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Post by islington on Jun 11, 2018 20:04:37 GMT
Let me now turn to County Dublin, or at least what used to be Co. Dublin until it was divided up a few years ago.
As a whole it has a population of 1273069 = 12.26 = 12 seats.
Dublin City has 527612 = 5.08 = 5 seats, so I'll leave it aside for now and concentrate on the rest of the former county, which is now divided into Fingal, South Dublin and Dun Laoghaire Rathdown (hereinafter 'DLR').
Of these, DLR has 206261 = 1.99, which ought to be fine for two seats. But it leaves Fingal and S Dublin with 539196 between them, which gives an entitlement of 5.19 (an average of 107839). This is dangerously large for 5 seats, and indeed it turned out that I could see no sensible way of doing it. I therefore reluctantly added DLR back into the mix to give 745457 = 7.18 (at a slightly more manageable average of 106494). I'll start at the Dun Laoghaire end and work my way clockwise round Dublin.
50 - Dun Laoghaire: 105029
This consists of Dun Laoghaire LEA itself and the two coastal LEAs on either side of it.
Dun Laoghaire LEA: 40852 Killiney-Shankill LEA: 33187 Blackrock LEA: 30990
51 - Dundrum: 106944
It would be prefectly possible to combine DLR's three inland LEAs to form a seat with 101232, well within range. But in order to ease the numbers elsewhere in this grouping, I have had to add a single ED from across the border in S Dublin.
Stillorgan LEA: 28999
Glencullen-Sandyford LEA: 36465
Dundrum LEA: 35768 Edmondstown ED: 5712
52 - Tallaght: 108356
EDs in this area are named in a way that indicates that many of them are constituent parts of a larger town so I am using this as my basis for grouping them and am leaving LEAs aside for the moment.
Tallaght (all the EDs with this name except Tallaght-Kilnamanagh): 67052 Firhouse EDs: 23023 Ballyboden ED: 5085 Four more rural EDs to the south: Bohernabreena, Ballinascorney, Saggart, Rathcoole: 13916
53 - Clondalkin: 106650
Based on Clondalkin but extending along the Dublin city boundary north to Palmerston and as far east as Rathfarnham.
Clondalkin EDs: 45102 Palmerston EDs: 11216 Tallaght-Kilnamanagh ED: 4452 Terenure EDs: 7588 Templeogue EDs: 17404 Rathfarnham EDs: 17139 Newcastle ED: 3749
54 - Lucan: 105097
This straddles the boundary between Fingal and S Dublin. Remarkably it involves only 7 EDs.
Lucan (the 3 EDs in S Dublin): 44487 Lucan (the single ED in Fingal): 1358 Castleknock EDs: 23195 Blanchardstown-Blakestown ED: 36057 - the most populous ED in the entire Republic
55 - Howth: 106792
This name is even more of a marker than usual; I couldn't think what to call it. 'Dublin North Suburbs' would be more accurate but I dislike names of this kind. It's everything else in Fingal south of Swords, including Kilsallaghan.
56 - Swords: 106589
Balbriggan LEA: 57427 Donabate ED: 8733 Swords EDs: 40429
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obsie
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Post by obsie on Jun 11, 2018 21:32:34 GMT
51. Rathdown 53. Clondalkin and Rathfarnham 54. Lucan and Castleknock (if it included Palmerstown West ED I'd go with Liffey Valley) 55. Blanchardstown and South Fingal 56. North Fingal or Balrothery and Swords |
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Post by Ghyl Tarvoke on Jun 12, 2018 21:27:50 GMT
For Leinster numbers purposes I would recommend merging Drogheda and Balbriggan (the Town, not the whole LEA) into one constituency. It would horrify the county purists but would give balance and is very much a logical unit. Call it 'Boyne Valley'.
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Jun 12, 2018 21:35:10 GMT
For Leinster numbers purposes I would recommend merging Drogheda and Balbriggan (the Town, not the whole LEA) into one constituency. It would horrify the county purists but would give balance and is very much a logical unit. Call it 'Boyne Valley'. If we used the Australian naming convention we'd be spoilt for choice with that one |
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