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Post by Pete Whitehead on Oct 20, 2021 20:09:18 GMT
The initial proposals are the worst set of Northern Ireland constituency proposals I have seen so far. There is absolutely no need for Belfast South to expand that far into County Down, and nor should North Down take in any Belfast wards. And whose idea was it to include any part of County Armagh in Fermanagh & South Tyrone, or remove an integral town, Dungannon, from it?? Clearly they've chosen not to exercise the option to allow seats at the lower threshold (which is fair enough) and that necessitates adding some territory outside the existing five western seats. To my mind, it would have been better to leave F&ST and Mid Ulster alone (just realinging with new ward boundaries), adding Park and the remainder of Slievekirk to West Tyrone and adding Giants Causeway to East Londonderry (where it is well connected to Portrush etc) |
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Post by aidanthomson on Oct 20, 2021 20:28:38 GMT
The initial proposals are the worst set of Northern Ireland constituency proposals I have seen so far. There is absolutely no need for Belfast South to expand that far into County Down, and nor should North Down take in any Belfast wards. And whose idea was it to include any part of County Armagh in Fermanagh & South Tyrone, or remove an integral town, Dungannon, from it?? Some of Garnerville ward used to be in North Down district and is thus already in North Down constituency. Even some parts of the ward that were always in Belfast have Holywood postcodes. I don't think it's the best solution for the area, but it isn't awful. Saintfield's being added to Belfast South came as a surprise, but I can see the logic; it's something of a dormitory town for middle-class Belfast commuters these days. It does feel a bit far out, though, and the constituency name, as noted elsewhere, isn't great. If the BCNI is sent back to the drawing board, I'd be surprised if Saintfield remained in this seat. I agree with you re FST. Elsewhere, the addition of 'Quoile' to Strangford is unnecessary obscure (and easily mispronounced, too), and I agree with Pete Whitehead 's comment upthread that 'East Down' would be better. |
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Post by Cú Chulainn on Oct 20, 2021 21:14:11 GMT
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YL
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Post by YL on Oct 20, 2021 21:14:40 GMT
The initial proposals are the worst set of Northern Ireland constituency proposals I have seen so far. There is absolutely no need for Belfast South to expand that far into County Down, and nor should North Down take in any Belfast wards. And whose idea was it to include any part of County Armagh in Fermanagh & South Tyrone, or remove an integral town, Dungannon, from it?? Some of Garnerville ward used to be in North Down district and is thus already in North Down constituency. Even some parts of the ward that were always in Belfast have Holywood postcodes. I don't think it's the best solution for the area, but it isn't awful. Saintfield's being added to Belfast South came as a surprise, but I can see the logic; it's something of a dormitory town for middle-class Belfast commuters these days. It does feel a bit far out, though, and the constituency name, as noted elsewhere, isn't great. If the BCNI is sent back to the drawing board, I'd be surprised if Saintfield remained in this seat. I agree with you re FST. Elsewhere, the addition of 'Quoile' to Strangford is unnecessary obscure (and easily mispronounced, too), and I agree with Pete Whitehead 's comment upthread that 'East Down' would be better. How is "Quoile" actually pronounced then? "East Down" would be fine, but TBH I'd probably just stick with "Strangford"; after all it still neatly surrounds the Lough, and would actually now contain Strangford village. At the moment I think the eastward extension to FST while the focus of the eastern part of the current seat, Dungannon, is removed is the worst feature of these proposals. |
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Post by aidanthomson on Oct 20, 2021 23:31:48 GMT
Some of Garnerville ward used to be in North Down district and is thus already in North Down constituency. Even some parts of the ward that were always in Belfast have Holywood postcodes. I don't think it's the best solution for the area, but it isn't awful. Saintfield's being added to Belfast South came as a surprise, but I can see the logic; it's something of a dormitory town for middle-class Belfast commuters these days. It does feel a bit far out, though, and the constituency name, as noted elsewhere, isn't great. If the BCNI is sent back to the drawing board, I'd be surprised if Saintfield remained in this seat. I agree with you re FST. Elsewhere, the addition of 'Quoile' to Strangford is unnecessary obscure (and easily mispronounced, too), and I agree with Pete Whitehead 's comment upthread that 'East Down' would be better. How is "Quoile" actually pronounced then? A former colleague who lived nearby once told me, but I've forgotten. I think it's 'Coil' (a variant of the Irish 'Caol'), but I'm not altogether sure. It's definitely not 'Kwoil'. |
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obsie
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Post by obsie on Oct 21, 2021 1:45:21 GMT
How is "Quoile" actually pronounced then? A former colleague who lived nearby once told me, but I've forgotten. I think it's 'Coil' (a variant of the Irish 'Caol'), but I'm not altogether sure. It's definitely not 'Kwoil'. Roughly /koil/ in English, the modern (West) Ulster Irish pronunciation of Caol is /kwi:l/ but the pronunciation of "ao" in East Ulster Irish was more central and closer to the modern Scottish Gaelic /ɯ/ sound. It's both obscure and redundant; "Strangford" or "East Down" would make more sense but if you wanted to indicate the change in constituency boundary then "Lecale", with its own pronunciation ambiguity - /ke:l/or /ka:l/? - is at least a bit better-known. |
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Post by aidanthomson on Oct 21, 2021 7:16:49 GMT
A former colleague who lived nearby once told me, but I've forgotten. I think it's 'Coil' (a variant of the Irish 'Caol'), but I'm not altogether sure. It's definitely not 'Kwoil'. Roughly /koil/ in English, the modern (West) Ulster Irish pronunciation of Caol is /kwi:l/ but the pronunciation of "ao" in East Ulster Irish was more central and closer to the modern Scottish Gaelic /ɯ/ sound. It's both obscure and redundant; "Strangford" or "East Down" would make more sense but if you wanted to indicate the change in constituency boundary then "Lecale", with its own pronunciation ambiguity - /ke:l/or /ka:l/? - is at least a bit better-known. Many thanks for the clarification. The village of Caol in Scotland is pronounced 'Cɯl' and I hadn't realised, but maybe should have guessed, that East Ulster Irish might be closer to Scots Gaelic in pronunciation. Curiously, in the link you gave, the closest match to 'coil', to my ear at least, was the Munster pronunciation. |
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Post by islington on Oct 21, 2021 8:58:25 GMT
Roughly /koil/ in English, the modern (West) Ulster Irish pronunciation of Caol is /kwi:l/ but the pronunciation of "ao" in East Ulster Irish was more central and closer to the modern Scottish Gaelic /ɯ/ sound. It's both obscure and redundant; "Strangford" or "East Down" would make more sense but if you wanted to indicate the change in constituency boundary then "Lecale", with its own pronunciation ambiguity - /ke:l/or /ka:l/? - is at least a bit better-known. Many thanks for the clarification. The village of Caol in Scotland is pronounced 'Cɯl' and I hadn't realised, but maybe should have guessed, that East Ulster Irish might be closer to Scots Gaelic in pronunciation. Curiously, in the link you gave, the closest match to 'coil', to my ear at least, was the Munster pronunciation. Thanks for the clarification but I now don't know how 'Cɯl' is pronounced. Like 'cool'?
Regarding 'Quoile', if I pronounce it like the ordinary English word 'coil' am I going to upset anyone?
But I agree that it doesn't belong in the constituency name, which if the proposed boundary is confirmed should continue as simply 'Strangford', especially since it now contains, er, Strangford. |
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Post by John Chanin on Oct 21, 2021 9:09:32 GMT
Many thanks for the clarification. The village of Caol in Scotland is pronounced 'Cɯl' and I hadn't realised, but maybe should have guessed, that East Ulster Irish might be closer to Scots Gaelic in pronunciation. Curiously, in the link you gave, the closest match to 'coil', to my ear at least, was the Munster pronunciation. Thanks for the clarification but I now don't know how 'Cɯl' is pronounced. Like 'cool'? It's high back unrounded, so not like cool, which is rounded. It's like a back i - a sound that doesn't exist in English. If you try and pronounce kill with the vowel in the back of your throat, that will be roughly it. |
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Post by islington on Oct 21, 2021 9:52:34 GMT
Thanks for the clarification but I now don't know how 'Cɯl' is pronounced. Like 'cool'? It's high back unrounded, so not like cool, which is rounded. It's like a back i - a sound that doesn't exist in English. If you try and pronounce kill with the vowel in the back of your throat, that will be roughly it. When I try that it comes out like 'Yule' with a 'k' sound in front. Is that it? Or close enough for government work? |
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YL
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Post by YL on Oct 21, 2021 11:20:25 GMT
Thanks for the clarification but I now don't know how 'Cɯl' is pronounced. Like 'cool'? It's high back unrounded, so not like cool, which is rounded. It's like a back i - a sound that doesn't exist in English. If you try and pronounce kill with the vowel in the back of your throat, that will be roughly it. I've actually wondered about this before: do people in and around Caol (Lochaber) actually pronounce it that way if they're English monoglots, or do they anglicise it to "cool"? The "chul" bit of nearby Ballachulish is related (Gaelic Baile a' Chaolais). |
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YL
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Post by YL on Oct 21, 2021 11:22:30 GMT
As for the actual boundaries in NI, wasn't there a massive outbreak of pitchfork waving last time the BCNI suggested moving all of Derriaghy into Belfast West? (Hence why the old ward got split.)
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obsie
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Post by obsie on Oct 21, 2021 13:24:34 GMT
Roughly /koil/ in English, the modern (West) Ulster Irish pronunciation of Caol is /kwi:l/ but the pronunciation of "ao" in East Ulster Irish was more central and closer to the modern Scottish Gaelic /ɯ/ sound. It's both obscure and redundant; "Strangford" or "East Down" would make more sense but if you wanted to indicate the change in constituency boundary then "Lecale", with its own pronunciation ambiguity - /ke:l/or /ka:l/? - is at least a bit better-known. Many thanks for the clarification. The village of Caol in Scotland is pronounced 'Cɯl' and I hadn't realised, but maybe should have guessed, that East Ulster Irish might be closer to Scots Gaelic in pronunciation. Curiously, in the link you gave, the closest match to 'coil', to my ear at least, was the Munster pronunciation. /e:/ versus /i:/ for "ao" (as opposed to "aoi" which is /i:/ everywhere) is a Munster shibboleth. The speaker in that example has a very strong aspiration in /k w/ as opposed to this example for "caor" (berry). There are also a few words like "aon" (one) and its derivatives and "aonach" (assembly, fair) where the /e:/ sound is universal, so "Aontroim" (Antrim, from the prefix "aon-" and "droim" (back, here meaning a hill or ridge, and usually appearing as "Drum" or "Drom" in Anglicized placenames)) would be /'e:n,trım/. |
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Post by heverlee2019 on Oct 21, 2021 18:47:32 GMT
As for the actual boundaries in NI, wasn't there a massive outbreak of pitchfork waving last time the BCNI suggested moving all of Derriaghy into Belfast West? (Hence why the old ward got split.) Yes although like many grievances in NI it was somewhat manufactured. |
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Post by greenhert on Oct 21, 2021 22:06:17 GMT
The only significant changes that are really needed here are: moving Banbridge from Upper Bann (which should then be renamed Craigavon) to South Down, moving Downpatrick from South Down to Strangford, and Belfast South stretching to the edge of Lisburn & Castlereagh via way of the new Carryduff wards. Belfast North, Belfast West, Fermanagh & South Tyrone, and Mid Ulster can be left intact adjusting for new ward boundaries.
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YL
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Post by YL on Oct 22, 2021 7:10:50 GMT
The only significant changes that are really needed here are: moving Banbridge from Upper Bann (which should then be renamed Craigavon) to South Down, moving Downpatrick from South Down to Strangford, and Belfast South stretching to the edge of Lisburn & Castlereagh via way of the new Carryduff wards. Belfast North, Belfast West, Fermanagh & South Tyrone, and Mid Ulster can be left intact adjusting for new ward boundaries. In the cases of Mid Ulster and Belfast West the simple realignments as shown on Boundary Assistant leave the seats below the standard lower limit, so that's only true if the BCNI are prepared to apply the Northern Ireland special case, and they decided that wasn't justified. (And I'm confident that they were basically right on that point.) You can fix Mid Ulster by realigning Killyman there instead of FST, but adding Woodvale to Belfast West, the obvious fix there, means you need to extend North a bit further north (or do what the BCNI have done with Forth River and Derryaghy, but I'd go for the northward extension to North, as the existing boundary there is a mess). If you want to rename Upper Bann, I think it would be better to refer to Portadown and/or Lurgan than the 1960s failure that is "Craigavon". |
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Post by heverlee2019 on Oct 22, 2021 9:26:26 GMT
The only significant changes that are really needed here are: moving Banbridge from Upper Bann (which should then be renamed Craigavon) to South Down, moving Downpatrick from South Down to Strangford, and Belfast South stretching to the edge of Lisburn & Castlereagh via way of the new Carryduff wards. Belfast North, Belfast West, Fermanagh & South Tyrone, and Mid Ulster can be left intact adjusting for new ward boundaries. In the cases of Mid Ulster and Belfast West the simple realignments as shown on Boundary Assistant leave the seats below the standard lower limit, so that's only true if the BCNI are prepared to apply the Northern Ireland special case, and they decided that wasn't justified. (And I'm confident that they were basically right on that point.) You can fix Mid Ulster by realigning Killyman there instead of FST, but adding Woodvale to Belfast West, the obvious fix there, means you need to extend North a bit further north (or do what the BCNI have done with Forth River and Derryaghy, but I'd go for the northward extension to North, as the existing boundary there is a mess). If you want to rename Upper Bann, I think it would be better to refer to Portadown and/or Lurgan than the 1960s failure that is "Craigavon". Why do you believe them to be right on that point? It's there to precisely be used against clumsy breaches of council boundaries and geographic dividers. What better reason than not to include Armagh wards in FST or crudely cross both the sperrins and council by making West Tyrone run into Mid Ulster wards. I think the suggestions are terrible on a level I didn't think was possible beyond joke maps. |
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YL
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Post by YL on Oct 22, 2021 10:33:03 GMT
In the cases of Mid Ulster and Belfast West the simple realignments as shown on Boundary Assistant leave the seats below the standard lower limit, so that's only true if the BCNI are prepared to apply the Northern Ireland special case, and they decided that wasn't justified. (And I'm confident that they were basically right on that point.) You can fix Mid Ulster by realigning Killyman there instead of FST, but adding Woodvale to Belfast West, the obvious fix there, means you need to extend North a bit further north (or do what the BCNI have done with Forth River and Derryaghy, but I'd go for the northward extension to North, as the existing boundary there is a mess). If you want to rename Upper Bann, I think it would be better to refer to Portadown and/or Lurgan than the 1960s failure that is "Craigavon". Why do you believe them to be right on that point? It's there to precisely be used against clumsy breaches of council boundaries and geographic dividers. What better reason than not to include Armagh wards in FST or crudely cross both the sperrins and council by making West Tyrone run into Mid Ulster wards. I think the suggestions are terrible on a level I didn't think was possible beyond joke maps. The rules say that the BCNI may apply the lower limit where "the Boundary Commission for Northern Ireland consider that having to apply rule 2 would unreasonably impair" their ability to take into account the other factors. My interpretation of that is that when working out an NI map we (or the BCNI) should first try to do so without needing to apply the special case and only then apply it if the resulting map really has problems which can only be fixed by applying it. Note that for some reason council boundaries aren't actually explicitly included in the other factors in NI, though I imagine many unnecessary breaches of them can also be criticised on "local ties" grounds or because they're crossing mountain ranges. I don't think the BCNI's map is very good either but I think it can be considerably improved without applying the special case and you should try to do that first. |
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Post by johnloony on Oct 22, 2021 13:29:13 GMT
Thanks for the clarification but I now don't know how 'Cɯl' is pronounced. Like 'cool'? It's high back unrounded, so not like cool, which is rounded. It's like a back i - a sound that doesn't exist in English. If you try and pronounce kill with the vowel in the back of your throat, that will be roughly it. What he means is that the lips are in the “ee” position, but the rest of the mouth is saying “oo”. (Incidentally, this is also how to pronounce the vowel in Japanese which is written in European script as “u”). The opposite combination (the lips saying “oo” and the tongue saying “ee”) is the much more common German ü & French u. |
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Post by islington on Oct 22, 2021 16:13:59 GMT
In the cases of Mid Ulster and Belfast West the simple realignments as shown on Boundary Assistant leave the seats below the standard lower limit, so that's only true if the BCNI are prepared to apply the Northern Ireland special case, and they decided that wasn't justified. (And I'm confident that they were basically right on that point.) You can fix Mid Ulster by realigning Killyman there instead of FST, but adding Woodvale to Belfast West, the obvious fix there, means you need to extend North a bit further north (or do what the BCNI have done with Forth River and Derryaghy, but I'd go for the northward extension to North, as the existing boundary there is a mess). If you want to rename Upper Bann, I think it would be better to refer to Portadown and/or Lurgan than the 1960s failure that is "Craigavon". Why do you believe them to be right on that point? It's there to precisely be used against clumsy breaches of council boundaries and geographic dividers. What better reason than not to include Armagh wards in FST or crudely cross both the sperrins and council by making West Tyrone run into Mid Ulster wards. I think the suggestions are terrible on a level I didn't think was possible beyond joke maps. I think this judgment is a bit harsh considering some of the proposals elsewhere in the UK during the zombie reviews. But anyway, just to cause trouble, here's a (probably equally deficient) map that: shows a bit more regard than the BCNI plan for LA boundaries; keeps each seat to a maximum of two authorities; has no orphan wards; has no split wards; does not use the additional tolerance; and results in 18 seats of which each is recognizably the successor of one of the current seats.
  East Antrim - 73129.
North Antrim - 73370.
South Antrim - 72898.
Belfast East - 70297. Belfast North - 72571.
Belfast South - 70391. Belfast West - 69869. Coleraine - 72107. Derry - 69890.
North Down - 71358. South Down - 71947. Fermanagh and Dungannon - 71518.
Lisburn and Banbridge - 73827. Newry and Armagh - 74925.
Omagh and Strabane - 70594. Portadown and Lurgan - 72615.
Strangford - 73355. Mid Ulster - 71027.
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