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 ::Waggers, I am one of the older 86. ips. Now, if you think you can dismiss these serious objections to ""British Isles"" being plastered everywhere as simply me ""trolling"" then you have another thing coming. ""Pure trolling""- who the f@ck do you think you are? How convenient for where you are coming from  if all objectors to this term could be dismissed in such flippant terms. I am deadly serious about my objections to this term being foisted upon my identity, my Irishness. It is absurd, politically motivated and, at its nicest, reflective of an older British power dynamic over Ireland. That dynamic hasn't many friends in Ireland.    

 :::Jeanne, With all due respect implying that the Irish now have ""British"" names because our names have been anglicised betrays an astounding degree of misunderstanding of Irish names. It reminds me of the scene in Translations where young Owen is helping the English anglicise Irish placenames in the 1830s and old Manus turns around and asks 'What’s “incorrect” about the place-names we have here?’ Owen: ‘Nothing at all. They’re just going to be standardised’ to which Manus responds: ‘You mean changed into English.’ In other words, the English may present Irish names as one thing, but at its heart it is quite a different thing altogether. You are accepting the English representation as the Irish reality. Indeed, the English soldier in the play, Yolland, felicitiously conceded as much about his own place in the community:  ""Even if I did speak Irish, I’d always be considered an outsider here, wouldn’t I? I may learn the password but the language of the tribe will always elude me, won’t it?"". Think about its relevance to how you personally understand Ireland and the Irish people. At a more practical level, the sort of misunderstanding you are advancing is one that claims 'Smith' in Ireland is an English name despite the well-attested to and indisputed fact that most ""Smiths"" in Ireland are the Gaelic-Irish Mac Gabhann sept with no ethnic connection to the British surname Smith. The same applies to very many other Irish surnames which articles like this seek to push under an ahistorical ""British Isles"" tent. Appearances are deeply deceptive, and these ""British Isles"" categories propagate the deception.    

 ::::Jeanne,  You further say 'The intermarriage between the Irish and The English has been going on for centuries'- well, my paternal surname is Norman, like very many other Irish people. Not a single person on that side would claim to be ""English"" never mind this absurd recent invention called ""Britishness"" (although your equation of English with British was very, very revealing about the exclusive reality of Britishness). But to go back to my point, if my paternal surname is Norman, my maternal surname Gaelic, other common surnames Viking (e.g. Doyle) are also in my family, my question is: Why are these surnames not placed under a European surnames category? What is the agenda that seeks to box the Irish under one dimension of their historical experience, and ignore the rest? I'd love to know that. It must also be said that the sort of ""Irish"" you have been following are not exactly Conamara Gaeltacht or south Armagh Irish, are they? They seem to be people who have connections with English royalty and therefore this raises obvious questions of their own. Anyway, you are correct in saying ""Ireland does have cultural, and historical, and geographical ties to Britain that it does not share with any other nation."" It is also correct to say precisely the same thing about Ireland's relationship to every single country on earth. ""Ireland is the only nation in Europe, besides Great Britain of course, who speaks English as it's first language.""- to equate cultural similarities with the actual identity of a community is fundamentally flawed. Are we also American? Watching British TV, I would even venture to say that the British are actually American by your own logic? (ouch) You should reflect upon this particular point, because many people spend their lives missing the difference and go around offending an awful amount of decent and sincere people because of their ignorance.   "