The Kingdom of England, Wales and Northern Ireland
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland? It’s really not a good name when one half of Great Britain has just left.
The United Kingdom of England and Northern Ireland? Although Wales was part of England prior to the formation of the Kingdom of Great Britain, I doubt they’d accept this.
The United Kingdom of England, Wales and Northern Ireland? I’d say this is the most likely result.
However, @BrynTeilo then objected to the “United” bit on Twitter a few days ago:
@arcofprosperity @PartickDriver Either way, it can't style itself as an united kingdom, since NI and Wales aren't kingdoms
— BT (@BrynTeilo) June 13, 2013
I completely get his point, but what do you do then? If Northern Ireland wasn’t part of the new kingdom, I guess the Kingdom of South Britain would be a nifty option, but the Kingdom of South Britain and Northern Ireland doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue.
Perhaps they’ll just go for brevity and call themselves the Kingdom of Britain, but I guess the most likely solution will be the Kingdom of England, Wales and Northern Ireland, even though it sounds a bit odd without the “United” bit.
I just wonder what the demonym will be — Kewnian?
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It would make sense for N.I. to go with Scotland: the ‘Brits’ there are actually Scots rather than English. That would leave Englandandwales, which we’re used to anyway.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_England includes Wales
http://blog.widmann.org.uk/2007/01/23/263/
However, I’m pretty sure neither the Scots nor the Northern Irish want to go down that route… 🙂
But I’m pretty sure that idea would go down well with most Sassenachs 🙂
What happened to Greater Sussex? I thought that was the deal …
When I was at Edinburgh Uni there were heaps of Ulster students there — they said they felt more at home in Scotland than England. The cultures are certainly closer.
There are lots of Northern Irish in Scotland, so of course it’s true the countries are close. It’s just that one half of them would rather join Ireland, and the other half think of themselves as Irish Brits.
In the past they wanted to be British because they saw Britain as protecting their Protestant freedoms against what they saw as Catholic tyranny. Now that the British state is essentially secular, and becoming ever more so, that reason is no longer relevant.