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The British Isles is a traditional term used to identify the group of islands off the northwest coast of Europe consisting of Great Britain, Ireland and the many smaller adjacent islands. These islands form an archipelago off the west coast of Europe, 315,134 km (121,674 square miles), consisting of:
- Great Britain
- Ireland
- The Isle of Man
- The Isle of Wight
- The Orkney Isles
- The Shetland Isles
- Fair Isle
- The Hebrides
- The Small Isles
- Anglesey
- Lindisfarne
- The islands of the lower Firth of Clyde, including Arran and Bute
- The Isles of Scilly
- Lundy
- Looe Island
- The Channel Islands
and many other smaller islands surrounding the islands of Great Britain and Ireland.
Politically, the archipelago is now divided between two sovereign states, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, and three British crown dependencies: the Isle of Man, the Bailiwick of Guernsey and the Bailiwick of Jersey. The last four are not part of the United Kingdom.
Origin of the term 'British Isles'
The term "British Isles" owes its origin to the geographical proximity between the islands, separate from continental Europe, and also their political relationship. Great Britain is the largest island in the archipelago, and archipelagos are often identified using the name of the largest island. From the 12th century English monarchs reigned in Ireland as either Lords of Ireland or kings, and until the 13th century, Irish kings ruled in Scotland, so the name also reflected the existence of political relationships between some of the islands in the archipelago. The Hebridean Islands were however at this time ruled by Norway. Balthasar Moretus (1624), Giovanni Magini (1596), Abraham Ortelius (1570) and Sebastian Munster (1550) produced maps bearing the term "British Isles".
Irish Problems with Modern Usage
In recent times, however, and unlike the case in many archipelagos, the political relationship between the main islands has changed. Irish rule in Great Britain ceased with the death of Alexander the Third, who died without heir in 1287.
Since 1922, the Irish Free State (now the Republic of Ireland) has existed as a separate state, having fought a war of independence against Britain in the early twentieth century. Thus to many Irish people, the term "British Isles" is unacceptable, being seen as an agenda-laden term by apparently implying that Ireland is part of the 'islands of Britain', and somehow subordinate to Great Britain, as the term British Isles can be misinterpreted. It was controversially and embarrassingly so misinterpreted by then United States First Lady Nancy Reagan during an Irish visit. As a result the term is no longer used in Irish state documents, has been abandoned from Irish schoolbooks and is being phased out of textbooks. Its usage is also decreasing in official British state documentation.
Alternatives
However, the issue of a replacement term remains unsettled as of 2003, though 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 Davidson, has been used as a neutral term to describe these islands.
In cases where what is being referred to is the two largest islands, the term "Great Britain and Ireland" can be used. Of course, in those cases, the term "British Isles" would not be appropriate to begin with. There is no other brief term in common use to refer to the island group as a whole; "Great Britain, Ireland, and surrounding islands" gets at the basic meaning, but at the cost of conciseness.
Footnotes
The use of the term Britain was heavily in vogue in official circles in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. In October 1604 King James VI of Scotland, who had inherited the English throne the previous year becoming King James I of England, proclaimed himself Kynge of Great Brittaine. Britain or Great Britain, though was not officially adopted as the name of an all-island kingdom until 1707 when the Act of Union merged the Kingdoms of England and Scotland. Hence 'Britain' was the natural term to use to describe the archipelago, particularly as the Kingdom of Ireland was also in effect part of the King's realms, it finally being merged with Great Britain to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1801.
The problems caused by how one refers to the isles was highlighted when the historian Norman Davies produced a book examining the history of the archipelago. The title chosen was the neutral The Isles: A History though the cover carries a picture of the Kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland from Abraham Ortelius's 1570 map. Indeed the term British Isles does not even feature in the index of the book. The index simply refers to The Isles. Norman Davies, The Isles: A History (Palgrave/Macmillan, 1999) ISBN 033376370X
