England is different from Britain
The reason I'm about to labour this point so hard is that a very large number of non-British people have a very annoying habit of calling Britain "England", and of saying things like "I'm visiting England next month - I'm going to Edinburgh" or "I met an English person - he was from Wales", which are pretty much nonsense.
I live in England, in Great Britain, and in the United Kingdom - but it does not follow that these are all the same thing. This is an important issue, because to call a Scottish person English is wrong, and could potentially be offensive. Calling Scotland part of "England" is almost as bad as calling Canada part of the United States. Mistaking a Welshman for an Englishman is as bad as mistaking a Canadian for an American, or a New Zealander for an Australian, or an Iranian for an Iraqi. Calling a Scottish person English is rather like calling a Portuguese person a Spaniard, and to say you're visiting England, when in fact you're going to Glasgow or Swansea, is rather like saying that you're visiting Germany, when actually you're going to Amsterdam or The Hague.
England, Scotland, and Wales are separate countries. Wales is the western part of southern Britain (with Cardiff as its capital); England is the rest of southern Britain (with London as its capital); and Scotland is northern Britain (with Edinburgh as its capital). All three countries make up Great Britain, which is the island as a whole. To refer to the island as a whole as "England" is an error - rather like referring to the whole of the Iberian peninsula as "Spain", or referring to the whole of Oceania as "Australia".
English, Scottish, and Welsh people are all British and they all live in Britain, but they are definitely not all English, nor do they all live in England, nor is their island called by that name.
The United Kingdom, meanwhile, refers to Great Britain plus Northern Ireland - hence the full name "the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland". And the name "the British Isles", which is not a political unit, refers to Britain, Ireland, and the other small islands nearby. Although some Irish people might object to this label, it has to be said that the Irish at least have the sea between Britain and Ireland named after them - "the Irish Sea", although the English get the glory of the English-language name for the channel between Britain and France - "the English Channel" (which the French call "La Manche", "the sleeve").
The central government for the whole of the UK is that in London. But Scotland and Wales are to get regional assemblies by the year 2000; and Northern Ireland will regain a devolved assembly as part of the peace process.
That reminds me, next time you want to say that Britain should ignore the peace negotiations and instead simply "leave Ireland", don't say that the "English" shouldn't be in Ireland, when what you mean is the "British". To blame the "English" for all of Ireland's problems sounds rather ignorant and somewhat racist. To blame the "British" for all of them just sounds rather ignorant. Thanks!
The Irish Question
Q. Why don't the English just get out of Ireland?
A. Ireland? I assume you mean Northern Ireland.
Q. Right. Why don't the English just get out of Northern Ireland?
A. Because the English aren't in Northern Ireland. We're over here, in England. What you really mean is, why don't the Northern Irish Protestants get out of Northern Ireland, but you're not asking that because it would be such an obviously stupid question (a bit like asking "Why don't the English-speaking Canadians just get the hell out of Quebec?"). Northern Ireland is as much the home of the Protestants as of the Catholics, as much the home of the Unionists as of the Nationalists, and...
...a key fact this, so I started a new paragraph to make sure you noticed... the Unionists are the majority in Northern Ireland. The majority of the people there want Northern Ireland to part of the UK, and the majority of the people there would oppose Northern Ireland being part of the Republic. Many of those would oppose unity with the Republic just as fervently as a small minority of Nationalists currently opposes unity with Britain.
But it's worth noting that not only are Protestants the majority in Northern Ireland, but around half of the Catholics also want NI to remain within the UK. Overall, about two-thirds of Northern Irelanders want NI to remain in the UK. And they're not invaders or intruders. They're people who were born there and have lived there all their lives.
It may be true that most of the Protestants are distant descendants from British (mostly Scottish, not English) settlers, but so what? The great majority of Protestant families in the North have been there for hundreds of years. And if you want to go back far enough, an awful lot of Scottish people (a lot of those who subsequently moved "back" to Ireland) were settlers from Northern Ireland anyway.
©1998 Richard Pond