
The
toponym
Toponymy, toponymics, or toponomastics is the study of ''wikt:toponym, toponyms'' (proper names of places, also known as place names and geographic names), including their origins, meanings, usage, and types. ''Toponym'' is the general term for ...
"
British Isles
The British Isles are an archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean off the north-western coast of continental Europe, consisting of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Inner Hebrides, Inner and Outer Hebr ...
" refers to a
Europe
Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...
an
archipelago
An archipelago ( ), sometimes called an island group or island chain, is a chain, cluster, or collection of islands. An archipelago may be in an ocean, a sea, or a smaller body of water. Example archipelagos include the Aegean Islands (the o ...
comprising
Great Britain
Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-west coast of continental Europe, consisting of the countries England, Scotland, and Wales. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the List of European ...
,
Ireland
Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...
and the smaller, adjacent islands.
The word "
British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies.
* British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...
" has also become an adjective and
demonym
A demonym (; ) or 'gentilic' () is a word that identifies a group of people ( inhabitants, residents, natives) in relation to a particular place. Demonyms are usually derived from the name of the place ( hamlet, village, town, city, region, ...
referring to the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
and more historically associated with the
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, Crown colony, colonies, protectorates, League of Nations mandate, mandates, and other Dependent territory, territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It bega ...
. For this reason, the name British Isles is avoided by some, as such usage could be interpreted to imply continued
territorial claims
A land claim is "the pursuit of recognized territorial ownership by a group or individual". The phrase is usually only used with respect to disputed or unresolved land claims. Some types of land claims include aboriginal land claims, Antarctic l ...
or political overlordship of the Republic of Ireland by the United Kingdom.
["Geographical terms also cause problems and we know that some will find certain of our terms offensive. Many Irish object to the term the 'British Isles';..." ''The Dynamics of Conflict in Northern Ireland: Power, Conflict and emancipation''. Joseph Ruane and Jennifer Todd. Cambridge University Press. 1996 ]
Diarmaid MacCulloch
Diarmaid Ninian John MacCulloch (; born 31 October 1951) is an English academic and historian, specialising in ecclesiastical history and the history of Christianity. Since 1995, he has been a fellow of St Cross College, Oxford; he was former ...
, ''The Reformation: Europe's House Divided 1490–1700''. (London: Penguin/Allen Lane, 2003): "the collection of islands which embraces England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales has commonly been known as the British Isles. This title no longer pleases all the inhabitants of the islands, and a more neutral description is 'the Atlantic Isles'" (p. xxvi).
On 18 July 2004
''The Sunday Business Post''
questioned the use of ''British Isles'' as a purely geographic expression, noting:
he"Last Post has redoubled its efforts to re-educate those labouring under the misconception that Ireland is really just British. When British Retail Week magazine last week reported that a retailer was to make its British Isles debut in Dublin, we were puzzled. Is not Dublin the capital of the Republic of Ireland?. When Last Post suggested the magazine might see its way clear to correcting the error, an educative e-mail to the publication...:
Retrieved 17 July 2006
"... (which) I have called the Atlantic archipelago – since the term 'British Isles' is one which Irishmen reject and Englishmen decline to take quite seriously." Pocock, J. G. A. 974
Year 974 ( CMLXXIV) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Julian calendar.
Events
By place
Europe
* Battle of Danevirke: Emperor Otto II defeats the rebel forces of King Harald I, who has invaded Nordalbingia (modern-day Ho ...
(2005). "British History: A plea for a new subject". ''The Discovery of Islands''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 29. .
"... what used to be called the "British Isles", although that is now a politically incorrect
"Political correctness" (adjectivally "politically correct"; commonly abbreviated to P.C.) is a term used to describe language, policies, or measures that are intended to avoid offense or disadvantage to members of particular groups in society. ...
term." Finnegan, Richard B.; Edward T. McCarron (2000). ''Ireland: Historical Echoes'', Contemporary Politics. Boulder: Westview Press, p. 358.
"In an attempt to coin a term that avoided the 'British Isles' – a term often offensive to Irish sensibilities – Pocock suggested a neutral geographical term for the collection of islands located off the northwest coast of continental Europe which included Britain and Ireland: the Atlantic archipelago..." Lambert, Peter; Phillipp Schofield (2004). ''Making History: An Introduction to the History and Practices of a Discipline''. New York: Routledge, p. 217.
"..the term is increasingly unacceptable to Irish historians in particular, for whom the Irish Sea is or ought to be a separating rather than a linking element. Sensitive to such susceptibilities, proponents of the idea of a genuine British history, a theme which has come to the fore during the last couple of decades, are plumping for a more neutral term to label the scattered islands peripheral to the two major ones of Great Britain and Ireland." Roots, Ivan (1997). "Union or Devolution in Cromwell's Britain". History Review.
Alternative names that have sometimes been coined for the British Isles include "Britain and Ireland",
the "Atlantic Archipelago",
["...(which) I have called the Atlantic archipelago – since the term 'British Isles' is one which Irishmen reject and Englishmen decline to take quite seriously." Pocock, J. G. A. (2006). ''The Discovery of Islands''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 29. .] the "
Anglo-Celtic Isles",
the "British-Irish Isles",
[John Oakland, 2003]
British Civilization: A Student's Dictionary
Routledge: London
British-Irish Isles, the (geography) see BRITISH ISLES
British Isles, the (geography) A geographical (not political or CONSTITUTIONAL) term for ENGLAND, SCOTLAND, WALES, and IRELAND (including the REPUBLIC OF IRELAND), together with all offshore islands. A more accurate (and politically acceptable) term today is the British-Irish Isles.
and the
Islands of the North Atlantic.
In documents drawn up jointly between the British and Irish governments, the archipelago is referred to simply as "these islands".
To some, the reasons to use an alternate name is partly
semantic
Semantics is the study of linguistic Meaning (philosophy), meaning. It examines what meaning is, how words get their meaning, and how the meaning of a complex expression depends on its parts. Part of this process involves the distinction betwee ...
, while, to others, it is a
value-laden political one. The
Channel Islands
The Channel Islands are an archipelago in the English Channel, off the French coast of Normandy. They are divided into two Crown Dependencies: the Jersey, Bailiwick of Jersey, which is the largest of the islands; and the Bailiwick of Guernsey, ...
are normally included in the British Isles by tradition, though they are physically a separate archipelago from the rest of the isles.
United Kingdom law
The United Kingdom has three distinctly different legal systems, each of which derives from a particular geographical area for a variety of historical reasons: English law (in the joint jurisdiction of England and Wales), Scots law, Northern I ...
uses the term
British Islands
The British Islands is a term within the law of the United Kingdom which refers collectively to the following four polities:
* the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland;
* the Bailiwick of Guernsey (including the jurisdictio ...
to refer to the UK, Channel Islands, and
Isle of Man
The Isle of Man ( , also ), or Mann ( ), is a self-governing British Crown Dependency in the Irish Sea, between Great Britain and Ireland. As head of state, Charles III holds the title Lord of Mann and is represented by a Lieutenant Govern ...
as a single collective entity.
An early variant of the term British Isles dates back to
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...
times, when they were known as the Pretanic or Britannic Islands. It was translated as the British Isles into English in the late 16th or early 17th centuries by English and Welsh writers, whose writings have been described as propaganda and politicised.
[Ken MacMillan, 2001,]
Discourse on history, geography, and law: John Dee and the limits of the British empire
, in ''Canadian Journal of History'', April 2001.[R. J. Mayhew, 2000, "Geography is Twinned with Divinity: The Laudian Geography of Peter Heylyn" in ''Geographical Review'', Vol. 90, No. 1 (January 2000), pp. 18–34:
"In the period between 1600 and 1800, politics meant what we might now term 'high politics', excluding the cultural and social elements that modern analyses of ideology seek to uncover. Politics referred to discussions of dynastic legitimacy, of representation, and of the Constitution. ...
Geography books spanning the period from the Reformation to the Reform Act ... demonstrated their authors' specific political identities by the languages and arguments they deployed. This cannot be seen as any deviation from the classical geographical tradition, or as a tainting of geography by politics, because geography was not to be conceived separately from politics."][Robert Mayhew, 2005, "" in the ''British Journal of the History of Science'', 38(1): 73–92, March 2005.]
The term became controversial after the breakup of the
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the union of the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland into one sovereign state, established by the Acts of Union 1800, Acts of Union in 1801. It continued in this form until ...
in 1922. The names of the archipelago's two sovereign states were themselves the subject of a long
dispute between the Irish and British governments.
History
Classical Antiquity
The earliest known names for the islands come from
Greco-Roman
The Greco-Roman world , also Greco-Roman civilization, Greco-Roman culture or Greco-Latin culture (spelled Græco-Roman or Graeco-Roman in British English), as understood by modern scholars and writers, includes the geographical regions and co ...
writings. Sources included the
Massaliote Periplus (a merchants' handbook from around 500 BC describing sea routes) and the travel writings of the Greek,
Pytheas
Pytheas of Massalia (; Ancient Greek: Πυθέας ὁ Μασσαλιώτης ''Pythéās ho Massaliōtēs''; Latin: ''Pytheas Massiliensis''; born 350 BC, 320–306 BC) was a Greeks, Greek List of Graeco-Roman geographers, geographer, explo ...
, from around 320 BC. Although the earliest texts have been lost, excerpts were quoted or paraphrased by later authors. The main islands were called "Ierne", equal to the term ''
Ériu
In Irish mythology, Ériu (; ), daughter of Delbáeth and Ernmas of the Tuatha Dé Danann, was the eponymous matron goddess of Ireland.
The English name for Ireland comes from the name Ériu and the Germanic languages, Germanic (Old Norse or ...
'' for Ireland, and "
Albion
Albion is an alternative name for Great Britain. The oldest attestation of the toponym comes from the Greek language. It is sometimes used poetically and generally to refer to the island, but is less common than "Britain" today. The name for Scot ...
" for present-day Great Britain. The island group had long been known collectively as the Pretanic or Britanic isles.
There is considerable confusion about early use of these terms and the extent to which similar terms were used as self-description by the inhabitants.
Cognates of these terms are still in use.
According to
T. F. O'Rahilly in 1946 "Early Greek geographers style Britain and Ireland 'the Pretanic (''or'' Brettanic) islands', i.e. the islands of the Pritani or Priteni" and that "From this one may reasonably infer that the Priteni were the ruling population of Britain and Ireland at the time when these islands first became known to the Greeks". O'Rahilly identified the Preteni with the and the , whom he stated were the earliest of the "four groups of Celtic invaders of Ireland" and "after whom these islands were known to the Greeks as 'the Pretanic Islands'".
According to
A. L. F. Rivet and Colin Smith in 1979 "the earliest instance of the name which is textually known to us" is in
''The Histories'' of
Polybius
Polybius (; , ; ) was a Greek historian of the middle Hellenistic period. He is noted for his work , a universal history documenting the rise of Rome in the Mediterranean in the third and second centuries BC. It covered the period of 264–146 ...
, who referred to them .
According to Rivet and Smith, this name encompassed "Britain with Ireland".
Polybius wrote:
According to
Christopher Snyder in 2003, the collective name "Brittanic Isles" () was "a geographic rather than a cultural or political designation" including Ireland. According to Snyder, "Preteni", a word related to the and to the , was used by southern
Britons
British people or Britons, also known colloquially as Brits, are the citizens of the United Kingdom, the British Overseas Territories, and the Crown dependencies.: British nationality law governs modern British citizenship and nationality, w ...
to refer to the people north of the
Antonine Wall
The Antonine Wall () was a turf fortification on stone foundations, built by the Romans across what is now the Central Belt of Scotland, between the Firth of Clyde and the Firth of Forth. Built some twenty years after Hadrian's Wall to the south ...
, also known as the Picts ().
According to Snyder, "Preteni" was a probably from a
Celtic
Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to:
Language and ethnicity
*pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia
**Celts (modern)
*Celtic languages
**Proto-Celtic language
*Celtic music
*Celtic nations
Sports Foot ...
term meaning "people of the forms", whereas the Latin name was probably derived from the Celtic practice of
tattoo
A tattoo is a form of body modification made by inserting tattoo ink, dyes, or pigments, either indelible or temporary, into the dermis layer of the skin to form a design. Tattoo artists create these designs using several tattooing processes ...
ing or painting the body before battle.
According to
Kenneth H. Jackson, the
Pictish language
Pictish is an extinct Brittonic Celtic language spoken by the Picts, the people of eastern and northern Scotland from late antiquity to the Early Middle Ages. Virtually no direct attestations of Pictish remain, short of a limited number of geo ...
was a
Celtic language
The Celtic languages ( ) are a branch of the Indo-European language family, descended from the hypothetical Proto-Celtic language. The term "Celtic" was first used to describe this language group by Edward Lhuyd in 1707, following Paul-Yves ...
related to modern Welsh and to ancient
Gaulish
Gaulish is an extinct Celtic languages, Celtic language spoken in parts of Continental Europe before and during the period of the Roman Empire. In the narrow sense, Gaulish was the language of the Celts of Gaul (now France, Luxembourg, Belgium, ...
with influences from earlier
non-Indo-European languages.
The fourth chapter of the first book of the of
Diodorus Siculus
Diodorus Siculus or Diodorus of Sicily (; 1st century BC) was an ancient Greece, ancient Greek historian from Sicily. He is known for writing the monumental Universal history (genre), universal history ''Bibliotheca historica'', in forty ...
describes Julius Caesar as having "advanced the Roman Empire as far as the British Isles" () and in the 38th chapter of the third book Diodorus remarks that the region "about the British Isles" () and other distant lands of the ''
oecumene
In ancient Greece, the term ''oecumene'' ( UK) or ''ecumene'' ( US; ) denoted the known, inhabited, or habitable world. In Greek antiquity, it referred to the portions of the world known to Hellenic geographers, subdivided into three continents ...
'' "have by no means come to be included in the common knowledge of men". According to Philip Freeman in 2001, "it seems reasonable, especially at this early point in classical knowledge of the Irish, for Diodorus or his sources to think of all inhabitants of the Brettanic Isles as ''Brettanoi''".
According to
Barry Cunliffe
Sir Barrington Windsor Cunliffe (born 10 December 1939), usually known as Sir Barry Cunliffe, is a British archaeologist and academic. He was Professor of European Archaeology at the University of Oxford from 1972 to 2007. Since 2007, he has been ...
in 2002, "The earliest reasonably comprehensive description of the British Isles to survive from the classical authors is the account given by the Greek writer Diodorus Siculus in the first century B.C. Diodorus uses the word , which is probably the earliest Greek form of the name".
Cunliffe argued that "the original inhabitants would probably have called themselves ''Pretani'' or ''Preteni''", citing Jackson's argument that the form ''Pretani'' was used in the south of Britain and the form ''Preteni'' was used in the north.
This form then remained in use in the Roman period to describe the Picts beyond the Antonine Wall.
In Ireland, where ''Qu'' took the place of ''P'', the form ''Quriteni'' was used.
Cunliffe argued that "Since it is highly probable that Diodorus was basing his description on a text of Pytheas's (though he nowhere acknowledges the fact), it would most likely have been Pytheas who first transliterated the local word for the islands into the Greek .
Pytheas may have taken his name for the inhabitants from the name ''Pretani'' when he made landfall on the peninsula of
Belerion, though in Cunliffe's view, because it is unusual for a self-description (an
endonym
An endonym (also known as autonym ) is a common, name for a group of people, individual person, geographical place, language, or dialect, meaning that it is used inside a particular group or linguistic community to identify or designate them ...
) to describe appearance, this name may have been used by
Armorica
In ancient times, Armorica or Aremorica (Gaulish: ; ; ) was a region of Gaul between the Seine and the Loire that includes the Brittany Peninsula, and much of historical Normandy.
Name
The name ''Armorica'' is a Latinized form of the Gauli ...
ns, from whom Pytheas would have learnt what the inhabitants of Albion were called.
According to Snyder, the derives from "a Gallo-Brittonic word which may have been introduced to Britain during the P-Celtic linguistic innovations of the sixth century BC".
According to Cunliffe, Diodorus Siculus used the spelling , while
Strabo
Strabo''Strabo'' (meaning "squinty", as in strabismus) was a term employed by the Romans for anyone whose eyes were distorted or deformed. The father of Pompey was called "Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo, Pompeius Strabo". A native of Sicily so clear-si ...
used both and '. Cunliffe argues the ''B'' spelling appears only in the first book of Strabo's ''Geography'', so the ''P'' spelling reflects Strabo's original spelling and the changes to Book I are the result of a
scribal error
A typographical error (often shortened to typo), also called a misprint, is a mistake (such as a spelling or transposition error) made in the typing of printed or electronic material. Historically, this referred to mistakes in manual typesetting ...
. In classical texts, the word Britain ( or ; ) replaced the word Albion. An inhabitant was therefore called a "Briton" (; ), with the adjective becoming "British" (; ).
The
Pseudo-Aristotelian text ''
On the Universe
''On the Universe'' (; ) is a theological and scientific treatise included in the Corpus Aristotelicum but usually regarded as Pseudo-Aristotle, spurious. It was likely published between the and the . The work discusses cosmological, geological, ...
'' (; ) mentions the British Isles, identifying the two largest islands, Great Britain () and Ireland (), and stating that they are "called British" () when describing the ocean beyond the
Mediterranean Basin:
Apuleius
Apuleius ( ), also called Lucius Apuleius Madaurensis (c. 124 – after 170), was a Numidians, Numidian Latin-language prose writer, Platonist philosopher and rhetorician. He was born in the Roman Empire, Roman Numidia (Roman province), province ...
's Latin adaptation of the Aristotelian calls the British Isles "the two Britains" (), naming Great Britain () and Ireland ():According to Philip Freeman in 2001, "The Latin version is a close translation of the Greek and adds no new information".
Strabo
Strabo''Strabo'' (meaning "squinty", as in strabismus) was a term employed by the Romans for anyone whose eyes were distorted or deformed. The father of Pompey was called "Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo, Pompeius Strabo". A native of Sicily so clear-si ...
, in his , refers to the British Isles as "the Britains" (), citing Pytheas for his information on Great Britain (), Ireland (), and
Thule
Thule ( ; also spelled as ''Thylē'') is the most northerly location mentioned in ancient Greek and Roman literature and cartography. First written of by the Greek explorer Pytheas of Massalia (modern-day Marseille, France) in about 320 BC, i ...
(). According to D. Graham J. Shipley, "Strabo probably consulted Pytheas' work only indirectly through other authors". Strabo was disapproving of Pytheas, whose work was used by Strabo's predecessor
Eratosthenes
Eratosthenes of Cyrene (; ; – ) was an Ancient Greek polymath: a Greek mathematics, mathematician, geographer, poet, astronomer, and music theory, music theorist. He was a man of learning, becoming the chief librarian at the Library of A ...
.
Strabo wrote:Around AD 70,
Pliny the Elder
Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/24 79), known in English as Pliny the Elder ( ), was a Roman Empire, Roman author, Natural history, naturalist, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the Roman emperor, emperor Vesp ...
, in Book 4 of his ''
Naturalis Historia
The ''Natural History'' () is a Latin work by Pliny the Elder. The largest single work to have survived from the Roman Empire to the modern day, the ''Natural History'' compiles information gleaned from other ancient authors. Despite the work' ...
'', describes the islands he considers to be "Britanniae" as including Great Britain, Ireland, Orkney, smaller islands such as the Hebrides, the Isle of Man, Anglesey, possibly one of the Frisian Islands, and islands which have been identified as
Ushant
Ushant (; , ; , ) is a French island at the southwestern end of the English Channel which marks the westernmost point of metropolitan France. It belongs to Brittany and in medieval times, Léon. In lower tiers of government, it is a commune in t ...
and Sian. He refers to Great Britain as the island called "Britannia", noting that its former name was "Albion". The list also includes the island of Thule, most often identified as Iceland—although some express the view that it may have been the
Faroe Islands
The Faroe Islands ( ) (alt. the Faroes) are an archipelago in the North Atlantic Ocean and an autonomous territory of the Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark. Located between Iceland, Norway, and the United Kingdom, the islands have a populat ...
—the coast of
Norway
Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...
or
Denmark
Denmark is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe. It is the metropole and most populous constituent of the Kingdom of Denmark,, . also known as the Danish Realm, a constitutionally unitary state that includes the Autonomous a ...
, or possibly
Shetland
Shetland (until 1975 spelled Zetland), also called the Shetland Islands, is an archipelago in Scotland lying between Orkney, the Faroe Islands, and Norway, marking the northernmost region of the United Kingdom. The islands lie about to the ...
.
["The opinions as to the identity of ancient Thule have been numerous in the extreme. We may here mention six:
#The common, and apparently the best founded opinion, that Thule is the island of ]Iceland
Iceland is a Nordic countries, Nordic island country between the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between North America and Europe. It is culturally and politically linked with Europe and is the regi ...
.
#That it is either the Ferroe group, or one of those islands.
#The notion of Ortelius
Abraham Ortelius (; also Ortels, Orthellius, Wortels; 4 or 14 April 152728 June 1598) was a cartographer, geographer, and cosmographer from Antwerp in the Spanish Netherlands. He is recognized as the creator of the first modern atlas, the ('' ...
, Farnaby, and Schœnning, that it is identical with Thylemark in Norway.
#The opinion of Malte Brun, that the continental portion of Denmark
Denmark is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe. It is the metropole and most populous constituent of the Kingdom of Denmark,, . also known as the Danish Realm, a constitutionally unitary state that includes the Autonomous a ...
is meant thereby, a part of which is to the present day called Thy or Thyland.
#The opinion of Rudbeck and of Calstron, borrowed originally from Procopius
Procopius of Caesarea (; ''Prokópios ho Kaisareús''; ; – 565) was a prominent Late antiquity, late antique Byzantine Greeks, Greek scholar and historian from Caesarea Maritima. Accompanying the Roman general Belisarius in Justinian I, Empe ...
, that this is a general name for the whole of Scandinavia
Scandinavia is a subregion#Europe, subregion of northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. It can sometimes also ...
.
#That of Gosselin, who thinks that under this name Mainland
Mainland is defined as "relating to or forming the main part of a country or continent, not including the islands around it egardless of status under territorial jurisdiction by an entity" The term is often politically, economically and/or demogr ...
, the principal of the Shetland Islands
Shetland (until 1975 spelled Zetland), also called the Shetland Islands, is an archipelago in Scotland
Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the Uni ...
, is meant.
It is by no means impossible that under the name of Thule two or more of these localities may have been meant, by different authors writing at distant periods and under different states of geographical knowledge. It is also pretty generally acknowledged, as Parisot remarks, that the Thule mentioned by Ptolemy is identical with Thylemark in Norway." After describing the
Rhine delta, Pliny begins his chapter on the British Isles, which he calls "the Britains" ():
According to
Thomas O'Loughlin in 2018, the British Isles was "a concept already present in the minds of those living in continental Europe since at least the 2nd–cent. CE".
In his ,
Dionysius Periegetes
Dionysius Periegetes (, literally Dionysius the Voyager or Traveller, often Latinized to ''Dionysius Periegeta''), also known as Dionysius of Alexandria or Dionysius the African,''Encyclopædia Britannica'', 4th edition, 1810, 9''506/ref> was the ...
mentions the British Isles and describes their position opposite the Rhine delta, specifying that there are two islands and calling them the "Bretanides" ( or ).
In
Priscian
Priscianus Caesariensis (), commonly known as Priscian ( or ), was a Latin grammarian and the author of the ''Institutes of Grammar'', which was the standard textbook for the study of Latin during the Middle Ages. It also provided the raw materia ...
's Latin adaptation of Dionysius's Greek , the British Isles are mentioned as "the twin " ().
In his ,
Arrian
Arrian of Nicomedia (; Greek: ''Arrianos''; ; )
was a Greek historian, public servant, military commander, and philosopher of the Roman period.
'' The Anabasis of Alexander'' by Arrian is considered the best source on the campaigns of ...
referred to "people living in the islands called "Britannic" which belong to the Great Exterior sea" () as being the only people in the world still to use
war chariots.
In his ''
Almagest
The ''Almagest'' ( ) is a 2nd-century Greek mathematics, mathematical and Greek astronomy, astronomical treatise on the apparent motions of the stars and planetary paths, written by Ptolemy, Claudius Ptolemy ( ) in Koine Greek. One of the most i ...
'' (147–148 AD)'',''
Claudius Ptolemy
Claudius Ptolemy (; , ; ; – 160s/170s AD) was a Greco-Roman mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were important to later Byzantine, Islamic, and ...
referred to the larger island as Great Britain () and to Ireland as Little Britain (). According to Philip Freeman in 2001, Ptolemy "is the only ancient writer to use the name "Little Britain" for Ireland, though in doing so he is well within the tradition of earlier authors who pair a smaller Ireland with a larger Britain as the two Brettanic Isles".
In the second book of Ptolemy's ''
Geography
Geography (from Ancient Greek ; combining 'Earth' and 'write', literally 'Earth writing') is the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. Geography is an all-encompassing discipline that seeks an understanding o ...
'' (), the second and third chapters are respectively titled in and .
In the fifth chapter of the seventh book of ''Geography'', Ptolemy describes the British Isles as being at the northern limits of the ''
oecumene
In ancient Greece, the term ''oecumene'' ( UK) or ''ecumene'' ( US; ) denoted the known, inhabited, or habitable world. In Greek antiquity, it referred to the portions of the world known to Hellenic geographers, subdivided into three continents ...
'': "in the north, the ''oecumene'' is limited by the continuation of the ocean which surrounds the British Isles and the northernmost parts of Europe" ().
In the same chapter, he enumerates in order of size the ten largest islands or peninsulas known to him, listing both Great Britain and Ireland:
In the third chapter of the eighth book of ''Geography'', Ptolemy summarizes the content of his maps, stating that "The first map of Europe includes the British Isles and the surrounding islands" ().
Ptolemy wrote around AD 150, although he used the now-lost work of
Marinus of Tyre
Marinus of Tyre (, ''Marînos ho Týrios''; 70–130) was a List of Graeco-Roman geographers, geographer, Cartography, cartographer and mathematician, who founded mathematical geography and provided the underpinnings of Claudius Ptolemy's i ...
from about fifty years earlier.
Ptolemy included Thule in the chapter on Albion; the coordinates he gives correlate with the location of Shetland, though the location given for Thule by Pytheas may have been further north, in Iceland or Norway. ''Geography'' generally reflects the situation c. 100 AD.
Following the
conquest of AD 43 the
Roman province
The Roman provinces (, pl. ) were the administrative regions of Ancient Rome outside Roman Italy that were controlled by the Romans under the Roman Republic and later the Roman Empire. Each province was ruled by a Roman appointed as Roman g ...
of Britannia was established, and
Roman Britain
Roman Britain was the territory that became the Roman province of ''Britannia'' after the Roman conquest of Britain, consisting of a large part of the island of Great Britain. The occupation lasted from AD 43 to AD 410.
Julius Caes ...
expanded to cover much of the island of Great Britain. An invasion of Ireland was considered but never undertaken, and Ireland remained outside the Roman Empire. The Romans failed to consolidate their hold on the
Scottish Highlands
The Highlands (; , ) is a historical region of Scotland. Culturally, the Highlands and the Scottish Lowlands, Lowlands diverged from the Late Middle Ages into the modern period, when Scots language, Lowland Scots language replaced Scottish Gae ...
; the northern extent of the area under their control (defined by the
Antonine Wall
The Antonine Wall () was a turf fortification on stone foundations, built by the Romans across what is now the Central Belt of Scotland, between the Firth of Clyde and the Firth of Forth. Built some twenty years after Hadrian's Wall to the south ...
across
central Scotland) stabilised at
Hadrian's Wall
Hadrian's Wall (, also known as the ''Roman Wall'', Picts' Wall, or ''Vallum Aelium'' in Latin) is a former defensive fortification of the Roman province of Roman Britain, Britannia, begun in AD 122 in the reign of the Emperor Hadrian. Ru ...
across the
north of England
Northern England, or the North of England, refers to the northern part of England and mainly corresponds to the historic counties of Cheshire, Cumberland, Durham, Lancashire, Northumberland, Westmorland and Yorkshire. Officially, it is a gr ...
by about AD 210. Inhabitants of the province continued to refer to themselves as "Brittannus" or "Britto", and gave their ''patria'' (homeland) as "Britannia" or as their tribe. The vernacular term "Priteni" came to be used for the barbarians north of the Antonine Wall, with the Romans using the tribal name "
Caledonii" more generally for these peoples who (after AD 300) they called
Picts
The Picts were a group of peoples in what is now Scotland north of the Firth of Forth, in the Scotland in the early Middle Ages, Early Middle Ages. Where they lived and details of their culture can be gleaned from early medieval texts and Pic ...
.
The post-conquest Romans used ''Britannia'' or ''Britannia Magna'' (Large Britain) for Britain, and ''Hibernia'' or ''Britannia Parva'' (Small Britain) for Ireland. The post-Roman era saw
Brythonic kingdoms established in all areas of Great Britain except the
Scottish Highlands
The Highlands (; , ) is a historical region of Scotland. Culturally, the Highlands and the Scottish Lowlands, Lowlands diverged from the Late Middle Ages into the modern period, when Scots language, Lowland Scots language replaced Scottish Gae ...
, but coming under increasing attacks from
Picts
The Picts were a group of peoples in what is now Scotland north of the Firth of Forth, in the Scotland in the early Middle Ages, Early Middle Ages. Where they lived and details of their culture can be gleaned from early medieval texts and Pic ...
,
Scotti and
Anglo-Saxons
The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a Cultural identity, cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced t ...
. At this time Ireland was dominated by the Gaels or Scotti, who subsequently gave their names to Ireland and Scotland.
In the grammatical treatise he dedicated to the emperor
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus ( ; ; 26 April 121 – 17 March 180) was Roman emperor from 161 to 180 and a Stoicism, Stoic philosopher. He was a member of the Nerva–Antonine dynasty, the last of the rulers later known as the Five Good Emperors ...
(), ,
Aelius Herodianus
Aelius Herodianus () or Herodian (fl. 2nd century CE) was one of the most celebrated grammarians of Greco-Roman antiquity. He is usually known as Herodian except when there is a danger of confusion with the historian also named Herodian.
Herodian ...
notes the differences in spelling of the name of the British Isles, citing Ptolemy as one of the authorities who spelt the name with a
''pi'' (): " islands in the Ocean; and some
pelllike this with ''pi'', , such as Ptolemy" (). Herodianus repeated this information in : " islands in the ocean. They are called with ''pi'', , such as by Ptolemy" ().
The chronicle attributed to
Pope
The pope is the bishop of Rome and the Head of the Church#Catholic Church, visible head of the worldwide Catholic Church. He is also known as the supreme pontiff, Roman pontiff, or sovereign pontiff. From the 8th century until 1870, the po ...
Hippolytus of Rome
Hippolytus of Rome ( , ; Romanized: , – ) was a Bishop of Rome and one of the most important second–third centuries Christian theologians, whose provenance, identity and corpus remain elusive to scholars and historians. Suggested communitie ...
mentions the British Isles as part of the lands allotted to
Japheth
Japheth ( ''Yép̄eṯ'', in pausa ''Yā́p̄eṯ''; '; ; ') is one of the three sons of Noah in the Book of Genesis, in which he plays a role in the story of Noah's drunkenness and the curse of Ham, and subsequently in the Table of Nation ...
in the
table of nations
The Generations of Noah, also called the Table of Nations or ''Origines Gentium'', is a genealogy of the sons of Noah, according to the Hebrew Bible (Book of Genesis, Genesis ), and their dispersion into many lands after Genesis flood narrative ...
:
In the manuscript tradition of the ''
Sibylline Oracles
The ''Sibylline Oracles'' (; sometimes called the pseudo-Sibylline Oracles) are a collection of oracular utterances written in Greek hexameters ascribed to the Sibyls, prophetesses who uttered divine revelations in a frenzied state. Fourteen b ...
'', two lines from the fifth book may refer to the British Isles:
In the
editio princeps
In Textual scholarship, textual and classical scholarship, the ''editio princeps'' (plural: ''editiones principes'') of a work is the first printed edition of the work, that previously had existed only in manuscripts. These had to be copied by han ...
of this part of the ''Sibylline Oracles'', published by
Sixt Birck in 1545, the or is printed as in the manuscripts.
In the Latin translation by
Sebastian Castellio published alongside Birck's Greek text in 1555, these lines are translated as:
Castellio translated as . The chronicler
John Stow
John Stow (''also'' Stowe; 1524/25 – 5 April 1605) was an English historian and antiquarian. He wrote a series of chronicles of History of England, English history, published from 1565 onwards under such titles as ''The Summarie of Englyshe C ...
in 1580 cited the spelling of in the ''Sibylline Oracles'' as evidence that the British Isles had been named after
Brutus of Troy
Brutus, also called Brute of Troy, is a mythical British king. He is described as a legendary descendant of the Trojan hero Aeneas, known in medieval British legend as the eponymous founder and first king of Britain. This legend first appears ...
.
William Camden quoted these Greek and Latin texts in his
''Britannia'', published in Latin in 1586 and in English in 1610, following Castelio's translation identifying with the Britains or Britons:
In Aloisius Rzach's 1891
critical edition
Textual criticism is a branch of textual scholarship, philology, and literary criticism that is concerned with the identification of textual variants, or different versions, of either manuscripts (mss) or of printed books. Such texts may range i ...
, the manuscript reading of is retained.
Rzach suggested that
Procopius of Caesarea
Procopius of Caesarea (; ''Prokópios ho Kaisareús''; ; – 565) was a prominent late antique Greek scholar and historian from Caesarea Maritima. Accompanying the Roman general Belisarius in Emperor Justinian's wars, Procopius became the pr ...
referred to these lines when mentioning in his that the ''Sibylline Oracles'' "foretells the misfortunes of the Britons" ().
Milton Terry's 1899 English translation followed Rzach's edition, translating as "the Britons":
Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff
Enno Friedrich Wichard Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff (22 December 1848 – 25 September 1931) was a German classical philologist. Wilamowitz, as he is known in scholarly circles, was a renowned authority on Ancient Greece and its literatur ...
, however, suggested that the manuscript reading should be
emended to , , in reference to the ancient
Bryges
Bryges or Briges () is the historical name given to a people of the ancient Balkans. They are generally considered to have been related to the Phrygians, who during classical antiquity lived in western Anatolia. Both names, ''Bryges'' and ''Phryg ...
.
1902 critical edition accepted Wilamowitz's emendation, printing .
John J. Collins's English text of the ''Sibylline Oracles'' in
James H. Charlesworth's 1983 edition of translated
Old Testament pseudepigrapha
Pseudepigrapha are falsely attributed works, texts whose claimed author is not the true author, or a work whose real author attributed it to a figure of the past.Bauckham, Richard; "Pseudo-Apostolic Letters", ''Journal of Biblical Literature'', V ...
follows the manuscript tradition, translating as "the Britains":
Ken Jones, preferring Wilamowitz's emendation, wrote in 2011: "This is not, so far as I can see, a usual translation, nor is this even a Greek word. The Brygi () or Briges (), on the other hand, are a known people."
The mentioned the British Isles as the or .
The text refers to the archipelago together with : ", together with the Brittanic islands, is bounded on the east by the
Rhine
The Rhine ( ) is one of the List of rivers of Europe, major rivers in Europe. The river begins in the Swiss canton of Graubünden in the southeastern Swiss Alps. It forms part of the Swiss-Liechtenstein border, then part of the Austria–Swit ...
, …" ().
According to the editor Paul Schnabel in 1935, the manuscript traditions spelt the name variously as: , , or .
John Chrysostom
John Chrysostom (; ; – 14 September 407) was an important Church Father who served as archbishop of Constantinople. He is known for his preaching and public speaking, his denunciation of abuse of authority by both ecclesiastical and p ...
's
Biblical commentary
Exegesis ( ; from the Greek , from , "to lead out") is a critical explanation or interpretation of a text. The term is traditionally applied to the interpretation of Biblical works. In modern usage, exegesis can involve critical interpretations ...
on the ''
Book of Isaiah
The Book of Isaiah ( ) is the first of the Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible and the first of the Major Prophets in the Christian Old Testament. It is identified by a superscription as the words of the 8th-century BC prophet Isaiah ben Amo ...
'', mentions the British Isles in a comment on
Isaiah 2:4:
In the manuscript copy of the
classical Armenian
Classical Armenian (, , ; meaning "literary anguage; also Old Armenian or Liturgical Armenian) is the oldest attested form of the Armenian language. It was first written down at the beginning of the 5th century, and most Armenian literature fro ...
adaptation published in 1880 by the
Mekhitarists of , the British Isles are , which in the Latin translation of 1887 is .
In his ,
Prosper of Aquitaine
Prosper of Aquitaine (; – AD), also called ''Prosper Tiro'', was a Christian writer and disciple of Augustine of Hippo, and the first continuator of Jerome's Universal Chronicle. Particularly, Prosper is identified with the (later) axiom ''� ...
mentioned the British Isles to which
Pope Celestine I () sent
Palladius as "the Britains" () including both Great Britain and Ireland ''–'' the "Roman island" and the "barbarian island". Prosper praised Celestine as thereby having dealt with
Pelagianism
Pelagianism is a Christian theological position that holds that the fall did not taint human nature and that humans by divine grace have free will to achieve human perfection. Pelagius (), an ascetic and philosopher from the British Isles, ta ...
in Great Britain and having established
Christianity in Ireland
Christianity has been the largest religion in Ireland since the 5th century. After a Celtic paganism, pagan past of Ancient history, Antiquity, missionaries (most famously including Saint Patrick) converted the Irish tribes to Christianity i ...
:
The of
Stephen of Byzantium mentions the British Isles and lists the Britons as their inhabitants'
ethnonym
An ethnonym () is a name applied to a given ethnic group. Ethnonyms can be divided into two categories: exonyms (whose name of the ethnic group has been created by another group of people) and autonyms, or endonyms (whose name is created and used ...
. He comments on the name's variable spelling, noting that
Dionysius Periegetes
Dionysius Periegetes (, literally Dionysius the Voyager or Traveller, often Latinized to ''Dionysius Periegeta''), also known as Dionysius of Alexandria or Dionysius the African,''Encyclopædia Britannica'', 4th edition, 1810, 9''506/ref> was the ...
spelt the name with a single ''
tau
Tau (; uppercase Τ, lowercase τ or \boldsymbol\tau; ) is the nineteenth letter of the Greek alphabet, representing the voiceless alveolar plosive, voiceless dental or alveolar plosive . In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 300 ...
'' and that Ptolemy and
Marcian of Heraclea had spelt it with a ''pi'':The of
John Malalas
John Malalas (; ; – 578) was a Byzantine chronicler from Antioch in Asia Minor.
Life
Of Syrian descent, Malalas was a native speaker of Syriac who learned how to write in Greek later in his life. The name ''Malalas'' probably derive ...
mentions the British Isles as part of the lands allotted to Japheth in the table of nations.
The anonymous ''Outline of Geography in Summary'' ( or ) wrongly attributed to
Agathemerus until the mid-19th century mentions "the two Britains" (), identifies both Ireland and Great Britain, and describes each:The of
Jacob of Edessa
Jacob of Edessa (or James of Edessa) () (c. 640 – 5 June 708) was Bishop of Edessa and prominent Syriac Christian writer in Classical Syriac language, also known as one of earliest Syriac grammarians. In various works, he treated theologica ...
twice mentions the British Isles (), and in both cases identifies Ireland and Great Britain by name:
Middle Ages
At the
Synod of Birr, the signed by clergymen and rulers from Ireland, Gaelic Scotland, and Pictland was binding .
According to
Kuno Meyer
Kuno Meyer (20 December 1858 – 11 October 1919) was a German scholar, distinguished in the field of Celtic philology and literature. His pro-German stance at the start of World War I in the United States was a source of controversy. His brothe ...
's 1905 edition, "That here means Britain, not Scotland, is shown by the corresponding passage in the Latin text of § 33: ''".
The text of the describes itself: .
The extent of the 's jurisdiction in Britain is unclear; some scholars argue that its British domain was restricted to and
Pictland
The Picts were a group of peoples in what is now Scotland north of the Firth of Forth, in the Early Middle Ages. Where they lived and details of their culture can be gleaned from early medieval texts and Pictish stones. The name appears in ...
, while others write that it is simply unknown whether it was meant to apply to areas of Britain not under such strong Irish influence.
Adomnán similarly refers to "Ireland and Britain" when commenting on the
Plague of 664 in his
Life of Columba, writing "oceani insulae per totum, videlicet Scotia et Britannia."
He notes that only the people of Pictland and the Irish of Britain ("Pictorum plebe et Scotorum Britanniae") were spared the pestilence.
In the ''Cosmography'' of
Aethicus Ister, the British Isles are mentioned as having been visited by the protagonist ().
In 1993, the editor Otto Prinz connected this name with the of
Isidore of Seville
Isidore of Seville (; 4 April 636) was a Spania, Hispano-Roman scholar, theologian and Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Seville, archbishop of Seville. He is widely regarded, in the words of the 19th-century historian Charles Forbes René de Montal ...
,
in which it is stated: "Some suspect that the Britons were so named in Latin because they are brutes" ().
In the , the British Isles () are the last of the lands allotted to
Japheth
Japheth ( ''Yép̄eṯ'', in pausa ''Yā́p̄eṯ''; '; ; ') is one of the three sons of Noah in the Book of Genesis, in which he plays a role in the story of Noah's drunkenness and the curse of Ham, and subsequently in the Table of Nation ...
in the
table of nations
The Generations of Noah, also called the Table of Nations or ''Origines Gentium'', is a genealogy of the sons of Noah, according to the Hebrew Bible (Book of Genesis, Genesis ), and their dispersion into many lands after Genesis flood narrative ...
:

, Altogether these are 42 provinces of Japheth all the way to the British Isles, which face to the north., , II.3.
In
Arabic
Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...
geography and cartography in the medieval Islamic world
Medieval Islamic geography and cartography refer to the study of geography and cartography in the Muslim world during the Islamic Golden Age (variously dated between the 8th century and 16th century). Muslim scholars made advances to the map-mak ...
, the British Isles are known as or . England was known as , , or (), Scotland as (), and Ireland as or .
According to
Douglas Morton Dunlop, "Whether there was any Arab contact, except perhaps with Ireland, is, however, more than doubtful".
Arabic geographies mention the British Isles as twelve islands.
The ' of
al-Battānī describes the British Isles as the "islands of Britain" ():
The ' of
Ahmad ibn Rustah describes the British Isles as the "twelve islands called '" ().
According to Dunlop, this "account of the British Isles follows al-Battāni's almost verbatim and is doubtless derived from it".
In the 9th century, the Irish monk
Dicuil mentioned the British Isles together with : ", together with the Brittanic islands, is bounded on the east by the Rhine, …" ().
He also describes the
Faroe Islands
The Faroe Islands ( ) (alt. the Faroes) are an archipelago in the North Atlantic Ocean and an autonomous territory of the Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark. Located between Iceland, Norway, and the United Kingdom, the islands have a populat ...
as being two days' sailing from "the northernmost British Isles" ().
According to Irmeli Valtonen in 2008, on the so-called ''Cotton mappa mundi'', an
Anglo-Saxon
The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a Cultural identity, cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced t ...
mappa mundi
A ''mappa mundi'' (Latin ; plural = ''mappae mundi''; ; ) is any medieval European map of the world. Such maps range in size and complexity from simple schematic maps or less across to elaborate wall maps, the largest of which to survive to ...
based on the ''
Old English Orosius'', "The largest feature is the British Isles, which is indicated by the inscription ".
The anonymous describes the British Isles as the "twelve islands" () which are "called '" ().
The ' of
al-Masʿūdī describes the British Isles as "the so-called Isles of Britain, twelve in number" ().
In the attributed to
Honorius of Autun (), the British Isles are all treated under the heading , the title of the twenty-ninth chapter:
John Tzetzes
John Tzetzes (; , Constantinople – 1180, Constantinople) was a Byzantine poet and grammarian who lived at Constantinople in the 12th century. He is known for making significant contributions in preserving much valuable information from ancien ...
mentioned the British Isles in the eighth book of his ''
Chiliades
John Tzetzes (; , Constantinople – 1180, Constantinople) was a Byzantine poet and grammarian who lived at Constantinople in the 12th century. He is known for making significant contributions in preserving much valuable information from ancien ...
'' as , describing them as "two of the greatest of all" () and naming them as and . According to
Jane Lightfoot, John Tzetzes's conception of the British Isles was "two major islands plus thirty Orkneys and Thule near them".
According to the
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Mi ...
's ''
Middle English Dictionary
The ''Middle English Dictionary'' is a dictionary of Middle English published by the University of Michigan. It comprises roughly 15,000 pages with a comprehensive analysis of lexicon and usage for the period 11751500, based on the analysis of o ...
'', the
Middle English
Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman Conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English pe ...
word , or (from the ) could mean either "ancient Britain" or "the British Isles," while a "Brit" was "A Celt: specif., Welshman, Breton". The
noun
In grammar, a noun is a word that represents a concrete or abstract thing, like living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, and ideas. A noun may serve as an Object (grammar), object or Subject (grammar), subject within a p ...
(variously spelled , , , , , , , , , or ) meant "a native of the British Isles, a Celt".
The same word was also an
adjective
An adjective (abbreviations, abbreviated ) is a word that describes or defines a noun or noun phrase. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun.
Traditionally, adjectives are considered one of the main part of speech, parts of ...
meaning "
Brittonic, British" or "Breton".
The English texts of the popular work ''
Mandeville's Travels'' mention Great Britain in the context of the
invention of the True Cross by
Helena, mother of Constantine I
Flavia Julia Helena (; , ''Helénē''; – 330), also known as Helena of Constantinople and in Christianity as Saint Helena, was an ''List of Augustae, Augusta'' of the Roman Empire and mother of Emperor Constantine the Great. She was b ...
, who was supposed to be a daughter of the
legendary British king Coel of Colchester.
The so-called "Defective" manuscript tradition – the most widespread English version – spelled the toponym "Britain" in various ways. In the 2002
critical edition
Textual criticism is a branch of textual scholarship, philology, and literary criticism that is concerned with the identification of textual variants, or different versions, of either manuscripts (mss) or of printed books. Such texts may range i ...
by M. C. Seymour based on manuscript 283 in the library of
Queen's College, Oxford
The Queen's College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford, England. The college was founded in 1341 by Robert de Eglesfield in honour of Philippa of Hainault, queen of England. It is distinguished by its predominantly neoclassi ...
, the text says of Helena, in .
In the 2007 edition by Tamarah Kohanski and C. David Benson based on manuscript Royal 17 C in the
British Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. Based in London, it is one of the largest libraries in the world, with an estimated collection of between 170 and 200 million items from multiple countries. As a legal deposit li ...
, the text is: . The chronicler John Stow in 1575 and the poet William Slatyer in 1621 each cited the spelling of "'" or "'" in ''Mandeville's Travels'' as evidence that Brutus of Troy was the origin of the name of the British Isles.
The ''
Annals of Ulster
The ''Annals of Ulster'' () are annals of History of Ireland, medieval Ireland. The entries span the years from 431 AD to 1540 AD. The entries up to 1489 AD were compiled in the late 15th century by the scribe Ruaidhrí Ó Luin� ...
'' describe
Viking raids
The Viking Age (about ) was the period during the Middle Ages when Norsemen known as Vikings undertook large-scale raiding, colonising, conquest, and trading throughout Europe and reached North America. The Viking Age applies not only to their ...
against what it refers to as "Islands of Britain" under the Latin entry for the year 793: .
The surviving Early Modern English translation by of the since-lost Gaelic ''
Annals of Clonmacnoise
The ''Annals of Clonmacnoise'' () are an early 17th-century Early Modern English translation of a lost Irish chronicle, which covered events in Ireland from prehistory to 1408. The work is sometimes known as ''Mageoghagan's Book'', after its tr ...
'' also describes this attack on "Islands of Britain", but under the year 791: "'"
According to
Alex Woolf
Alex Woolf (born 12 July 1963) is a British medieval historian and academic. He specialises in the history of Britain and Ireland and to a lesser extent Scandinavia in the Early Middle Ages, with a particular emphasis on interaction and comp ...
in 2007, the report in the ''Annals of Ulster'' "has been interpreted as a very generalised account of small-scale raids all over Britain" but that argues that "Such generalised notices … are not common in the Irish chronicles". Woolf compares the ''Annals of Ulster''s "islands of Britain" with the "islands of Alba" mentioned by the .
The describes 's attack on the "islands of Alba" () under the entry for the year 940 or 941:
According to Woolf, "This latter entry undoubtedly refers to the Hebrides".
Woolf argues that "It seems likely that the islands of Alba/Britain was the term used in Ireland specifically for the Hebrides (which makes very good sense from the perspective of our chroniclers based in the northern half of Ireland)".
The ''
Annals of the Four Masters
The ''Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland'' () or the ''Annals of the Four Masters'' () are chronicles of Middle Ages, medieval Irish history. The entries span from the Genesis flood narrative, Deluge, dated as 2,242 Anno Mundi, years after crea ...
'' report on the death of
Fothad I
Fothad I (died 963) is the second alleged Bishop of the Scots (906x955). We know he had the status of "bishop" during the reign of King Dub mac Maíl Coluim because the ''Chronicle of the Kings of Alba'' has his death in the period of his reign ...
under the year 961 describes him as .
John O'Donovan's 1856 edition glossed "Insi-Alban" as "the islands of Scotland".
According to Woolf in 2007, this "is the latest use of the term 'Islands of Alba' for the Hebrides (probably just the islands from
Tiree
Tiree (; , ) is the most westerly island in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland. The low-lying island, southwest of Coll, has an area of and a population of around 650.
The land is highly fertile, and crofting, alongside tourism, and fishing are ...
south)".
According to Alasdair Ross in 2011, the "islands of Alba" are "presumably the
Western Isles
The Outer Hebrides ( ) or Western Isles ( , or ), sometimes known as the Long Isle or Long Island (), is an island chain off the west coast of mainland Scotland.
It is the longest archipelago in the British Isles. The islands form part ...
".
Early Modern Period
Michael Critobulus
Michael Critobulus (; c. 1410 – c. 1470) was a Greek politician, scholar and historian. He is known as the author of a history of the Ottoman conquest of the Eastern Roman Empire under Sultan Mehmet II. Critobulus' work, along with the writings ...
, in his ''History''s dedicatory letter to
Mehmed II
Mehmed II (; , ; 30 March 14323 May 1481), commonly known as Mehmed the Conqueror (; ), was twice the sultan of the Ottoman Empire from August 1444 to September 1446 and then later from February 1451 to May 1481.
In Mehmed II's first reign, ...
(), expressed his hope that by writing in Greek his work would have a wide audience, including "those who inhabit the British Isles" ().
According to Charles T. Riggs in 1954, Critobulus "distinctly states that he hopes to influence the
Philhellenes
Philhellenism ("the love of Greek culture") was an intellectual movement prominent mostly at the turn of the 19th century. It contributed to the sentiments that led Europeans such as Lord Byron, Charles Nicolas Fabvier and Richard Church to a ...
in the British Isles by this story of a Turkish sultan".
Francesco Berlinghieri
Francesco Berlinghieri (1440–1501) was a Republic of Florence, Florentine scholar and Humanism, humanist who lived during the fifteenth century. He promoted the value of Classical Greece, classical Greek learning and was one of the first to pr ...
's 1482
Italian verse adaptation of Ptolemy's describes both Ireland and Great Britain as British islands in the fourth and fifth chapters of the second book. The , begins:
Berlinghieri's , begins:
John Skelton's English translation of
Poggio Bracciolini
Gian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini (; 11 February 1380 – 30 October 1459), usually referred to simply as Poggio Bracciolini, was an Italian scholar and an early Renaissance humanism, Renaissance humanist. He is noted for rediscovering and recove ...
's Latin translation of Diodorus Siculus's preface to his , written in the middle 1480s, mentions the British Isles as .

Andronikos Noukios, a Greek writing under the
pen name
A pen name or nom-de-plume is a pseudonym (or, in some cases, a variant form of a real name) adopted by an author and printed on the title page or by-line of their works in place of their real name.
A pen name may be used to make the author's na ...
Nikandros Noukios (), visited Great Britain in the reign of
Henry VIII
Henry VIII (28 June 149128 January 1547) was King of England from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry is known for his Wives of Henry VIII, six marriages and his efforts to have his first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) annulled. ...
() as part of an embassy. In his account, he describes the British Isles as having taken their name from colonists from
Brittany
Brittany ( ) is a peninsula, historical country and cultural area in the north-west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known as Armorica in Roman Gaul. It became an Kingdom of Brittany, independent kingdom and then a Duch ...
, rather than the other way around. He wrote:

The term "British Isles" entered the English language in the late 16th century to refer to Great Britain, Ireland and the surrounding islands. In general, the modern notion of "Britishness" evolved after the 1707 Act of Union.
Gerardus Mercator
Gerardus Mercator (; 5 March 1512 – 2 December 1594) was a Flemish people, Flemish geographer, cosmographer and Cartography, cartographer. He is most renowned for creating the Mercator 1569 world map, 1569 world map based on a new Mercator pr ...
, on his 1538 world map on a double cordiform
projection
Projection or projections may refer to:
Physics
* Projection (physics), the action/process of light, heat, or sound reflecting from a surface to another in a different direction
* The display of images by a projector
Optics, graphics, and carto ...
, labelled the British Isles .
By the middle of the 16th century the term appears on maps made by geographers including
Sebastian Münster
Sebastian Münster (20 January 1488 – 26 May 1552) was a German cartographer and cosmographer. He also was a Christian Hebraist scholar who taught as a professor at the University of Basel. His well-known work, the highly accurate world map, ...
. Münster in (a 1550 reissue of Ptolemy's ''Geography'') uses the heading ''.''
[British Isles Old Maps](_blank)
Retrieved 12 March 2007.
Mercator, in the legend to the map of the British Isles he published as ' at
Duisburg
Duisburg (; , ) is a city in the Ruhr metropolitan area of the western States of Germany, German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Lying on the confluence of the Rhine (Lower Rhine) and the Ruhr (river), Ruhr rivers in the center of the Rhine-Ruh ...
in 1564, refers to the work as . On the map itself, a
cartouche
upalt=A stone face carved with coloured hieroglyphics. Two cartouches - ovoid shapes with hieroglyphics inside - are visible at the bottom., Birth and throne cartouches of Pharaoh KV17.html" ;"title="Seti I, from KV17">Seti I, from KV17 at the ...
in the Irish Sea contains the statement .
Abraham Ortelius
Abraham Ortelius (; also Ortels, Orthellius, Wortels; 4 or 14 April 152728 June 1598) was a cartographer, geographer, and cosmographer from Antwerp in the Spanish Netherlands. He is recognized as the creator of the list of atlases, first modern ...
, in his atlas of 1570 (), uses the title .
According to
Philip Schwyzer, "This is among the very first early modern references to the 'British Isles', a term used anciently by Pliny but rarely in the medieval period or earlier in the sixteenth century".
Thomas Twyne's English translation of Dionysius Periegetes's , published in 1572, mentions the British Isles as .
John Stow
John Stow (''also'' Stowe; 1524/25 – 5 April 1605) was an English historian and antiquarian. He wrote a series of chronicles of History of England, English history, published from 1565 onwards under such titles as ''The Summarie of Englyshe C ...
, citing
Aethicus Ister, ''
Mandeville's Travels'', and
Geoffrey of Monmouth
Geoffrey of Monmouth (; ; ) was a Catholic cleric from Monmouth, Wales, and one of the major figures in the development of British historiography and the popularity of tales of King Arthur. He is best known for his chronicle '' The History of ...
, described the naming of Great Britain and the British Isles by
Brutus of Troy
Brutus, also called Brute of Troy, is a mythical British king. He is described as a legendary descendant of the Trojan hero Aeneas, known in medieval British legend as the eponymous founder and first king of Britain. This legend first appears ...
() in his 1575 work ''A Summarie of the Chronicles of England''. According to Stow's second chapter, Brutus:
The 1580 edition of Stow's work spelled the Latin name and the English names ' and ', and additionally cited the authority of the ''
Sibylline Oracles
The ''Sibylline Oracles'' (; sometimes called the pseudo-Sibylline Oracles) are a collection of oracular utterances written in Greek hexameters ascribed to the Sibyls, prophetesses who uttered divine revelations in a frenzied state. Fourteen b ...
'' for the conflation of the Latin letter
Y with the or (''
upsilon
Upsilon (, ; uppercase Υ, lowercase υ; ''ýpsilon'' ) or ypsilon is the twentieth letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, has a value of 400. It is derived from the phoenician alphabet, Phoenician Waw (letter), waw ...
''):
Schwyzer states that
Raphael Holinshed
Raphael Holinshed (; before 24 April 1582) was an English chronicler, who was most famous for his work on ''The Chronicles of England, Scotlande, and Irelande'', commonly known as ''Holinshed's Chronicles''. It was the "first complete printed h ...
's 1577 ''
Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland'' is the first work of historiography to deal with the British Isles in particular; "To the best of my knowledge, no book published in England before 1577 specified in its title a scope at once inclusive of and restricted to England, Scotland, and Ireland".
According to Holinshed himself in the second chapter (') of the first book (') of the first volume of the ''Chronicles'', Brutus had both renamed Albion after himself and given his name to the British Isles as a whole:
The geographer and occultist
John Dee
John Dee (13 July 1527 – 1608 or 1609) was an English mathematician, astronomer, teacher, astrologer, occultist, and alchemist. He was the court astronomer for, and advisor to, Elizabeth I, and spent much of his time on alchemy, divination, ...
(of Welsh ancestry) was an adviser to
Elizabeth I
Elizabeth I (7 September 153324 March 1603) was List of English monarchs, Queen of England and List of Irish monarchs, Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. She was the last and longest reigning monarch of the House of Tudo ...
() and prepared maps for several explorers. He helped to develop legal justifications for colonisation by
Protestant England, breaking the
duopoly
A duopoly (from Greek , ; and , ) is a type of oligopoly where two firms have dominant or exclusive control over a market, and most (if not all) of the competition within that market occurs directly between them.
Duopoly is the most commonly ...
the Pope
had granted to the
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many countries in the Americas
**Spanish cuisine
**Spanish history
**Spanish culture
...
and
Portuguese Empire
The Portuguese Empire was a colonial empire that existed between 1415 and 1999. In conjunction with the Spanish Empire, it ushered in the European Age of Discovery. It achieved a global scale, controlling vast portions of the Americas, Africa ...
s. Dee coined the term "
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, Crown colony, colonies, protectorates, League of Nations mandate, mandates, and other Dependent territory, territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It bega ...
" and built his case, in part, on the claim of a "British Ocean"; including Britain, Ireland, Iceland,
Greenland
Greenland is an autonomous territory in the Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark. It is by far the largest geographically of three constituent parts of the kingdom; the other two are metropolitan Denmark and the Faroe Islands. Citizens of Greenlan ...
and (possibly)
North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...
, he used alleged Saxon precedent to claim territorial and trading rights.
According to Ken MacMillan, "his imperial vision was simply propaganda and antiquarianism, without much practical value and of limited interest to the English crown and state."
The
Lordship of Ireland
The Lordship of Ireland (), sometimes referred to retrospectively as Anglo-Norman Ireland, was the part of Ireland ruled by the King of England (styled as "Lord of Ireland") and controlled by loyal Anglo-Norman Lords between 1177 and 1542. T ...
had come under tighter English control as the
Kingdom of Ireland
The Kingdom of Ireland (; , ) was a dependent territory of Kingdom of England, England and then of Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain from 1542 to the end of 1800. It was ruled by the monarchs of England and then List of British monarchs ...
, and diplomatic efforts (
interspersed with warfare) tried to bring Scotland under the English monarch as well.
Dee used the term "'" in his ' of 1577.
[John Dee, ''General and rare memorials pertayning to the Perfect Arte of Navigation'', London (1577), pp. 3, 9, 12, 65 3] Dee also referred to the ', which he called an ', and to the '.
According to
Frances Yates, Dee argued that the advice given by the
Byzantine
The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...
Neoplatonist
Neoplatonism is a version of Platonic philosophy that emerged in the 3rd century AD against the background of Hellenistic philosophy and religion. The term does not encapsulate a set of ideas as much as a series of thinkers. Among the common id ...
philosopher
Gemistos Plethon in two orations addressed to the emperor
Manuel II Palaiologos
Manuel II Palaiologos or Palaeologus (; 27 June 1350 – 21 July 1425) was Byzantine emperor from 1391 to 1425. Shortly before his death he was tonsured a monk and received the name Matthaios (). Manuel was a vassal of the Ottoman Empire, which ...
() and his son
Theodore II Palaiologos
Theodore II Palaiologos or Palaeologus (Greek: Θεόδωρος Β΄ Παλαιολόγος, ''Theodōros II Palaiologos'') (c. 1396 – 21 June 1448) was Despot (court title), Despot in the Despotate of the Morea, Morea from 1407 to 1443 and in S ...
() "on the affairs of the
Peloponnesus
The Peloponnese ( ), Peloponnesus ( ; , ) or Morea (; ) is a peninsula and geographic regions of Greece, geographic region in Southern Greece, and the southernmost region of the Balkans. It is connected to the central part of the country by the ...
and on ways and means both of improving the economy of the
Greek islands
Greece has many islands, with estimates ranging from somewhere around 1,200 to 6,000, depending on the minimum size to take into account. The number of inhabited islands is variously cited as between 166 and 227.
The largest Greek island by ...
and of defending them" should inform Elizabeth I's claims to
territorial waters
Territorial waters are informally an area of water where a sovereign state has jurisdiction, including internal waters, the territorial sea, the contiguous zone, the exclusive economic zone, and potentially the extended continental shelf ( ...
and adjacent territories.
Dee described these orations as "now published" – they had been translated into Latin by
Willem Canter from a manuscript owned by
János Zsámboky
János Zsámboky or János Zsámboki or János Sámboki, (with his humanist name ; 1 June 1531 – 13 June 1584) was a Hungarian people, Hungarian Renaissance Humanism, humanist scholar: physician, philologist and historian.
Sambucus was born i ...
and published at
Antwerp
Antwerp (; ; ) is a City status in Belgium, city and a Municipalities of Belgium, municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of Antwerp Province, and the third-largest city in Belgium by area at , after ...
in 1575 by
Christophe Plantin
Christophe Plantin (; – 1 July 1589) was a French Renaissance humanist and book Printer (publisher), printer and publisher who resided and worked in Antwerp. He established in Antwerp one of the most prominent publishing houses of his time, th ...
. Dee wrote:
According to Yates, "In spite of the difficulties of Dee's style and punctuation his meaning is clear" – Dee argued "that the advice given to the Byzantine Emperor by Pletho is good advice for Elizabeth, the Empress of Britain".
Dee believed that the British Isles had originally been called the "Brutish Isles", a name he had read in
Aethicus Ister's ''Cosmography'', which he thought was written in Classical Antiquity.
Invoking the ''Cosmography'' of Aethicus and its supposed translator
Jerome
Jerome (; ; ; – 30 September 420), also known as Jerome of Stridon, was an early Christian presbyter, priest, Confessor of the Faith, confessor, theologian, translator, and historian; he is commonly known as Saint Jerome.
He is best known ...
, Dee argued that the British Isles had been misnamed, noting:
According to Peter J. French, "Like
Leland,
Lhuyd and other antiquarians, Dee believed that it was mistakes in orthography and pronunciation that had confused the spelling of the name", which had come from the name of Brutus. The supposed alteration in spelling had caused:
In his copy of
John Bale
John Bale (21 November 1495 – November 1563) was an English churchman, historian controversialist, and Bishop of Ossory in Ireland. He wrote the oldest known historical verse drama in English (on the subject of King John), and developed and ...
's (later in
Christ Church Library), at Bale's passage on
Gildas
Gildas (English pronunciation: , Breton language, Breton: ''Gweltaz''; ) — also known as Gildas Badonicus, Gildas fab Caw (in Middle Welsh texts and antiquarian works) and ''Gildas Sapiens'' (Gildas the Wise) — was a 6th-century Britons (h ...
, Dee had added an annotation on Brutus, stating: "Note this authority of Gildas concerning Brutus and Brytus, and remember that from the most ancient authority of the astronomer Aethicus, they were called the Brutish Islands" ()". He underlined Bale's words: "up to the entrance of Brutus, or rather Brytus" ().
In his
''Britannia'', published in Latin in 1586, William Camden cited the ''Sibylline Oracles'' for evidence of the antiquity of Britain's toponym and of its origin in the name of the Britons, quoting both the Greek text published by Birck and the Latin translation by Castellio. Camden and
Philemon Holland
Philemon Holland (1552 – 9 February 1637) was an English schoolmaster, physician and translator. He is known for the first English translations of several works by Livy, Pliny the Elder, and Plutarch, and also for translating William Camden's ...
's 1610 English language edition of the work included the same arguments:
According to
John Morrill, at the time of the
Union of the Crowns
The Union of the Crowns (; ) was the accession of James VI of Scotland to the throne of the Kingdom of England as James I and the practical unification of some functions (such as overseas diplomacy) of the two separate realms under a single ...
under the
Stuart dynasty
The House of Stuart, originally spelled Stewart, also known as the Stuart dynasty, was a royal house of Scotland, England, Ireland and later Great Britain. The family name comes from the office of High Steward of Scotland, which had been hel ...
in the early 17th century, the historic and mythological relationship of Ireland and Great Britain was conceptualised differently to the relationship between the kingdoms of England and Scotland. While the British Isles was considered a geographic unit, the political
debate on the Union involved the English and Scottish kingdoms, but not Ireland.
James VI and I
James VI and I (James Charles Stuart; 19 June 1566 – 27 March 1625) was King of Scotland as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and King of Ireland, Ireland as James I from the union of the Scottish and English crowns on 24 M ...
promoted political unity between Scotland ("
North Britain
North Britain is a term which has been used, particularly between the 17th and 19th centuries, for either the northern part of Great Britain or Scotland, which occupies the northernmost third of the island. "North Britains" could also refer to B ...
") and England ("
South Britain"), introducing the
Union Flag
The Union Jack or Union Flag is the ''de facto'' national flag of the United Kingdom. The Union Jack was also used as the official flag of several British colonies and dominions before they adopted their own national flags.
It is sometimes a ...
and the title "King of Great Britain", but the same was not true of Ireland. Since the Middle Ages, Britain had been understood to be a historical unit once ruled by the
legendary kings of Britain
The following list of legendary kings of Britain () derives predominantly from Geoffrey of Monmouth's circa 1136 work ''Historia Regum Britanniae'' ("the History of the Kings of Britain"). Geoffrey constructed a largely fictional history for th ...
, of whom the first had been Brutus of Troy – as described in the work of
Geoffrey of Monmouth
Geoffrey of Monmouth (; ; ) was a Catholic cleric from Monmouth, Wales, and one of the major figures in the development of British historiography and the popularity of tales of King Arthur. He is best known for his chronicle '' The History of ...
. Unlike Wales, England, and Scotland, Ireland did not form part of this mythological concept, which was itself in decline by 1600.
The Latin expression was used by some
panegyrists of James VI and I after his accession to the Anglo-Irish throne and his proclamation as "king of Great Britain".
Andrew Melville
Andrew Melville (1 August 1545 – 1622) was a Scottish scholar, theologian, poet and religious reformer. His fame encouraged scholars from the European continent to study at Glasgow and St. Andrews.
He was born at Baldovie, on 1 August 154 ...
used the title for his 1603 Latin poem .
Isaac Wake used the same title in his Latin poem on the king's August 1605 visit to
Oxford
Oxford () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and non-metropolitan district in Oxfordshire, England, of which it is the county town.
The city is home to the University of Oxford, the List of oldest universities in continuou ...
: .
For James's assumption of the triune British monarchy,
Hugo Grotius
Hugo Grotius ( ; 10 April 1583 – 28 August 1645), also known as Hugo de Groot () or Huig de Groot (), was a Dutch humanist, diplomat, lawyer, theologian, jurist, statesman, poet and playwright. A teenage prodigy, he was born in Delft an ...
composed his , which extolled the historic naval powers of English kings and which was cited approvingly by
John Selden
John Selden (16 December 1584 – 30 November 1654) was an English jurist, a scholar of England's ancient laws and constitution and scholar of Jewish law. He was known as a polymath; John Milton hailed Selden in 1644 as "the chief of learned m ...
in his 1635 work '': Of the Dominion, or, Ownership of the Sea''.
Stanley Bindoff noted that the same title was formally adopted in 1801.
In
John Speed
John Speed (1551 or 1552 – 28 July 1629) was an English cartographer, chronologer and historian of Cheshire origins.; superseding . The son of a citizen and Merchant Taylor in London,"Life of John Speed", ''The Hibernian Magazine, Or, Compe ...
's 1611 ''Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine'', the cartographer refers to the islands as '. Before the first chapter, Speed introduces his map of the British Isles as "'".

Speed describes the position of "the Iland of ''Great Britaine''" as being north and east of Brittany, Normandy, and the other parts of the coast of Continental Europe:
In his 1621 verse work ', William Slatyer described the British Isles as named "the ' in ' Dialect". Slatyer explained this spelling of the name in a
marginal note that, like Stow, cited Aethicus and ''Mandeville's Travels'' and the confusion between the Latin letter
u and the Greek letter ''upsilon'' ():
One of the ''
Oxford English Dictionary
The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the principal historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP), a University of Oxford publishing house. The dictionary, which published its first editio ...
'' citations of "British Isles" was in 1621 (before the civil wars) by
Peter Heylin
Peter Heylyn or Heylin (29 November 1599 – 8 May 1662) was an English ecclesiastic and author of many polemical, historical, political and theological tracts. He incorporated his political concepts into his geographical books ''Microcosm ...
(or Heylyn) in his ''Microcosmus: a little description of the great world'' (a collection of his lectures on historical geography). Writing from his English political perspective, he grouped Ireland with Great Britain and the minor islands with these three arguments:
* The inhabitants of Ireland must have come from Britain as it was the nearest land
* He notes that ancient writers (such as Ptolemy) called Ireland a ''Brttish Iland''
* He cites the observation of the first-century Roman writer
Tacitus
Publius Cornelius Tacitus, known simply as Tacitus ( , ; – ), was a Roman historian and politician. Tacitus is widely regarded as one of the greatest Roman historians by modern scholars.
Tacitus’ two major historical works, ''Annals'' ( ...
that the habits and disposition of the people in Ireland were not much unlike the ''Brittaines''
Modern scholarly opinion
is that Heylyn "politicised his geographical books Microcosmus ... and, still more, Cosmographie" in the context of what geography meant at that time. Heylyn's geographical work must be seen as political expressions concerned with proving (or disproving) constitutional matters, and "demonstrated their authors' specific political identities by the languages and arguments they deployed." In an era when "politics referred to discussions of dynastic legitimacy, of representation, and of the Constitution ...
eylyn'sgeography was not to be conceived separately from politics."
Geoffrey Keating
Geoffrey Keating (; – ) was an Irish historian. He was born in County Tipperary, Ireland, and is buried in Tubrid Graveyard in the parish of Ballylooby-Duhill. He became a Catholic priest and a poet.
Biography
It was generally believed unt ...
, in his , discussed the mention of
druids
A druid was a member of the high-ranking priestly class in ancient Celtic cultures. The druids were religious leaders as well as legal authorities, adjudicators, lorekeepers, medical professionals and political advisors. Druids left no wr ...
from the British Isles in Gaul in Julius Caesar's , suggesting that the island Caesar had in mind was Ireland or – Anglesey or the Isle of Man.
John O'Mahony
John Francis O'Mahony (1815 – 7 February 1877) was an Irish scholar and the founding member of the Fenian Brotherhood in the United States, sister organisation to the Irish Republican Brotherhood. Despite coming from a reasonably wealthy fa ...
's 1866 translation was "from the British Isles",
as were the translations of John Barlow in 1811 and of Dermod O'Connor in 1723.
Patrick S. Dinneen's 1908 edition translates Keating's as "from the islands of Britain".
Robert Morden, in his 1680 ''Geography Rectified'', introduced his map and chapter detailing the British Isles by noting their political unity under a single monarch but their continued separation into three kingdoms, with each of the British Isles beyond Great Britain and Ireland belonging to one of the three mainland kingdoms.
Christopher Irvine, in his 1682 , defined as "The British Islands; which comprehended under them both Albin, Erin, and all the other small islands that are scattered about them".
Reception
Perspectives in Great Britain
In general, the use of the term
British Isles
The British Isles are an archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean off the north-western coast of continental Europe, consisting of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Inner Hebrides, Inner and Outer Hebr ...
to refer to the archipelago is common and uncontroversial within
Great Britain
Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-west coast of continental Europe, consisting of the countries England, Scotland, and Wales. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the List of European ...
, at least since the concept of "
Britishness
British national identity is a term referring to the sense of national identity, as embodied in the shared and characteristic culture, languages and traditions, of the British people. It comprises the claimed qualities that bind and distingui ...
" was gradually accepted in Britain.
In Britain it is commonly understood as being a politically neutral geographical term, although it is sometimes used to refer to the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
or
Great Britain
Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-west coast of continental Europe, consisting of the countries England, Scotland, and Wales. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the List of European ...
alone.
In the 2016 ''Oxford Dictionary Plus Social Sciences'', Howard Sargeant describes the British Isles as "A geographical rather than a political designation".
In 2003, Irish newspapers reported a British Government internal briefing that advised against the use of "British Isles". There is evidence that its use has been increasingly avoided in recent years in fields like cartography and in some academic work, such as
Norman Davies
Ivor Norman Richard Davies (born 8 June 1939) is a British and Polish historian, known for his publications on the history of Europe, Poland and the United Kingdom. He has a special interest in Central and Eastern Europe and is UNESCO Profes ...
s history of Britain and Ireland ''
The Isles: A History''. As a purely geographical term in technical contexts (such as geology and natural history), there is less evidence of alternative terms being chosen.
According to
Jane Dawson
Jane Elizabeth Anne Dawson is a British academic and historian. Her specialism is early modern history within the British Isles and the Protestant reformation.
Dawson is Professor Emerita of Reformation history at the University of Edinburgh ...
, "Finding an acceptable shorthand geographical description for the countries which formed the UK before the creation of Eire has proved difficult" and in her 2002 work on
Mary, Queen of Scots
Mary, Queen of Scots (8 December 1542 – 8 February 1587), also known as Mary Stuart or Mary I of Scotland, was List of Scottish monarchs, Queen of Scotland from 14 December 1542 until her forced abdication in 1567.
The only surviving legit ...
() and
Archibald Campbell, 5th Earl of Argyll, she wrote: "for convenience, I have used the following as virtual synonyms: the islands of Britain; these islands; the British Isles, and the adjective, British. Without intending to imply any hidden imperial or other agenda, they describe the kingdoms of Ireland, Scotland, and England and Wales as they existed in the sixteenth century".
In the 2005 ''Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Place Names'',
John Everett-Heath defined the British Isles as "Until 1949 a collective title ... In 1949 the Republic of Ireland left the British Commonwealth and so could no longer be included in the title".
Everett-Heath used the name in a "general note" and in the introduction to the same work.
In the 2005 preface to the second edition of
Hugh Kearney's ''The British Isles: A History of Four Nations'', published in 2006, the historian noted that "The title of this book is 'The British Isles', not 'Britain', in order to emphasise the multi-ethnic character of our intertwined histories. Almost inevitably many within the Irish Republic find it objectionable, much as
Basques
The Basques ( or ; ; ; ) are a Southwestern European ethnic group, characterised by the Basque language, a Basque culture, common culture and shared genetic ancestry to the ancient Vascones and Aquitanians. Basques are indigenous peoples, ...
or
Catalans
Catalans ( Catalan, French and Occitan: ''catalans''; ; ; or ) are a Romance ethnic group native to Catalonia, who speak Catalan. The current official category of "Catalans" is that of the citizens of Catalonia, a nationality and autono ...
resent the use of
the term 'Spain'."
and illustrated this by quoting the objection of Irish poet
Seamus Heaney
Seamus Justin Heaney (13 April 1939 – 30 August 2013) was an Irish Irish poetry, poet, playwright and translator. He received the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature. Among his best-known works is ''Death of a Naturalist'' (1966), his first m ...
to being included in an anthology of British poems. Kearney also wrote: "But what is the alternative to 'The British Isles?' Attempts to encourage the use of such terms as 'The Atlantic Archipelago' and 'The Isles' have met with criticism because of their vagueness. Perhaps one solution is to use 'the British Isles' in inverted commas".
Recognition of issues with the term (as well as problems over definitions and terminology) was discussed by the columnist
Marcel Berlins, writing in ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
'' in 2006. Beginning with "At last, someone has had the sense to abolish the British Isles", he opines that "although purely a geographical definition, it is frequently mixed up with the political entities
Great Britain
Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-west coast of continental Europe, consisting of the countries England, Scotland, and Wales. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the List of European ...
, or the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
. Even when used geographically, its exact scope is widely misunderstood". He also acknowledges that some view the term as representing Britain's imperial past, when it ruled the whole of Ireland.
Perspectives in Ireland
Republic of Ireland
From the Irish perspective, some
["Irish Genealogical Sources No. 25 – History of the Royal Hibernian Military School, Dublin" uses the term "then British Isles" to refer to Ireland's relationship association with it prior to 1922.]["When I refer to the composite Monarchy ruled over by James VI and I and by King Charles I, it is always described as Britain and Ireland, and I deliberately avoid the politically loaded phrase 'the British Isles' not least because this was not a normal usage in the political discourse of the time". Canny, Nicholas (2001). ''Making Ireland British 1580–1650''. New York: ]Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...
, p. viii. . consider "The British Isles" as a political term rather than a geographical name for the archipelago because of the
Tudor conquest of Ireland
Ireland was conquered by the Tudor monarchs of England in the 16th century. The Anglo-Normans had Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland, conquered swathes of Ireland in the late 12th century, bringing it under Lordship of Ireland, English rule. In t ...
, the subsequent
Cromwellian activities in Ireland, the
Williamite accession in Britain and the
Williamite War in Ireland
The Williamite War in Ireland took place from March 1689 to October 1691. Fought between Jacobitism, Jacobite supporters of James II of England, James II and those of his successor, William III of England, William III, it resulted in a Williamit ...
—all of which resulted in severe impact on the Irish people, landowners and native aristocracy. From that perspective, the term "British Isles" is not a neutral geographical term but an unavoidably political one. Use of the name "British Isles" is sometimes rejected in the Republic of Ireland, while claiming its use implies a primacy of British identity over all the islands outside the United Kingdom, including the
Irish state and the
Crown dependencies
The Crown Dependencies are three dependent territory, offshore island territories in the British Islands that are self-governing possessions of the The Crown, British Crown: the Bailiwick of Guernsey and the Jersey, Bailiwick of Jersey, both lo ...
of the
Isle of Man
The Isle of Man ( , also ), or Mann ( ), is a self-governing British Crown Dependency in the Irish Sea, between Great Britain and Ireland. As head of state, Charles III holds the title Lord of Mann and is represented by a Lieutenant Govern ...
and
Channel Islands
The Channel Islands are an archipelago in the English Channel, off the French coast of Normandy. They are divided into two Crown Dependencies: the Jersey, Bailiwick of Jersey, which is the largest of the islands; and the Bailiwick of Guernsey, ...
.
J. G. A. Pocock
John Greville Agard Pocock (; 7 March 1924 – 12 December 2023) was a New Zealand historian of political thought. He was especially known for his studies of republicanism in the early modern period (mostly in Europe, Britain, and America), h ...
, in a lecture at the
University of Canterbury
The University of Canterbury (UC; ; postnominal abbreviation ''Cantuar.'' or ''Cant.'' for ''Cantuariensis'', the Latin name for Canterbury) is a public research university based in Christchurch, New Zealand. It was founded in 1873 as Canterbur ...
in 1973 and published in 1974: "the term 'British Isles' is one which Irishmen reject and Englishmen decline to take quite seriously".
Nicholas Canny, professor of history at the
National University of Ireland, Galway
The University of Galway () is a public research university located in the city of Galway, Ireland.
The university was founded in 1845 as "Queen's College, Galway". It was known as "University College, Galway" (UCG) () from 1908 to 1997 and as ...
between 1979 and 2009, in 2001 described the term as "politically loaded" and stated that he avoided the term in discussion of the reigns following the
Union of the Crowns
The Union of the Crowns (; ) was the accession of James VI of Scotland to the throne of the Kingdom of England as James I and the practical unification of some functions (such as overseas diplomacy) of the two separate realms under a single ...
under
James VI and I
James VI and I (James Charles Stuart; 19 June 1566 – 27 March 1625) was King of Scotland as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and King of Ireland, Ireland as James I from the union of the Scottish and English crowns on 24 M ...
() and
Charles I () "not least because this was not a normal usage in the political discourse of the time".
Steven G. Ellis, however, Canny's successor as professor of history at the same university from 2009, wrote in 1996: "with regard to terminology, 'the British Isles', as any perusal of contemporary maps will show, was a widely accepted description of the archipelago long before the Union of the Crowns and the completion of the
Tudor conquest of Ireland
Ireland was conquered by the Tudor monarchs of England in the 16th century. The Anglo-Normans had Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland, conquered swathes of Ireland in the late 12th century, bringing it under Lordship of Ireland, English rule. In t ...
".
In the 2004 ''
Brewer's Dictionary of Irish Phrase and Fable'', Seán McMahon described "British Isles" as "A geographer's collective description of the islands of Britain and Ireland, but one that is no longer acceptable in the latter country" and "once acceptable" but "seen as politically inflammatory as well as historically inaccurate".
The same work describes
Powerscourt Waterfall as "the highest in Ireland, and the second highest in the British Isles after
Eas a' Chual Aluinn".
Many political bodies, including the Irish government, avoid describing Ireland as being part of the British Isles. The journalist
John Gunther
John Gunther (August 30, 1901 – May 29, 1970) was an Americans, American journalist and writer.
His success came primarily by a series of popular sociopolitical works, known as the "Inside" books (1936–1972), including the best-sell ...
, recollecting a meeting in 1936 or 1937 with
Éamon de Valera
Éamon de Valera (; ; first registered as George de Valero; changed some time before 1901 to Edward de Valera; 14 October 1882 – 29 August 1975) was an American-born Irish statesman and political leader. He served as the 3rd President of Ire ...
, the
president of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State
The president of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State () was the head of government or prime minister of the Irish Free State which existed from 1922 to 1937. He was the chairman of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State, the Fre ...
, wrote that the Irish statesman queried his use of the term:
However, the term "British Isles" has been used by individual ministers, as did cabinet minister
Síle de Valera when delivering a speech including the term at the opening of a drama festival in 2002, and is used by government departments in relation to geographic topics. In September 2005,
Dermot Ahern,
minister for foreign affairs, stated in a written answer to a
parliamentary question from
Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin
Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (; born 18 September 1953) is an Irish former Sinn Féin politician who served as a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Cavan–Monaghan (Dáil constituency), Cavan–Monaghan constituency from 1997 to 2020. Ó Caoláin's victory ...
in the
Dáil Éireann
Dáil Éireann ( ; , ) is the lower house and principal chamber of the Oireachtas, which also includes the president of Ireland and a senate called Seanad Éireann.Article 15.1.2° of the Constitution of Ireland reads: "The Oireachtas shall co ...
: "The British Isles is not an officially recognised term in any legal or inter-governmental sense. It is without any official status. The Government, including the
Department of Foreign Affairs, does not use this term." Ahern himself continued to use the term, at a conference in April 2015 calling the 2004
Northern Bank robbery "The biggest bank raid in history of the British Isles".
"British Isles" has been used in a geographical sense in Irish parliamentary debates by government ministers, although it is often used in a way that defines the British Isles as excluding the Republic of Ireland.
In October 2006, Irish educational publisher
Folens announced that it was removing the term from its popular school atlas effective in January 2007. The decision was made after the issue was raised by a geography teacher. Folens stated that no parent had complained directly to them over the use of "British Isles" and that they had a policy of acting proactively, upon the appearance of a "potential problem". This attracted press attention in the UK and Ireland, during which a spokesman for the
Irish Embassy in London said, "'The British Isles' has a dated ring to it, as if we are still part of the Empire". Writing in ''
The Irish Times
''The Irish Times'' is an Irish daily broadsheet newspaper and online digital publication. It was launched on 29 March 1859. The editor is Ruadhán Mac Cormaic. It is published every day except Sundays. ''The Irish Times'' is Ireland's leading n ...
'' in 2016, Donald Clarke described the term as "anachronistically named".
A bilingual dictionary website maintained by
Foras na Gaeilge
(, " Irish Institute"; ) is a public body responsible for the promotion of the Irish language throughout the island of Ireland, including both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. It was set up on 2 December 1999, assuming the rol ...
translates "British Isles" into Irish as "Ireland and Great Britain".
As the Irish translation of "British Isles", the 1995 ''
Collins Gem Irish Dictionary'' edited by
Séamus Mac Mathúna and Ailbhe Ó Corráin lists .
Northern Ireland
Different views on terminology are probably most clearly seen in
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland ( ; ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, part of the United Kingdom in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It has been #Descriptions, variously described as a country, province or region. Northern Ireland shares Repub ...
(which covers six of the thirty-two counties in Ireland), where the political situation is difficult and national identity contested. In December 1999 at a meeting of the
Irish cabinet and
Northern Ireland Executive
The Northern Ireland Executive (Irish language, Irish: ''Feidhmeannas Thuaisceart Éireann'', Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster Scots: ''Norlin Airlan Executive'') is the devolution, devolved government of Northern Ireland, an administrative branc ...
in
Armagh
Armagh ( ; , , " Macha's height") is a city and the county town of County Armagh, in Northern Ireland, as well as a civil parish. It is the ecclesiastical capital of Ireland – the seat of the Archbishops of Armagh, the Primates of All ...
. The
first minister of Northern Ireland,
David Trimble
William David Trimble, Baron Trimble, (15 October 1944 – 25 July 2022) was a Northern Irish politician who was the inaugural First Minister of Northern Ireland from 1998 to 2002 and leader of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) from 1995 to 20 ...
, told the meeting:
At a gathering of the
British–Irish Inter-Parliamentary Body in 1998, sensitivity about the term became an issue. Referring to plans for the proposed
British–Irish Council
The British–Irish Council (BIC; ) is an intergovernmental organisation that aims to improve collaboration between its members in a number of areas including transport, the environment and energy. Its membership comprises Ireland, the United ...
(supported by both Nationalists and Unionists), the British
member of parliament (MP)
Dennis Canavan
Dennis Andrew Canavan (born 8 August 1942) is a Scottish politician. He was the Member of Parliament for Falkirk West (UK Parliament constituency), Falkirk West from 1974 to 2000 (known as West Stirlingshire (UK Parliament constituency), West S ...
, was paraphrased by official note-takers as having said in a caveat:
In a series of documents issued by the United Kingdom and Ireland, from the
Downing Street Declaration to the
Good Friday Agreement
The Good Friday Agreement (GFA) or Belfast Agreement ( or ; or ) is a pair of agreements signed on 10 April (Good Friday) 1998 that ended most of the violence of the Troubles, an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland since the la ...
(Belfast Agreement), relations in the British Isles were referred to as the "East–West strand" of the tripartite relationship.
Alternative terms
There is no single accepted replacement of the term ''British Isles''. However, the terms ''Great Britain and Ireland'', ''British Isles and Ireland'', ''Islands of the North Atlantic'' etc. are suggested.
British Isles and Ireland
The term ''British Isles and Ireland'' has been used in a variety of contexts—among others religious, medical, zoologic, academic and others. This form is also used in some book titles and legal publications.
Islands of the North Atlantic (or IONA)
In the context of the
Northern Ireland peace process
The Northern Ireland peace process includes the events leading up to the 1994 Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) ceasefire, the end of most of the violence of the Troubles, the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, and subsequent political develop ...
, the term "
Islands of the North Atlantic" (and its acronym, IONA) was a term created by the British MP
John Biggs-Davison.
It has been used as a term to denote either all the islands, or the two main islands, without referring to the two states.
IONA has been used by (among others) the former Irish
Taoiseach
The Taoiseach (, ) is the head of government or prime minister of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. The office is appointed by the President of Ireland upon nomination by Dáil Éireann (the lower house of the Oireachtas, Ireland's national legisl ...
(prime minister),
Bertie Ahern
Bartholomew Patrick "Bertie" Ahern (born 12 September 1951) is an Irish former Fianna Fáil politician who served as Taoiseach from 1997 to 2008, and as Leader of Fianna Fáil from 1994 to 2008. A Teachta Dála (TD) from 1977 to 2011, he served ...
:
Others have interpreted the term more narrowly to mean the "Council of the Isles" or "
British-Irish Council". British MP
Peter Luff
Sir Peter James Luff (born 18 February 1955) is a British former politician and previous Chair of the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the National Lottery Heritage Fund. Formerly a British Conservative Party politician, he was the Member ...
told the
House of Commons
The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of ...
in 1998 that
His interpretation is not widely shared, particularly in Ireland. In 1997 the leader of the Irish
Green Party
A green party is a formally organized political party based on the principles of green politics, such as environmentalism and social justice.
Green party platforms typically embrace Social democracy, social democratic economic policies and fo ...
Trevor Sargent, discussing the ''Strand Three'' (or ''East–West'') talks between the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom, commented in the Dáil Éireann:
His comments were echoed by
Proinsias De Rossa, then leader of the
Democratic Left and later President of the
Irish Labour Party, who told the Dáil, "The acronym IONA is a useful way of addressing the coming together of these two islands."
Criticism
The neologism has been criticised on the grounds that it excludes
most of the islands in the North Atlantic.
The name is also ambiguous, because of the other islands in the North Atlantic which have never been considered part of the British Isles.
West European Isles
The name "
West European Isles" is one translation of the islands' name in the
Gaelic
Gaelic (pronounced for Irish Gaelic and for Scots Gaelic) is an adjective that means "pertaining to the Gaels". It may refer to:
Languages
* Gaelic languages or Goidelic languages, a linguistic group that is one of the two branches of the Insul ...
languages of
Irish and
Manx, with equivalent terms for "British Isles".
In
Old Icelandic
Old Norse, also referred to as Old Nordic or Old Scandinavian, was a stage of development of North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their ...
, the name of the British Isles was . The name of a person from the British Isles was a .
Other terms
Alternative names include "Britain and Ireland",
the "Atlantic Archipelago",
the "
Anglo-Celtic Isles",
and the "British-Irish Isles".
These islands
Common among Irish public officials, although as a
deictic
In linguistics, deixis () is the use of words or phrases to refer to a particular time (e.g. ''then''), place (e.g. ''here''), or person (e.g. ''you'') relative to the context of the utterance. Deixis exists in all known natural languagesLyons, J ...
label it cannot be used outside the islands in question.
Charles Haughey
Charles James Haughey (; 16 September 1925 – 13 June 2006) was an Irish Fianna Fáil politician who led four governments as Taoiseach: December 1979 to June 1981, March to December 1982, March 1987 to June 1989, and June 1989 to February 1992 ...
referred to his 1980 discussions with
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013), was a British stateswoman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of th ...
on "the totality of relationships in these islands"; the 1998
Good Friday Agreement
The Good Friday Agreement (GFA) or Belfast Agreement ( or ; or ) is a pair of agreements signed on 10 April (Good Friday) 1998 that ended most of the violence of the Troubles, an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland since the la ...
also uses "these islands" and not "British Isles".
In ''Brewer's Dictionary of Irish Phrase and Fable'', McMahon writes that this is "cumbersome but neutral" and "the phrase in most frequent use" but that it is "cute and unsatisfactory".
In documents drawn up jointly between the British and Irish governments, the archipelago is referred to simply as "these islands".
Insular
An adjective, meaning "island based", used as a qualifier in cultural history up to the early medieval period, as for example
insular art
Insular art, also known as Hiberno-Saxon art, was produced in the sub-Roman Britain, post-Roman era of Great Britain and Ireland. The term derives from ''insula'', the Latin language, Latin term for "island"; in this period Britain and Ireland ...
,
insular script
Insular script is a Middle Ages, medieval script (styles of handwriting), script system originating in Ireland that spread to England and continental Europe under the influence of Hiberno-Scottish mission, Irish Christianity. Irish missionaries ...
,
Insular Celtic
Insular Celtic languages are the group of Celtic languages spoken in Brittany, Great Britain, Ireland, and the Isle of Man. All surviving Celtic languages are in the Insular group, including Breton, which is spoken on continental Europe in Br ...
,
Insular Christianity.
Atlantic Archipelago
J. G. A. Pocock
John Greville Agard Pocock (; 7 March 1924 – 12 December 2023) was a New Zealand historian of political thought. He was especially known for his studies of republicanism in the early modern period (mostly in Europe, Britain, and America), h ...
, in his lecture of 1973 entitled "British history: a Plea for a new subject" and published in 1974, introduced the historiographical concept of the "Atlantic archipelago – since the term 'British Isles' is one which Irishmen reject and Englishmen decline to take quite seriously".
It has been adopted by some historians.
According to Steven G. Ellis, in 1996 professor of history at the
National University of Ireland, Galway
The University of Galway () is a public research university located in the city of Galway, Ireland.
The university was founded in 1845 as "Queen's College, Galway". It was known as "University College, Galway" (UCG) () from 1908 to 1997 and as ...
, "to rename the British Isles as 'the Atlantic archipelago' in deference to Irish nationalist sensibilities seems an extraordinary price to pay, particularly when many Irish historians have no difficulty with the more historical term."
According to
Jane Dawson
Jane Elizabeth Anne Dawson is a British academic and historian. Her specialism is early modern history within the British Isles and the Protestant reformation.
Dawson is Professor Emerita of Reformation history at the University of Edinburgh ...
in 2002, "Whilst accurate, the term 'Atlantic archipelago' is rather cumbersome".
Hibernian Archipelago
Another suggestion is "Hibernian Archipelago". In ''Brewer's Dictionary of Irish Phrase and Fable'', McMahon calls this title "cumbersome and inaccurate".
See also
*
Macedonia naming dispute
The use of the country name "Macedonia (terminology), Macedonia" was disputed between Greece and the North Macedonia, Republic of Macedonia (now North Macedonia) between 1991 and 2019. The dispute was a source of instability in the Balkans#W ...
Footnotes
References
*
* .
*
*
{{British Isles
Geographical naming disputes
Political terminology in the United Kingdom
Politics of Ireland
Naming dispute
Ireland–United Kingdom relations
Naming dispute