My friend Seth asked a good question in a comment on the entry "Ireland/Northern Ireland" below, that I'm still struggling to answer, but here we go
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I think you have the answer in here, at least as far as I can understand it without having been there.
I. The geographic entity is (the entire island of) Ireland. II. The political entities are (a) the Republic of Ireland and (b) Northern Ireland. III. The very broad cultural entities are, (a) the Republic of Ireland plus Catholics in Northern Ireland, and (b) Protestants in Northern Ireland.
But on some level beyond the geographic, it's still all Ireland, I would think. You can ask an Irish-American what county he's from, if he knows his genealogy in that much detail, but you wouldn't ask whether his family was "Irish" or "Northern Irish."
As for whether you count each country inside the UK as a separate country, I would think not. Separately, they clearly have only some of the properties we ordinarily associate with independent nation states. In (non-American) football, interestingly enough, I believe England, Scotland, and Wales all have separate national teams, while the folks from Northern Ireland play on the Irish team. But I know of no other purpose for which people outside the British Isles recognize the UK's constituent countries as real nations.
Comments 2
I. The geographic entity is (the entire island of) Ireland.
II. The political entities are (a) the Republic of Ireland and (b) Northern Ireland.
III. The very broad cultural entities are, (a) the Republic of Ireland plus Catholics in Northern Ireland, and (b) Protestants in Northern Ireland.
But on some level beyond the geographic, it's still all Ireland, I would think. You can ask an Irish-American what county he's from, if he knows his genealogy in that much detail, but you wouldn't ask whether his family was "Irish" or "Northern Irish."
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