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Foreign relations of the Republic of Ireland

I came across this page by accident. There are only two real pages linking to Foreign relations of the Republic of Ireland (ignoring redirects etc.) – The Royal Hospital, Kilmainham and List of Ireland-related topics.

What should be on this page, what should its title be (Foreign relations of Ireland is unused), and what should link to it?

I suggest there is no point spending valuable time until the last point above is addressed - there is little or no point to fixing up a page no-one will see.

zoney ♣ talk 12:45, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Can't really see the point in having a separate page unless major expansion too place, and even then it's probably not the best place for it. I say merge the content into History of Ireland/Rep of Ireland or Politics of the Republic of Ireland or Economy of Ireland as appropriate and redirect the few incoming links as well. Leave a stub or redirect to one of the above or Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs. (or is all that just called merge and delete!) jlang 17:45, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Having been an active wikipedian for nearly a year and used it before this I never cease to be amazed how little people attempt to publise often good articles - many of the articles on Wikipedia:Irish wikipedians' notice board/to do have less than five links - part of the process of placing them here should be providing relevent specific links - Their are many other Irish-related articles in a similar situation. As for "history of Ireland" articles, rewriting them could take a considerable effort - thats why I recommend stearing clear of them!

Should Wikipedia:Categorization and Irish topics reform should be a priority in itself? Djegan 22:45, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

WP:LCOTW

Filiocht 10:52, Nov 10, 2004 (UTC)

Architecture of Ireland

Is there an article on architecture in Ireland as a whole? Seabhcan 12:13, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

No (apparently). Alternative title, Architecture in Ireland. I suggest this as a ICOTW. zoney ♣ talk 12:23, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Stick it up there for a vote. A useful section in Palladian Architecture. Filiocht 12:38, Nov 10, 2004 (UTC)

Irish FA

I've added a lttle section to the projecty page listing the Irish articles that have gained FA status, to encourage Irish wikipedians to produce more top class work - I hope you don't mind. CGorman 19:42, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Gmail

This must seem biased that I´m listing them here, but I´ve two Gmail invites that I want to give to Wikipedians, and I´d prefer wikipedians I know, hence listing here. So you can email me at johnbcollison@gmail.com if you want one. Note: I am not trying to stop other people getting them - anyone can take me up on this offer, not just IWNBers. Ludraman

I've 6 to give away... CGorman 21:50, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Smoking ban

Is there an article on the Smoking ban in the Republic of Ireland? Very topical at the moment with the ná Chótaí Dearga going down the same road. Seabhcan 15:51, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

No, but smoking ban reasonably expands on our experience. Incidentally, I think they're likely to screw up in the UK with their bans. The selective and wooly reasoning behind their bans is not as outrightly defendable as a simple "workplace ban to protect workers from passive smoking" (ignoring our few exceptions). zoney ♣ talk 16:14, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I think so too (about the UK ban). Baning smoking only in pubs where food is served seems unenforceble. They also seem to have missed the point of the Irish ban. It was not for the benifit of the customers, but of the staff. Seabhcan 18:01, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Well, no, I think the Irish ban was indeed planned to be to the benefit of all (not just staff). But focussing on the workers aspect gave a valid pretext for the ban. zoney ♣ talk 19:27, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The food served limitation makes some minor sense as pubs with food are the only ones those under the age of 14 can enter after 6PM, and only ones in which the legal age to get served is 16 (!!) in the UK. Still a bit pointless not outright banning though... Kiand 19:33, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Ireland is the best place to live in the world!?!

This is interesting: The Economist has named the Republic as having the highest "quality of life" in the world. (BBC Article) Something tells me they don't use Public Transport!. Seabhcan 20:26, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

And they're not sitting here this morning looking out at the rain, in the dark, looking forward to travelling home this evening, in the dark, in the rain!Filiocht 08:28, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)

You should see the thick layer of mud on the back of my jacket from my cycling in this morning. It was either cycle to work on dirt tracks by the river, or the usual "risk death by traffic". Why we can't have cycle lanes like a normal European country is beyond me! Cars should be subservient to all other modes of transport!

While I'm making smalltalk rather than staying on topic - did yous catch Bertie's nutjob claim to be "one of the few socialists left in Irish politics" nutjob comment? Heh, I'd nearly add it to Bertie Ahern for a laugh! Bertie Ahern is the socialist leader of the People's Republic of Ireland.

Hilarious news day yesterday!

zoney ♣ talk 11:47, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I wonder will Brian Cowan come out as a Red BIFFO in the book of estimates today? Filiocht 12:12, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)

Celtic Tiger

Celtic Tiger will be on the main page on the 29th Nov. CGorman 21:09, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Irish phrasebook

At Wikitravel, an Irish phrasebook is under construction. Any Irish Wikipedians who want to help out are very welcome. JOHN COLLISON [ Ludraman] 15:32, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

British and Irish current events

FYI, I have started a new British and Irish current events page. Please feel free to add Irish current events (including sports events). jguk 23:06, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Sport in Ireland

I've been expanding Sport in Ireland substantially over the last few days with a view to getting it to FA quality. However it is by no measure even near that sort of qualitty, so I would appreciate the additions of others, particularly in the wording/spelling etc., - im editing it quite quickly and may have made many unintentional blunders. Please do what you can. Thanks. CGorman 22:31, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Irish speed limit changeover

Hi all! (I'm back in action to some degree!)

Can I ask you to get your cameras out, and if a location near you has at some stage a speed limit post with two speed limit signs visible (miles and km/h), please photograph it. This is a unique opportunity to capture such a scene, an interesting addition for the article speed limit (and should be the first image, rather than a photo of a US sign - used only in that country). I'm keeping tabs on such a location near me which has the new signs erected already, albeit covered. Hopefully I'll get a chance to photograph the signs when the new ones are uncovered but before the old ones are covered/removed.

It'd be interesting at some stage to create an article on Irish road signage, as we have an interesting mix of US-derived and British signage. As well as some interesting oddities, such as the domestic "stay left" signage (black left-upward curved arrow in red circle) occasionally used instead of the now more common British sign (white left-downward straight arrow on blue disc).

zoney ♣ talk 16:13, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The N11 around the RTE/UCD area has some of the new signs up already, but they've for the most part removed the old ones, so that they're not seen together. rdd, 13:55, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC).

There's a wonderful quote from a Dublin taxi driver on The Associated Press: 'CONFUSED? THEY AREN'T: Many drivers say police give out very few tickets, and most plan just to go with the traffic flow. "They can list these speeds in watts or grams or, whaddya call 'em, megabytes - I still won't get a ticket," one taxi driver said.' Seabhcán 00:45, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

That's a good one. There's no doubt, there seems to be some degree of indifference to such a major change. I guess with the euro changeover, smoking ban, etc. nothing is likely to faze us! Personally I just consider it another sign of our becoming a modern European country.

As an aside, the LUAS has used metric distances and speed limits since its inception, but the rail network still uses not only miles per hour, but also miles for distance (yes, those 150 year old mileposts are still in use - the ones outside Heuston station even got cleaned up recently! The oldest piece of rail infrastructure in the country!) But it does bring up an interesting issue - eventually the rail system will also have to change, unless we want a NASA-type situation. In fact, that's not so far-fetched - with the recent DMUs, some classes have kph speedometers, some mph and some dual! Potential for a mess-up? zoney ♣ talk 11:21, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Daniel O'Donnell

I've just seen this page. Shame on you Irishpeople. How could you let it happen? ;) jguk 12:56, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Are you saying that Assemblymember O'Donnell is less worthy of being included in Wikipedia than the Irish singer? jlang 23:11, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

County Louth Map

Hello ppl, was wondering if their is a County Louth map out their similar to the ones like Counties Dublin and Cork , if not was wondering is someone wouln't mind maybe doing one, i would my self but i don't have any graphic packages, thanks. --Boothy443 08:53, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Query

I wonder if anyone can help with an email query (on the foundation mail system). The mail says... "on the provenice of ulster, your map, is indeed wrong, as derry is at the edge of the free state your map takes it to the coast, which is indeed very wrong". Can anyone make sense of this and confirm we have the right information in our articles? I'm guessing that the map refered to is the one on Ulster. Thanks -- sannse (talk) 19:16, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Our map is correct. The person has made the mistake of confusing Ulster and Northern Ireland; while most of the counties in Ulster are part of Northern Ireland, Donegal, Monaghan and Cavan are not - they are part of the Republic of Ireland. It may seem confusing but thats the way it is. CGorman 21:39, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

That's great - thanks for the help CGorman -- sannse (talk) 15:34, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The confusion some have is compounded by the fact that particularly the Unionist community in Northern Ireland refer to the six counties (incorrectly) as Ulster (e.g. "Ulster says NO") conveniently forgetting the three Ulster counties in the Republic. No doubt there are those (for instance, anyone who's inclined to refer to the Republic of Ireland as "the free state") at this stage who actually believe that Ulster == Six Counties.

zoney ♣ talk 16:10, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Towns and villages navigation box

The Norwegian wiki has an interesting little navigation box for Irish town, with information such as English and Irish town names, population, county and provence. Seems like a good idea. Mal:Infoboks_Irland_sted, Cratloe Seabhcán 17:58, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Nice idea, I think we should certainly think about doing something similer. First thing to decide is what pieces of info we want to include, so far we have the following things:

• Name
• Irish Name
• Population
• County
• Provience

So any suggestions? Aminities? No. schools? thrid level institutions, Major roads, raillines, canals, rivers? Or should we have anything extra? Oh, and should we level space for photos - as it is likely that most towns will eventually be photographed on wikipedia. Im prepared to get the project started - e.g. format a template and do the 15-20 largest towns. Im sure I could drag Zoney into doing the rest! Anyways i'll leave this for descussion for a few days before I design the template, so make your suggestions now! CGorman 20:41, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Actually, I would hate to see a boring box with the dry details on Irish towns. I feel it would completely spoil the look of the Irish town articles (many of which are only short stubs with not much more than the details of placename, Irish name, countyname). It's bad enough having to incorporate a table into the city articles - which apart from the map, contain so few details that they do not in my opinion, require a table (the details can all be in the first couple sentences in the intro).

I feel Wikipedia has a problem generally speaking with having infoboxes for the sake of them.

Apologies if I've been somewhat blunt, but the notion does not appeal to me.

zoney ♣ talk 22:50, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

You have a point. Adding infoboxes is a lot easier than writing content. But one certainly useful type of box is one with links to 'sister' articles, such as the Cities in Ireland template. Irish town articles do seem a little hard to find though. Take the Cratloe article, which is only linked to by List of towns in the Republic of Ireland, County Clare and Rail transport in Ireland. Perhaps we could dream up some clever way to browse through the town articles: more traffic would encourage more editing. A clickable map would be ideal, but mediawiki doesn't allow that. Perhaps a combined infobox-naviagation box with links to neighbouring towns?

Towns in Ireland are connected by roads, railways and rivers. How about navigation boxes which list towns on particular rivers, roads, and railways? Seabhcán 12:11, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Or perhaps just make sure neighbouring towns are in the "See also" *? I have added the relevant towns to our national routes (there's only N1 - N7 and one or two others) - the same should indeed be done for rivers. Again, I think the railway routes listed in Rail transport in Ireland do indeed all link to the relevant towns.

The more important towns are indeed quite well linked. I think this isn't too much of a problem - and for those towns which aren't well linked - I think just adding links to other articles based on relevance - human judgement, is better than adding navigation boxes to all articles.

I think many navigation boxes are simply accepting that articles aren't well designed - and no-one's made an effort to ensure links are included prominently in the article text.

zoney ♣ talk 15:54, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

* On a related note, I think "Related topics" is probably a better title than see also for such links. "Related topics" is an acceptable deviation in the Wikipedia Manual of Style.