From (next) January British Isles will not exists anymore, at least in the Irish map. Folens, a publisher of textbooks in the Eire, granted a parent’s complaint about the practice of joining Ireland to Great Britain in his atlantes calling them “British Isles”. This is a practice which is commonly accepted between geographers, also because the British Isles are not only the greatest two that everyone remembers. But from a political point of view, in Ireland that term is high controversial: to many people that term evokes British Imperialism, and consequently the days when the island (at least a part of it) was not independent. Then, snip!: in Folens’ atlantes which will be issued from January, the controversial term will not be anymore.

The complaints. The Irish Minister of Education, Mary Hanafin, had received from a parent a letter of remonstrance to whom she answered inviting the man to explain the question to the teacher who used the Folens’ atlas in the classroom of his son. The parent must have acted quickly because some days after, the publisher, which is set in Dublin, received a recommendation from a teacher who observed that many Irishmen were thinking that it would not be appropriate sticking to Ireland a British label. The matter was confirmed by the spokesman of the Irish embassy in London; according to him “the term British Isles sounds strange, as if we were still part of the Empire”. The spokesman also said that the embassy rejects that term. “In our opinion this is important. We are independent, we are not part of Great Britain, neither in geographic terms”.

 

 It is difficult to satisfy everybody. So, the term will disappear but only in the atlantes sold in the Eire. In Great Britain and in Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom and has got a population which is mostly Protestant and proud of the bond between London and her country, the usual Folens’ Atlantes will keep on selling. However, it is difficult to establish what will replace “British Isles” in the Eire. The area which is identified as “British Isles” does not only refer to Ireland and Great Britain, on the contrary includes an archipelago which is made up of more or less 6.000 islands: from Hebrides to Shetland, from the Isle of Man to the Isle of Wight, passing through hundreds of uninhabited islets. John O’Connor, the Chief Executive of Folens, has declared that the publisher has not decided yet what will be stamped on the Atlantes as substitution of “British Isles”. He seemed to suggest  that it probably may be even only “Ireland” and “England”. But then five millions of Scottish men and three millions of Welsh people might not agree so much to this solution.

Alessandro Ursic