Maidin mhaith! When you say 'the UK' you’re probably not referring to the actual ‘United Kingdom of Great Britain and NI’ and its clumsy application should not go on unchallenged. The U.K. is not a synonym For Britain and using it in this way has some problems.

To state the obvious it’s incorrect. By choosing to state the ‘UK’ in a piece of writing, an author is applying their assertions to the sum of all its parts. This will lead to errors if their methodology has not actually incorporated data from NI, which it rarely does anyway.

I’d have to ask, how is UK wide data helpful? The political situation in NI and the legal structure in Scotland is so different than England and Wales, is it really worthwhile? If you’re an academic writing about equal marriage, policing powers etc ‘in the U.K.’ it’s not one law.

Much of our modern political debate rests upon accurate research. increasingly incorrect uses of ‘the UK’ hinder rather than help debate leading to a general level of ignorance of things like the DUP, devolution and the significance of the Irish identity in a ‘U.K.’ context

No one would claim that a welsh person wasn’t welsh or a Scottish person wasn’t Scottish, but an Irish person born in Northern Ireland will have their identity constantly challenged and put under scrutiny. Thus homogenising the U.K. has more a powerful impact there

Not British by geography and denied Irishness by force of arms, Northern Ireland became at best, a semi-autonomous region and at worst, a failed state. It might be some people’s identity to be Northern Irish but it shouldn’t be forced upon the people there .

@bbop1984 would argue people should use So specific place names in ways that show consideration for the relationship between those countries. And recognise that Northern Ireland is the name of the statelet and not the birth identity of the majority of its inhabitants.

Being specific helps to challenge hierarchies of power in our discourse, in media, academia and in everyday discussions and makes for debates that better represent all the people on these islands. It’s also just more accurate.