Category talk:Irish rugby union players

Ireland Category‑class

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The "Ireland" category represents the whole Island of Ireland. In fact the category used to be called "Island of Ireland" to avoid just this kind of issue from emerging. "Irish people" is a part of this broad "Ireland" category not the "Republic of Ireland" category. So the "Irish sportspeople" category is for people from anywhere in the "Island of Ireland", not just from the Republic.

A thing only goes in a category if everything in it can also go in that category. So the NI football team can go in a "NI sportspeople" category and the RofI football team could go in a "RofI sportspeople" category. Also individual members of the rugby team can go in the "NI" or "RofI" category but if the whole team in itself goes in either a "NofI" or "RoI sportspeople" category then that implies that the whole team is from one of those two places, which is not the case.

Its the same with "British athletes". This goes under "British sportspeople". It wouldnt make sense for it to go under "British sportspeople" and "Welsh sportspeople" and "Scottish sportspeople" and "English sportspeople".

If it is necessary to avoid the word "Irish" we could call the category "Island of Ireland sportspeople". But that doesn't exactly trip off the tongue.

Ikari 23:38, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I've just put those rugby union players to who it applies in the "Northern Ireland sportspeople" category aswell. Ikari 23:52, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

This is clearly a special case because the team represents the whole of Ireland. Those ulsterman who play for Ireland are generally middle class protestants who identify as being British. To cut them off from the line from British sportspeople is wrong. The nationality of someone from the Irish Republic is Irish, and those from the UK is British. It is okay for categories to converge. In this case, someone going down:

Sportspeople → British sportspeople → Northern Irish sportspeople

gets stuck there and can't get to Irish rugby footballers. So, this should be in Northern Irish sportspeople too:

Sportspeople → British sportspeople → Northern Irish sportspeople → Irish rugby footballers

So I'll revert, again. Dunc|☺ 23:59, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)