The four nations

People often refer to Britain by another name. They call it 'England'. But this is not strictly correct, and it can make some people angry. England is only one of the four nations of the British Isles (England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland). Their political unification was a gradual process that took several hundred years. It was completed in 1800 when the Irish Parliament was joined with the Parliament for England, Scotland and Wales in Westminster, so that the whole of the British Isles became a single state — the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. However, in 1922, most of Ireland became a separate state.

At one time the four nations were distinct from each other in almost every aspect of life. In the first place, they were different racially. The people in Ireland, Wales and highland Scotland belonged to the Celtic race; those in England and lowland Scotland were mainly of Germanic origin. This difference was reflected in the languages they spoke. People in the Celtic areas spoke Celtic languages: Irish Gaelic, Scottish Gaelic and Welsh. People in the Germanic areas spoke Germanic dialects (including the one which has developed into modern English). The nations also tended to have different economic, social and legal systems.

Today these differences have become blurred. But they have not completely disappeared. Although there is only one government for the whole of Britain, and people have the same passport regardless of where in Britain they live, some aspects of government are organized separately (and sometimes differently) in the four parts of the United Kingdom. Moreover, Welsh, Scottish and Irish people feel their iden­tity very strongly.