A while back someone was asking about Irish ship names. The problem is that
for a long time Ireland was British (favourite trick question, What
was the second largest city in Britain after London in the nineteenth century?
Answer: Dublin!). This is still delicate ground so I am trying to be acurate
without offending anyone (Northern Ireland, twinned with Bosnia?). The Royal
Navy had some famous Irish ship names, HMS Erin and HMS Shannon spring readily
to mind. A look at any old ship list (Conway has a nice but expensive one)
should do the trick. Re the Irish question. Is it part of the NAC? Not without
a lot of bother, Personally I would love to see them back in the union but I
doubt it.
> A while back someone was asking about Irish ship names. The problem is
Not really delicate ground just history.
> The Royal Navy had some famous Irish ship names, HMS Erin and HMS
> a nice but expensive one) should do the trick.
I can't be sure since I've never really gone looking for a list of Irish ship
names in the British navy but there were probably ships named after the four
provinces (Connaught, Leinster, Munster, Ulster) and definitely some named
after cities (HMS Belfast for instance).
I did find a page with a lot of links to info on various navies and naval
history.
http://pc-78-120.udac.se:8001/www/nautica/pointers/navy.html
Particulary interesting is the Nihon Kaigun site (Japanaese WW2 Imperial
Navy), well worth a visit.
> Re the Irish question. Is it part of the NAC? Not without a lot of
I doubt it too. I know personally I'd hate to see it. Some of the British
track record in running this country wasn't up to much. Still in this day and
age better to speak English than Irish. From an economic point of view. Apart
from anything else you get much better service in shops and bars on the
Continent! Its amazing the pleasant change in the French, Belgians and the
rest when they find out you're Irish and not English...Quite amusing really.
Given the fact that Ireland is far more "European" in outlook than Britain it
seems to me far more likely that it would have been one of the members of the
EU. Geography and economy would put it in the same boat as the FSE rather than
the NSL. Unless it remained independent. Which is quite likely too. Neutrality
is a well establsihed policy. For all we know it might be
a buffer-zone between the FSE and NAC.
At the end of the day though its Jons Universe. He has the final say.
Apart from my own particular interest it would be quite intriguing to see what
the status of small nations is in the FT universe? Were they all merged into
the larger power blocks (by force or economic power) or is there some sort of
treaty of small independent nations mutually supporting each other?
Would neutrality have been respected?
Perhaps the UN has bases established in some of these smaller countries? Paid
for by the smaller countries in return for protection from encroachments?