Re: Irish Ship Names

>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?).

Not really delicate ground just history.

>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.

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 
>bother, Personally I would love to see them back in the union but I 
>doubt it.

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?
--------------------
Niall Gilsenan,
DIT Cathal Brugha St,
Dublin 1,
Ireland.

ngilsena@indigo.ie
--------------------
The miscellany (Sci-Fi combat games)
http://members.tripod.com/~Cwintel/Scifi.html