This book is about Britain. But what exactly is Britain? And who are the British? The table below illustrates the problem. You might think that, in international sport, the situation would be simple-one country, one team. But you can see that this is definitely not the case with Britain. For each of the four sports or sporting events listed in the table, there are a different number of national teams which might be described as ‘British’. This chapter describes how this situation has come about and explains the many names that are used when people talk about Britain.

Geographically speaking
Lying off the north-west coast of Europe, there are two large islands and hundreds of much smaller ones. The largest island is called Great Britain. The other large one is called Ireland (Great Britain and Ireland). There is no agreement about what to call all of them together (Looking for a name).

Politically speaking
In this geographical area there are two states. One of these governs most of the island of Ireland. This state is usually called The Republic of Ireland. It is also called ‘Eire’ (its Irish language name). Informally, it is referred to as just ‘Ireland’ or ‘the Republic’.

The other state has authority over the rest of the area (the whole of Great Britain, the north-eastern area of Ireland and most of the smaller islands). This is the country that is the main subject of this book. Its official name is The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, but this is too long for practical purposes, so it is usually known by a shorter name. At the Eurovision Song Contest, at the United Nations and in the European parliament, for instance, it is referred to as ‘the United Kingdom’. In everyday speech, this is often shortened to ‘the UK’ and in internet and email addresses it is ‘.uk’. In other contexts, it is referred to as ‘Great Britain’. This, for example, is the name you hear when a medal winner steps onto the rostrum at the Olympic Games. The abbreviation ‘GBP’ (Great Britain Pounds) in international bank drafts is another example of the use of this name. In writing and speaking that is not especially formal or informal, the name ‘Britain’ is used. The normal everyday adjective, when talking about something to do with the UK, is ‘British’ (Why is Britain ‘Great’?).

The four nations
People often refer to Britain by another name. They call it ‘England’. But this is not correct, and its use can make some people angry. England is only one of ‘the four nations’ in this part of the world. The others are Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. Their political unification was a gradual process that took several hundred years (see chapter 2). 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 area became a single state- the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. However, in 1922, most of Ireland became a separate state (see chapter 12).

At one time, culture and lifestyle varied enormously across the four nations. The dominant culture of people in Ireland, Wales and Highland Scotland was Celtic; that of people in England and Lowland Scotland was Germanic. This difference was reflected in the languages they spoke. People in the Celtic areas spoke Celtic languages; 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, and they were independent of each other.

Today, these differences have become blurred, but they have not completely disappeared. Although there is only one government for the whole of Britain, and everybody gets the same passport regardless of where in Britain they live, many 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. That is why they have separate teams in many kinds of international sport.

The dominance of England
There is, perhaps, an excuse for the people who use the word ‘England’ when they mean ‘Britain’. It cannot be denied that the dominant culture of Britain today is specifically English. The system of politics that is used in all four nations today is of English origin, and English is the main language of all four nations. Many aspects of everyday life are organized according to English custom and practice. But the political unification of Britain was not achieved by mutual agreement. On the contrary, it happened because England was able to assert her economic and military power over the other three nations (see chapter 2).

Today, English domination can be detected in the way in which various aspects of British public life are described. For example, the supply of money in Britain is controlled by the Bank of England (there is no such thing as a ‘Bank of Britain’). Another example is the name of the present monarch. She is universally known as ‘Elizabeth II’, even though Scotland and Northern Ireland have never had an ‘Elizabeth I’. (Elizabeth I of England and Wales ruled from 1553 to 1603). The common use of the term ‘Anglo’ is a further indication. (The Angles were a Germanic tribe who settled in England in the fifth century. The word ‘England’ is derived from their name.) When newspapers and the television news talk about ‘Anglo-American relations’, they are talking about relations between the governments of Britain and the USA (and not just England and the USA).

In addition, there is a tendency in the names of publications and organizations to portray England as the norm and other parts of Britain as special cases. Thus there is a specialist newspaper called the Times Educational Supplement, but also a version of it called the Times Educational Supplement (Scotland). Similarly, the umbrella organization for employees is called the ‘Trades Union Congress’, but there is also a ‘Scottish Trades Union Congress’. When something pertains to England, this fact is often not specified in its name; when it pertains to Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland, it always is. In this way, these parts of Britain are presented as something ‘other’.

National loyalties
The dominance of England can also be detected in the way that many English people don’t bother to distinguish between ‘Britain’ and ‘England’. They write ‘English’ next to ‘nationality’ on forms when they are abroad and talk about places like Edinburgh as if it was part of England.

Nevertheless, when you are talking to people from Britain, it is safest to use ‘Britain’ when talking about where they live and ‘British’ as the adjective to describe their nationality. This way you will be less likely to offend anyone. It is, of course, not wrong to talk about ‘people in England’ if that is what you mean-people who live within the geographical boundaries of England. After all, most British people live there (populations in 2006). But it should always be remembered that England does not make up the whole of the UK (Careful with that address!).

There has been a long history of migration from Scotland, Wales and Ireland to England. As a result, there are millions of people who live in England but who would never describe themselves as English (or at least not as only English). They may have lived in England all their lives, but as far as they are concerned they are Scottish or Welsh or Irish- even if, in the last case, they are citizens of Britain and not of Eire. These people support the country of their parents or grandparents rather than England in sporting contests. They would also, given the chance, play for that country rather than England.

The same often holds true for the further millions of British citizens whose family origins lie outside Britain or Ireland. People of Caribbean or south Asian descent, for instance, do not mind being described as ‘British’ (many are proud of it), but many of them would not like to be called ‘English’ (or, again, not only English). And whenever the West Indian, Indian, Pakistani or Bangladeshi cricket team plays against England, it is usually not England that they support!

There is, in fact, a complicated division of loyalties among many people in Britain, and especially in England. A black person whose family are from the Caribbean will passionately support the West Indies when they play cricket against England. But the same person is quite happy to support England just as passionately in a sport such as football, which the West Indies do not play. A person whose family are from Ireland but who has always lived in England would want Ireland to beat England at football but would want England to beat (for example) Italy just as much.

This crossover of loyalties can work the other way as well. English people do not regard the Scottish, the Welsh or the Irish as ‘foreigners’ (or at least, not as the same kind of foreigner as other foreigners!). An English commentator of a sporting event in which a Scottish, Irish or Welsh team is playing against a team from elsewhere in the world tends to identify with that team as if it were English.