Hi,
This has been something which was a little... noticeable to me the first time I looked at the country info (on Earth itself) in the EA book, I was wondering whether the following idea was something which had been somehow directly stated or indirectly inferred from any canon B5 source material, or an invention by the author of the fact book, namely that of Ireland, erm, returning to the United Kingdom - and losing any reference to the Irish language as a potential character trait.
Sadly, the part about not mentioning Irish as a language spoken by 23rd Century Irish humans is not something the current parlous state of the language could easily answer to.
However, the part about re-joining the UK is one which, at the risk of sounding like someone speaking from a biased viewpoint, is rather less simple to envisage.
Rather, given our links to the European Union, our adoption of the euro as our currency, the generally more widespread sense of European identity than seen in the UK, not to mention the rather... notable reaction many in Ireland would have to giving up on our republic to hand over soverignty to an unelected monarchy, the one of our former colonial masters no less, I would seriously doubt that Ireland would throw its lot in with the UK instead of the EU in the future - a doubt which would be put to the test should the UK ever pack its bags and leave the European Union.
While it's stated that Canada successfully avoided becoming absorbed by the United States within the North American Federation, I am surprised that Ireland is given rather less success - but then, before the ecenomic upturn of the 1990s and beyond, we were regularly written off anyway, I should perhaps not be too surprised...
(Even when we were a basket case economically, we would never have gone back to the UK)
Could anyone offer an explanation for the take on Ireland in the EA book?
Gary
This has been something which was a little... noticeable to me the first time I looked at the country info (on Earth itself) in the EA book, I was wondering whether the following idea was something which had been somehow directly stated or indirectly inferred from any canon B5 source material, or an invention by the author of the fact book, namely that of Ireland, erm, returning to the United Kingdom - and losing any reference to the Irish language as a potential character trait.
Sadly, the part about not mentioning Irish as a language spoken by 23rd Century Irish humans is not something the current parlous state of the language could easily answer to.
However, the part about re-joining the UK is one which, at the risk of sounding like someone speaking from a biased viewpoint, is rather less simple to envisage.
Rather, given our links to the European Union, our adoption of the euro as our currency, the generally more widespread sense of European identity than seen in the UK, not to mention the rather... notable reaction many in Ireland would have to giving up on our republic to hand over soverignty to an unelected monarchy, the one of our former colonial masters no less, I would seriously doubt that Ireland would throw its lot in with the UK instead of the EU in the future - a doubt which would be put to the test should the UK ever pack its bags and leave the European Union.
While it's stated that Canada successfully avoided becoming absorbed by the United States within the North American Federation, I am surprised that Ireland is given rather less success - but then, before the ecenomic upturn of the 1990s and beyond, we were regularly written off anyway, I should perhaps not be too surprised...
(Even when we were a basket case economically, we would never have gone back to the UK)
Could anyone offer an explanation for the take on Ireland in the EA book?
Gary