New atlas lets Ireland slip shackles of Britain

IT MAY be 57 years too late for many an Irish republican, but yesterday Folens, the publishers, said it was introducing a more “correct” version of its school atlas that would no longer include Ireland as part of the British Isles.

The decision, according to The Irish Times, was taken after Mary Hanafin, the Republic’s Education Minister, received a complaint from a parent. She advised the writer to take the matter up with the teacher who was using the “dated” atlas in question, and with the company that published it.

A spokesman for the Irish Embassy in London said: “The British Isles has a dated ring to it, as if we are still part of the Empire. We are independent, we are not part of Britain, not even in geographical terms. We would discourage its useage.”

John O’Connor, managing director of Folens, said that no final decision had yet been taken as to what would replace the British Isles title in the relevant section, but it might be simply Ireland and England — although that would risk the wrath of the Scots and the Welsh.

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