THE UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN
AND NOTHERN IRELAND
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (usually shortened to the United Kingdom or UK) is the political name of the country which is made up of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Several is-lands off the British coast are also part of the United Kingdom (for example, the Isle of Wight, the Orkneys, Hebrides and Shetlands, and the Isles of Scilly), although the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man are not. However, all these islands do recognize the Queen.
Formation
How was the United Kingdom formed? This took centuries, and a lot of armed struggle was involved. The United Kingdom is a name which was introduced in 1501 when Great Britain became united with Ireland. The whole of Ireland was united with Great Britain from 1801 up until 1922. In that year the independent Republic of Ireland was formed in the South, while Northern Ireland became part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
The Union Jack
The flag of the United Kingdom, known as the Union Jack, is made up of three crosses. The upright Red Cross is the cross of St. George, the patron saint of England. The white diagonal cross (with the arms going into the corners) is the cross of St. Andrew, the patron saint of Scotland. The red diagonal cross is the cross of St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland. St. David is the patron saint of Wales.
Location
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is an island state: it occupies the territory of the British Isles and is composed of some 5,500 islands, large and small. The two main islands are: Great Britain (in which are England, Wales and Scotland) to the east and Ireland (in which are Northern Ireland and the independent Republic of Ireland) to the west. They are separated by the Irish Sea.
The UK is one of the world's smaller countries (it is twice smaller than France or Spain), with an area of some 244,100 square kilometres. However, there are only nine other countries with more people, and London is the world's seventh biggest city. The UK is situated off the northwest coast of Europe between the Atlantic Ocean on the north and northwest and the North Sea on the east and is separated from the European continent by the English Channel (or la Manche) and the Strait of Dover (or Pas de Calais).
Geographically, the island of Great Britain is subdivided into two main regions Lowland Britain and Highland Britain. Lowland Britain comprises southern and eastern England. Highland Britain consists of Scotland, most of Wales, the Pennines, and the Lake District.
The highest mountains are in Scotland and Wales: Ben Nevis is 1,343 metres and Snowdon is 1.085 metres. Of course, these are very small compared with other mountains in the world Everest, the highest mountain in the world, is 8,839 metres. In fact everything in the United Kingdom is rather small the longest rivers are the Severn (354 kiiometres). There are many lakes in Great Britain. On the north-west side of the Pennine system lies the Lake District, containing the beautiful lakes which give it its name. This district is widely known for its association with the history of English literature and especially with the name of William Wordsworth (17701850), the founder of the Lake School of poets.
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Climate
Britain is as far north as Siberia. For example Edinburgh is 56 degrees north of the equator, the same latitude as Moscow, yet its climate is generally mild and temperate because of the Gulf Stream, which brings warm water and air across the Atlantic from the Gulf of Mexico. The climate in the UK is usually described as cool, temperate and humid.
The weather is so changeable that the English often say that they have no climate but only weather. Therefore it is natural for them to use the comparison "as changeable as the weather" of a person who often changes his mood or opinion about something. The weather is the favourite topic of conversation in the UK. As the weather changes with the wind, and Britain is visited by winds from different parts of the world, the most characteristic feature of Britain's weather is its variability.
The English also say that they have three variants of weather: when it rains in the morning, when it rains in the afternoon, or when it rains all day long. Sometimes it rains so heavily that they say "It's raining cats and dogs".
So, we may say that the British climate has three main features: it is mild, humid and changeable. That means that it is never too hot or cold, too wet or dry. This humid and mild climate is good for plants. The trees and flowers begin to blossom early in spring.
Vegetation and Wildlife
The humid and mild climate of Great Britain is good for plants and flowers. Some of them have become symbols in the UK. Probably you know that the poppy is the symbol of peace, the red rose is the national emblem of England, the thistle is the national emblem of Scotland and the Edinburgh International Festival. The daffodils and the leek are the emblems of Wales, the shamrock (a kind of clover) is the emblem of Ireland.
The UK was originally a land of vast forests, mainly oak and beech in the Lowlands and pine and birch, in the Highlands, with great stretches of marshland and smaller areas of moors.
Extensive forests remain in eastern and northern Scotland and in southeastern and western England. Oak, elm, ash, and beech are the commonest trees in England, while Scotland has much pine and birch. The Highlands with their thin soil are largely moorland with heather and grasses. In the cultivated areas that make up most of Britain there are many wild flowers, flowering plants and grasses.
The fauna, or animal life of the UK is much like that of northwestern Europe.
Some 230 kinds of birds live in the UK, and another 200 are regular visitors, many are songbirds. The most numerous are blackbirds, sparrows and starlings Robin Redbreast is the national bird of the UK. The number of ducks, geese and other water fowl has diminished during recent years. Partridges, pheasants and other large and rare birds are protected by law. Gulls, geese and other sea birds nest near the coast.
Population
The population of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is over 57 million people. The population lives mostly in towns and cities and their suburbs. Four out of every five people live in towns.
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The distribution of the population is rather uneven. Over 46 million people live in England, a little over 5 million live in Scotland, over 3 million in Wales and about 1,5 million in Northern Ireland.
The UK is inhabited by the English, the Scottish, the Welsh, and the Northern Irish, who constitute the British nation. What makes them different from each other? The British are the descendants of different peoples who settled in the British Isles at different times.
About 2,000 years ago the British Isles were inhabited by the Celts who originally came from continental Europe. The Romans came from Italy in 43 A.D. and, in calling the country "Britania", gave Britain its name. The Angles and Saxons came from Germany, Denmark, and the Netherlands, and England gets its name from this Invasion (Angle-land). The vikings arrived from Denmr and Norway, the Normans invaded from France. These invasions drove the Celts into what is now Wales and Scotland, and they remained, of course, in Ireland. The English, on the other hand, are the descendants of all the invaders, but are more Anglo-Saxon than anything else. These various origins explain many of the differences to be found between England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland differences in education, religion nd the legal systems, but most obviously, in language.
The Celts spoke Celtic which survives today in the form of Welsh, Scottish Gaelic and Irish Gaelic. Scottish Gaelic and Irish Gaelic are still spoken, although they have suffered more than Welsh from the spread of English. However, all the three languages are now officially encouraged and taught in schools.
English developed from Anglo-Saxon and is a Germanic language. However, all the invading peoples, particularly the Norman French, influenced the English language and you can find many words in English which are French in origin. Nowadays all Welsh; Scottish and Irish people speak English (even if they speak their own language as well), but all the countries have their own special accents and dialects, and their people are easily recognizable as soon as they speak.
There have been many waves of immigration into Britain. Now there are many people of all colours and races in the UK. These are mostly former inhabitants of the former British colonies. These people, called "the coloureds", came to the UK in search of better living standards.
The latest wave of immigrants from the West Indies, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Hong Kong has of course caused problems. There is certainly racial tension and racial prejudice in Britain today.
ENGLAND: HISTORY OF A NATION
English history is a vast and complicated story, made more so since 1707 by the question of where 'English' ends and 'British' begins. A history of England, no matter how long, has to be a matter of selection and focus. The first anonymous occupants of a nameless landscape to the regional government proposals of New Labour is a daunting. The descendants of those first settlers enormously increased in numbers, added to by the ceaseless immigration of a great variety of peoples still live in England. Continuity and change, opposing but also complementary forces, underlie the sequence of events. The pull of these two great forces is also seen in the growth of English society and the evolution of English government. Conservatism (with a small 'c') has always been a great latent power in English life. But so has been the urge to question, to do things differently. Change has often been made in the name of restoring the past, as in 1660, but that can never be quite achieved. Defenders of the old ways have often, like the Duke of Wellington, found themselves reluctant proposers of reform. Though often a source of division and destruction, this two-way pull has been, in the long term, fruitful for England and, because England has at various times been highly influential in world affairs, of concern and value to the rest of the world.
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For some historians, the island position of the English is a defining factor in forming their attitude to the rest of the world and to the continent of Europe in particular. Others have remarked that the English Channel was always a less formidable barrier than the Alps. What is really important is the sense of England's resources. The country is best seen as a little continent in itself. For many centuries it was self-sufficient in the essentials of life. It has wide fertile plains, rolling grassy uplands, a long coastline, and hills that hide long, remote valleys. There are lakes, fenlands and bare mountains. It has rivers broad and slows enough for navigation, and once had great forests. Its capital was a trading town before the Romans came, and grew to be the world's most populous city. And a population of correspondingly varied attitude and outlook occupied its 50,397 square miles (130,478 sq km). To the north and the west were other countries, smaller in population, different in outlook, wilder in landscape and poorer in resources. Scotland, Ireland, Wales defined themselves in conflict with England, but unlike them, that small continent, with its variety of human habitats and possibilities for human experience, could be an all-in-all for its people. Nothing, and nowhere else were needed. (And in the twentieth century, as in the nineteenth, the moments of 'standing alone' were those when the English felt most distinctly themselves.) Such variety within a small compass explains why the English as a nation can seem so elusive, a 'secret people' in G.K. Chesterton's words. There is no single English type, but rather a whole range of them, often with conflicting characteristics. It is as English to put on a red coat and hunt foxes as it is to hold up a placard and block the road in protest against blood sports. All this has made for an independent-minded, versatile and creative people, though not, perhaps, one that finds it easy to adjust to membership of a large supranational union. In this respect England is again different from its British neighbour-nations.
A SENSE OF IDENTITY
Out of every thousand inhabitants of Great Britain, 860 are English. England is by far the most populous constituent part of the United Kingdom. In the national census carried out in the summer of 2001, its population for the first time exceeded 49 million.
Around the year 2000, it became a common thing in England to wonder in print, or on television or the radio, or just in thinking aloud what kind of country was England, as it entered the third millennium of the Common Era. What kind of country did it want to be? How did it see itself? This internal debate was partly brought on by the British difficulty in establishing a coherent and positive role within the European Union, a difficulty exacerbated not only by the Atlantic pull of its relationship with the United States of America, but also by a historic sense of detachment from the European arena. Other factors were the establishment of a separate parliament in Scotland, and of an assembly in Wales, and a new attempt at a power-sharing executive in Northern Ireland. Scotland and Wales, ancient national communities, integral parts of Great Britain along with England, both acquired forums in which they could arrange their own internal affairs and express their own sense of identity. They became political entities once again. England, politically speaking, was a non-entity. It had no forum in which strictly English internal matters could be decided by elected English members only, or in which a specifically English sense of identity could be expressed. Of course it continued to house the body still sometimes referred to as 4he mother of parliaments' the parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland - but this, with Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish members, was not an exclusively English institution.
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In one sense, this did not matter. England contributed more than five-sixths of the population of the United Kingdom: inevitably the vast bulk of domestic legislation was made with England in view. More than five out of six MPs sat for English constituencies. No one could dispute the fact that England was a distinct country. Its legal system, its established church, its educational system, quite apart from the sense of identity of nearly fifty million people, all testified to that. Apart from a brief interval in the Second World War, regions had never played a part in the history of English economic or political life. In all their history, perhaps the greatest triumph of the English was to form and foster the concept of their own united Englishness, which combined in one nation an originally diverse and mutually hostile group of peoples from Cornwall to North Umbria. They created a single and remarkable nation.
SCOTLAND
Scotland is the most northern of the four countries constituting Great Britain. It occupies the territory of about 80 thousand square kilometres and is not so densely populated as England. The capital of Scotland is Edinburgh, situated in the eastern part of the Central Lowlands.
Certain differences between England and Scotland remain to this day, particularly in the legal and education systems.
Although Scotland takes up one third of the territory of the British Isles, its population is not very big. It is the most northern part of the island of Great Britain and is not very far away from the Arctic Circle. That's why it is not densely populated: its population is a little over 5 million people.
The Cheviot Hills mark the boundary between England and Scotland. Apart from this land link with England, Scotland is surrounded by sea. Scotland includes the Hebrides off the west coast, and the Orkey and Shetland Islands off the north coast. It is bounded by the North Sea in the east.
Scotland is divided into three regions: the Highlands, which is the most northern and the most underpopulated area with a harsh climate; the Lowlands, which is the most industrial region, with about three quarters of the population; and the Southern Uplands, with hills, which border on England.
The Highlands of Scotland are among the oldest mountains in the world. They reach their highest point in Ben Nevis (1,343 m). Many valleys between the hills are filled with lakes, called lochs. The best-known is Loch Ness, where, as some people think, a large monster lives. The most important city here is Aberdeen which is the oil centre of Scotland. Ships and helicopters travel from Aberdeen to the North Sea oil rigs. Work on an oil rig is difficult and dangerous.
Most of the population of Scotland is concentrated in the Lowlands. Here, on the Clyde, is Glasgow, Scotland's biggest city. Shipbuilding is one of its most important industries; other industries are iron and steel, heavy and light engineering, and coal mining. It's an industrial city and an important port in the UK. It's a grim city because of the greyness of its houses many of which are not suitable for living and need repairs and rebuilding. Glasgo is also the home of two well-known football clubs, Giasgo Rangers and Celtic.
Clans and Tartans
One of the things that people associate with Scotland is the kilt. The kilt is a relic of the time when the clan system existed in the Highlands. The Gaelic word "clan" means "family" or "descendants" and the great clans of the 16th and 17th centuries were indeed very similar to enormous families, ruled by powerful chiefs. Sometimes there were fierce battles between different clans but nowadays the McDonalds and McKenzies, the Campbells and the Lindsays all live in peace with each other. If is possible to find people with these surnames in many English-speaking countries, and they all feel they share the same background.
The wearing of tartans or coloured checks was common in the Highlands before the defeat by the English in 1745. Originally, the tartan was worn as a single piece of cloth, drawn in at the waist and thrown over the shoulder. The kilt did not become popular until the beginning of the 18th century. Each clan has its own tartan, and, since the first international gathering of the clans in 1972, many people have become interested in traditional forms of Scottish dress. Tartans are now part of international fashion.
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Many people in Scotland have the name McDonald or McKenzie. Mc means son of and people with this name usually feel they belong to the same family or clan. Campbell or Cameron is other common surnames. Common boys' names are Angus, Donald or Duncan, and girls' names are Morag, Fiona or Jean. The names Jimmy and Jock are so common that many English people call a man from Scotland "a Jimmy" or " Jock".
Gaelic
Most of Britain was inhabited by Celts until the 4th century. Their languages were not related to English. In the fourth century the Anglo-Saxons invaded Britain from Northern Germany and Denmark, and their language formed the basis of the English spoken today. The Anglo-Saxons drove the Celts into the mountainous west of Britain. Two Celtic languages survive there: Welsh and Gaelic.
Gaelic is used in the Republic of Ireland, where it is the first official language, and in Scotland. Scots Gaelic is spoken by 80,000 people the hills and islands of the west of Scotland, but it has no official status.
Nearly all Welsh and Gaelic speakers are bilingual, although most would think of English as their second language.
Many Scottish people still use Scottish words when they speak English. "Wee", meaning small, is often heard in such expressions as "wee laddie" small boy. A bonnie lass is a pretty girl and a bairn is a child.
Edinburgh
Edinburgh has been the capital since the 15th century, when its fortified castle was the centre of Scotlands resistance to its enemies. Edinburgh is an administrative, commercial and cultural centre of Scotland. It is associated with the names of Geogre Gordon Byron, Walter Scott, Robert Louis Stevenson, Robert Burns, and Arthur Conan Doyle. It is also associated with the world-famous Edinburgh Festival of Music and Drama. The Festival was first held in 1947 and has been held annually ever since. Its aim is bringing to Scotlands capital the finest performers and productions from all over the world. The Edinburgh International festival of 1987 was devoted to Russia, the Russian musicians, dancers and singers were a great success.
WALES
Welsh History
1301 After defeating the native princes of Wales, King Edward I of England named his son "Prince of Wales". Since then the eldest son of the king or queen of England has traditionally been given this title.
1536 Wales was brought into the English system of national and local government by the Act of Union.
1850 In the nineteenth century, the industrial revolution completely changed the face of South Wales. Workers came in large numbers from England and Ireland.
The Welsh call their country Cymru, and they call themselves Cymry. The population of Wales is almost three million people. About 75 per cent of the people of Wales live in towns and urban districts.
The vegetation of Wales reflects the mountainous nature of the country and its moist climate. Moisture-loving species such as ferns are found almost throughout all Wales. The whole area of Wales may be subdivided into three regions the Welsh Mountainous area, Industrial South Wales and the Welsh Borderland.
The living standards of people in Wales are lower than in England, the unemployment rate is higher. South Wales has many traditions of struggle for more jobs and better working conditions in mines.
Wales is a highland country of old, hard rock. North Wales is a country of mountains and deep valleys; South Wales is a land of high hills and wide valleys. The pride of Wales in scenery is Snowdonia, the region of high mountains. Snowdon (1,085 m) is the highest mountain in England and Wales.
Except for coal, mineral resources are limited and include gold, silver, and copper. South Wales is more developed; during the industrial revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries, the valleys of South Wales became the iron and steel capital of the world. Nowadays, coal-mining, steel Production, electronics, electrical engineering and chemicals be found here.
The capital of Wales is Cardiff, the largest city of Wales.
Cardiff: a Modern Capital
Cardiff has been the official capital of Wales since 1955. There has been a community here for hundreds of years, but it began to grow quickly and to become prosperous during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This was the period when the coal, iron and steel industries were developing in South Wales, and Cardiff became a major industrial town and an important port. However, when these industries began to decline, Cardiff suffered too. Today, the docks are much smaller, but the city is now expanding as a commercial and administrative centre. It is an attractive and interesting place to live in, with good communications; plenty of parks and a varied population which includes nearly 10,000 university and college students.
As a tourist, you might want to visit the castle and Llandaff cathedral, or the National Museum of Wales. If you like music, there is the famous national concert hall, St. David's Hall, or the New Theatre, which is the home of the Welsh National Opera Company.
Cardiff is situated near the mouth of the Taff River. It's an important industrial city and port, and administrative and educational centre.
The second largest city is Swansea where mainly steel production can be found. Since World War II there has been intensive development in the metal industries especially in the south and southeast.
Language
Welsh is one of Celtic languages, like Scottish and Irish Gaelic. It is estimated that Welsh is spoken by 16 to 20 per cent of the population, although in North and West Wales 50 per cent speak the language. The Welsh Language Act of 1967 said that all official documents should be in both languages, and most road signs are printed in English and Welsh.
Since the 1960s there has been a serious attempt to revive the language. At secondary schools almost 50 per cent of all pupils learn Welsh as a first or second language. Since 1982 there has been an independent fourth TV channel broadcasting mainly in Welsh.
Although not many Welsh words are well-known in England, the word "eisteddfod" is understood by almost everybody. The 800-year-old National Eisteddfod is certainly the most picturesque and most moving ceremony in Wales. Here the love of song and poetry of the Welsh is organized to make a spectacle unique in the world. Presided over by white-robed druids with their attendant blue-robed bards, the Eisteddfod calls upon the people of Wales each year to send forth its singers and poets to participate in this colourful tournament.
The National Eisteddfod, as a festival of Welsh culture, is held annually at some place in South Wales (even years) and North Wales (uneven years).
The Welsh National Game
Rugby Union is a national game of Wales, and during the 1970s the Welsh team was thought to be the best in the world. The rules of the game are rather complicated but mainly involve the carrying of an egg-shaped ball over your opponents' line and pressing it firmly on the ground to score a try. A team consists of fifteen players, eight of whom are usually much bigger and heavier than the rest. Although the game seems to be similar to American football, the players are not allowed to throw the ball forward.
When the Welsh side are playing at home at Cardiff Arms Park their supporters often try to encourage them to play better by singing the Welsh National anthem, Land of My Fathers. The sound of thousands of Welsh voices singing this famous song usually helps the Welsh side score another try to win the game. Naturally they are especially pleased when this is against the English.
What's in a Name?
The way in which British surnames have developed is very complicated. Before the Normans arrived, the use of surnames wasn't really known. Many English surnames were originally connected with a person's job Charles Baker, Margaret Thatcher; someone's size Jack Long, Mary Little; or a family relationship Robin Williamson (Robin, son of William), Peter Richardson.
The most common Welsh names were all originally Christian names in some form: Dylan Thomas, Roger Davies (a form of David), Geoffrey Jones (from John), David Williams, etc. Many other names come from the tradition of calling a child son of his father using the Welsh word ap (or ab). This "p" can be found at the beginning of many common Welsh names, eg Gary Pritchard, which is the same as English Richardson. Other examples are Prees, Price, Parry, and Pugh.
Welshmen living in England are often called by the nickname "Taffy". This may come from the River Taff, which runs through the capital Cardiff, or it may come from Dafydd, the Welsh form of David.
When the Romans came to Wales nearly two thousand years ago they found a strange religion called Druidism, whose priests were called Druids. Little is known about Druids, but there are many legends about them.
IRELAND
The writer of a country's history can usually count on being able to record the positive statements and actions of a people or at least of those who governed and spoke for that people over a lengthy period of time. In the case of Ireland, this is impossible, as from the twelfth to the twentieth century, Ireland did not function as an independent national state. Elsewhere, just across the narrow seas, monarchies and republics rose and fell, chancelleries exchanged emissaries and ultimatums, armies marched, countermarched and retreated across frontiers, fleets assembled and sailed. For the greater part of a millennium, Europe seethed, churned and changed, while Ireland remained a dominion of the King of England (though rarely a peaceful one). And yet it cannot be said that colonial Ireland played no part in the long and varied catalogue of events which stitch themselves together to form modern Europe (quite aside from its pre-colonial contribution during the Dark Ages). Events in Ireland more than once created disarray in British politics. For hundreds of years, the Irish question featured strongly in the international policies of Spanish and French governments. Irish soldiers played significant parts in battles in many countries, from the Thirty Years War to the American Civil War. On Irish soil, in 1690, much more was at stake than whether James or William should rule, or whether the country should be Protestant or Catholic.
But Irish history remains elusive. Historians of medieval and later Ireland, in which so much of the action was initiated by, or dictated by, the English and the English later the British government, have found it hard to avoid shaping their narrative into the forms established by English historians, English records and even English attitudes. The history of Ireland tends to become the history of England-in-Ireland, and to wrench it away is not easy. But an effort has been made, in writing this book, to bear always in mind that the enduring underlying element indeed what gives Ireland a history is the Irish people. Ireland did not, after all, become West Britain, despite the best efforts of its near neighbour. And, for all its massive impact on Irish life and history, England is only one of the influencing factors. Scotland and Ireland have experienced a complex relationship for much longer, each country having given the other highly significant sets of immigrants at different times, with profound and permanent consequences in both cases. Norwegians, Danes, Welsh, Normans and Flemings have also made important contributions to forming the modern people of Ireland. The very phrase 'people of Ireland' has different meanings at different times, with the descendants of successive incomers coming to assume an Irish identity, and thereby subtly altering the overall notion of 'Irishness'. But the largest element in the population stems from the people or peoples who came to call themselves the Gaels. Current research in genetics, carried out under the auspices of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, indicates that the major contribution to the Irish gene pool was made during the initial human colonization of the island. Inhabitants of the same island from an immemorial period, inheritors and passers-on of a distinct and valuable cultural tradition, often silenced for generations at a time by the noise of lately-come proprietors, the Irish people have succeeded in maintaining a clear identity for a very long time. One of the most fascinating aspects of Irish history is how that identity has developed and changed while remaining distinctive, and retaining and renewing its links with a far-distant past.
