Islands of the North Atlantic

English

Etymology

Suggested in 1980 by MP John Biggs-Davison as the name for what ultimately became the British-Irish Council, subsequently adopted as a replacement for the contested term British Isles. A contrived acronym suggesting Iona, an island with cultural ties to both Britain and Ireland.

Proper noun

Islands of the North Atlantic pl

1. (rare) Great Britain, Ireland and surrounding smaller islands; the British and Irish Isles.
   • 1982, World Faiths Insight:

     All of us in the islands of the North Atlantic should recognise new alignments are necessary and "we should be prepared to sacrifice for the new shared future".

   • 2002, David J. Baker, Willy Maley, British Identities and English Renaissance Literature, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 153:

     As the Islands of the North Atlantic were mapped and remapped in the early modern period, as maps were decorated and redecorated, the bodies of Britain's and Ireland's heterogeneous inhabitants were fashioned and refashioned...

   • 2006, Roger Broad, Conscription in Britain, 1939-1964: The Militarisation of a Generation, Taylor & Francis, →ISBN, page 215:

     The continuing presence of Irish volunteers in the British armed forces — and, for over 20 years, as conscripts - serves to underline how relations within 'IONA' - the 'Islands of the North Atlantic' - remain more complex than constitutional niceties appear to dictate.

2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see islands,‎ North Atlantic.

Synonyms

• Anglo-Celtic Isles
• British Isles
• British and Irish Isles
• these islands