Counties and Countries in Britain and Ireland

by Mike Spathaky

All rights reserved. This article is copyright © Mike Spathaky 1995, 1996, 1999. No part of this publication may be reproduced, in any form or by any means, including electronic reproduction or reproduction via the Internet, without written permission from the author, .

Many foreigners, and not a few British and Irish people, seem to get confused by the names of the countries and counties which make up these offshore islands. Americans in particular seem to have great difficulty. A county in the USA is a subdivision of a State and is quite small whereas over here it is the main subdivision of a whole country. In the USA, county names are indistinguishable from say township names, so usually seem to have the word County appended. So you have Cumberland County, PA and Cumberland Twp (Township), Greene Co., PA, a couple of hundred miles apart. In England almost all county names are unique, although it's different in Ireland. More on that later...

Whereas the important divisions within the USA seem to be the STATE, the COUNTY and the TOWNSHIP, in Britain and Ireland the important divisions, at least for genealogists, are the COUNTRY, the COUNTY and the PARISH.

COUNTRIES

The island grouping situated off the north-west coast of continental Europe is referred to by many geographers as the British Isles. This phrase is repugnant to many Irish people who prefer the term "Britain and Ireland." They comprise two separate nations, Ireland and the Untied Kingdom.

If you ask residents of these islands which country they live in, their reply will normally refer to England, Wales, Scotland or Ireland. The Isle of Man is also a separate country (a self-governing Crown dependency). The Channel Islands - Guernsey, Jersey, Alderney and Sark - are also separate Crown dependencies and each has its own legislative assembly.

All other islands of the British Isles (some quite large) are part of one of these countries. So the Isle of Wight and the Isles of Scilly are part of England. Anglesey is part of Wales. The Hebrides, Shetland and Orkney Isles and even far-flung Rockall are part of Scotland (although United Kingdom sovereignty over Rockall is disputed by some other nations).

Great Britain is the name given to the collective grouping of England, Wales and Scotland. The United Kingdom consists of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Ireland was wholly part of the United Kingdom until 1922. Now only the six counties comprising Northern Ireland are. The remaining 26 counties comprise the independent republic of Ireland. The Isle of Man and the Channel Isles are not part of the United Kingdom.

COUNTIES

There were major reorganisations of the counties of Northern Ireland in 1972, England in 1974 and Wales and Scotland in 1975. The earlier counties had by-and-large existed since the middle ages (later in Ireland) and are of most interest to genealogists, although boundary changes were not unknown in the 19th century. Further piecemeal, but widespread, changes occurred in England, Wales and Scotland in the late 1990s. The historic counties continue to exist in law as "ceremonial" or "ancient" counties although their functions are minimal. Modern administrative areas are not described in this article.

ENGLISH COUNTY NAMES

Most English counties are self-evidently county names, without the possibility of confusion with towns or cities with the same name - self-evident that is to those with a reasonable knowledge of English geography! This has been achieved in many cases by the addition of the suffix "-shire" to a name that might otherwise be confused with a city. So for example I live just outside the city of Leicester but within the county called Leicestershire. There is no need to adopt American usage by adding the word "county" after a county name as in, say, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. Cumberland, England, is recognised as a county (or rather was until 1974) because there is no town of Cumberland in England.

Modern usage has even dropped the -shire suffix from county names where it is not needed. Thus we no longer refer to Devonshire; Devon alone is sufficient, as is Cornwall or Kent or Norfolk. There are no towns with these names. However old usages die hard and the phrases Devonshire teas, Devonshire clotted cream, survive. The Cavendish family of Derbyshire, when created earls and then dukes, chose Devonshire as their title, presumably because there was already an Earl of Derby. The Duke of Devonshire is still a Cavendish and he still lives at Chatsworth, Derbyshire, off the rents paid them by my ancestors (and others).

An exception to the above is Durham. There is a city of Durham and a county of the same name, so the county is referred to as County Durham. Note that the word County comes before the name, not after as in US usage. Don't ask me why it is not Durhamshire. It is not.

Pre-1974 county names, or at least the longer ones, have generally recognised abbreviations, which I believe were first standardised by the General Post Office. So Leicestershire is Leics., Hampshire is Hants., Yorkshire is Yorks. These abbreviations are falling into disuse as postcodes become more used and because of the 1974 re-organisation. However genealogists may come across the abbreviations. The Chapman three-letter codes for English counties are hardly used or understood outside genealogy and should not be used for addressing mail.

WELSH COUNTIES

The pre-1974 counties of Wales all had the suffix "-shire" in their English language names except Anglesey. However only some contained a county town of the same name, and in those cases the suffix was often dropped. All the Welsh counties also had Welsh language versions of their names, usually starting with the separate word "sir", Welsh for "shire." For example Merionethshire (often just Merioneth) was called "Sir Meirionydd" in Welsh. Five of the eight post-1974 Welsh counties have Welsh names (without -shire or Sir). The other three are Mid, South and West Glamorgan. [Wales was again re- organised in the 1990s when some 1974 counties disappeared and pre-1974 ones reappeared as districts.]

SCOTTISH COUNTIES

Most of the 33 Scottish counties end in -shire, whether it is necessary to distinguish the county from a town or not. There are about ten exceptions.

Some counties end in -s or -ss before the -shire is added so we have Dumfriesshire and Peeblesshire (no hyphen if it ends in a single s) but Kinross-shire, Inverness-shire (hyphenated to avoid a triple s). Note the spellings of the town of Dumbarton and the county of Dunbartonshire. Scotland is now (since 1975) divided into REGIONS which are much larger than the old counties. Many of the old county names remain as Districts or parts of Districts.

The county of Angus was earlier called Forfarshire, West Lothian was Linlithgowshire, Midlothian was Edinburghshire, East Lothian was Haddingtonshire and Moray was Elginshire.

IRISH COUNTIES AND PROVINCES

The shiring of Ireland was a British imposition of the seventeenth century. County names invariably have the word county added before them, as in County Armagh, County Clare, County Dublin and County Kerry, whether or not there exists a town or city of the same name. Some counties had their names changed on independence: Kings County became County Offaly and Queens County became County Leix (formerly spelled Laoighis). Donegal became Tirconaill but has since reverted to Donegal.

The older division of Ireland was into four provinces, Ulster, Munster, Leinster and Connaught and this is still in popular usage (including for example for sporting purposes - there are inter-provincial competitions in Rugby Football and Gaelic football). It is incorrect to equate Ulster, which has nine counties with modern Northern Ireland which has six.

REFERENCE

The Church of Latter Day Saints is incorrect to remove the suffix -shire from those counties which include it. They also drop the word "County" in places where it should appear before the county name to avoid confusion with a town of city of the same name.

The Wikipaedia article on the Chapman Code contains a full list of Irish, pre-1974 English, and pre-1975 Scottish and Welsh county names

Mike Spathaky
30th September 1995
Minor corrections:
3rd January 1996
18th May 1997
16th March 1999
9th July 2012

Return to top of page