2008/11/26 David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com:
2008/11/26 Michael Everson everson@evertype.com:
The name "Ireland" is ambiguous. People looking for it might be looking for the state. Most probably are. Or people looking for it might be looking for the island. Since the Ireland should point to the disambiguation page, the correct thing to do is to move that content to Ireland (island) as proposed here.
At least if [[Ireland]] were about the island, the lead paragraph could state that the island contains both Eire and Northern Ireland, of the UK. Although [[Ireland]] as a disambiguation page would be preferable, in my opinion.
Keep in mind that an encyclopedia is not entirely present-focussed. Ireland also is a historical entity where the whole island was a single state. Many biography articles stating that a person was born in Ireland refer to the island-state.