2008/11/28 Michael Everson everson@evertype.com:
I don't believe it would be preferable. to changee [[Republic of Ireland]] to [[Ireland (republic)]] or to [[Ireland (Republic)]] -- I think you'd get push-back on that. I could ask, but just at the moment that might be poking the hornet's nest.
Leaving aside the political overtones..
If you're going to do bracketed disambiguation then either (country) or (state) is preferable, since you're disambiguating versus the island - we always use the most general term possible, and (republic) is a bit precise. Using (republic) would suggest that the other cases were defined by being something other than a republic, which is a bit of a category error...