Talk:Argyll

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Argyll in Highland

Looks to me like a portion of the county area is now in Highland and has been since Highland was created as a local government region in 1975. Wondering what name might be used to refer to the Highland Council area of the county. Laurel Bush 12:57, 2 February 2006 (UTC).[reply]

Well, it has several names - of the various districts/parishes:

North Lorn: South Ballachulish, Glencoe etc. (this usage is confusing though, because "North Lorn" can also refer to the larger area to the south, also called Appin, in Argyll and Bute)
Ardgour
Morvern
Sunart
Ardnamurchan

Ardgour, Morvern and Sunart (and also Moidart, which was in the former Inverness-shire) all tend to just get lumped-in with Ardnamurchan nowadays, although that loose usage tends to sit uncomfortably with people who know the areas well. --Mais oui! 00:43, 3 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Cheers. Laurel Bush 11:43, 3 April 2006 (UTC).[reply]

No problemo. I am very familiar indeed with this corner of the country. All these districts are now of course in the Lochaber committee area, and prior to that Lochaber District, so the "greater" Ardnamurchan bit tends to get called "South-west Lochaber" a bit (the more commonly used "West Lochaber" denotes this area plus Glenfinnan, Lochailort, Arisaig, Morar, Mallaig, Knoydart and the Small Isles). I have never heard North Lorn getting called "South-east Lochaber" though. --Mais oui! 11:59, 3 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was don't move. —Nightst a llion (?) ^{Seen this already?} 06:51, 7 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move: voting

Votes only please !

Oppose - I do not want to see Argyll become a redirect page to Argyllshire at this time as I do not have the time to write an Argyll page. Angus McLellan (Talk) 21:21, 2 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - Is this suggestion a joke or something? - Calgacus (talk 21:56, 2 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - This is a simply not how we refer to things. These are not English shires, they are historic Scottish counties. This is akin to renaming Ulster Ulstershire,simply because Ulster's currently in the U.K. Canaen 23:54, 2 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per Calgacus. The proposal is too ridiculous for words. --Mais oui! 00:36, 3 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose How often do you need to be told ? This is a silly proposal. -- Derek Ross | Talk 03:10, 3 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - An Siarach
Oppose - Laurel Bush 11:54, 3 April 2006 (UTC).[reply]
Oppose - Fraslet 18:14, 3 April 2006 (UTC).[reply]

Request move: discussion

I actually did some research (User:Mais oui! made me do it, blame him) and the "correct" usage is likely "the county of X", where X is either Fife, Cromarty, Argyll, Ross, Sutherland, Caithness, Bute, &c, or the the county town(s). That's what is used in Hansard as of 1830-1832.

"Ilminster, in the County of Somerset"
"the Town and Parish of Sheffield, in the County of York"
"the Town of Linlithgow, in the County of Linlithgow"
"the Parish of Fintray, County of Aberdeen"
"the Burgh of Rothesay, in the County of Bute"
"Gordonstown, and others, in the County of Elgin and Forres"
"Dingwall be declared a Part of the County of Ross"
"the Presbytery of Lorn, in the County of Argyll"

Beats Google hits. Angus McLellan (Talk) 22:31, 2 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

So are you suggesting that we rename Yorkshire as The County of York? Does it occur to you that, whilst such technically pedantic names can easily be mentioned in articles, people do to, as a general rule, use them commonly, and a fundamental tenet of wikipedia's naming policy is concerned with putting the main article in the namespace reader are most likely to be able to find? Stringops 01:52, 3 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- So are you suggesting that we rename Argyll as Argyllshire? Does it occur to you that, whilst such odd names can easily be mentioned in articles, people do not, as a general rule, use them commonly, and a fundamental tenet of Wikipedia's naming policy is concerned with putting the main article in the namespace readers are most likely to be able to find ? -- Derek Ross | Talk 03:14, 3 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  - Most references to 'Argyll' are not references to the county, but to the general area. Whether people more often talk of the general area than specifically of the county is neither here nor there - the point is that this article is about the county, not the general area, and it should use the commonest, less-ambiguous term as its title. That term is Argyllshire. Stringops 17:18, 3 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I am not seeing any explicit, clear reason for the proposal. And I dont know why the name of the constituency - as distinct from the county - seems to have been changed, from Argyllshire to Argyll, in 1950. Presumably to reflect common usage of that time, influenced perhaps by terms of reference under 1898 local government legislation. Laurel Bush 11:54, 3 April 2006 (UTC).[reply]
- The reason for this proposal is that Argyllshire was unilaterally moved to Argyll in the first place. Given that the local papers of the area are called the Argyllshire Advertiser and the Argyllshire Standard I have yet to see any evidence that Argyll is used specifically to refer to the area covered by the county. Argyll is used, most often, as a general term refering to a vague area, not a specific term refering to a specific set of boundaries that were used administratively until 1975. As this article is about those boundaries, I fail to see why both common usage and precision should be overturned in order to keep it here. Stringops 17:18, 3 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The Royal Mail have to take some of the blame for this confusion with their postal counties. The former postal county of Oban, for example is "Argyll", but thankfully the Royal Mail now have traditional counties on file. Try entering "PA34 4AA" into http://www.capscan.co.uk/mcd5demo.htm and you will clearly see that the traditional county is "Argyllshire". Owain (talk) 17:38, 3 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- Just because the Royal Mail can be duped by County Watch (see Association_of_British_Counties#Successes) does not mean that Wikipedia can. --Mais oui! 18:09, 3 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I was referred to here by a post on WP:AN. Looking at the clear opposition to this move, and the lack of a clear statement of why it should be moved, or clear examples of other editors supporting such a move, I'm rm'ing the {{move}} tag, and leaving this page where it is. JesseW, the juggling janitor 02:41, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Let me just add that I'm starting to consider the edit wars surrounding traditional and modern counties and the "-shire" and "County of " factions to be some of the WP:LAMEst on the whole of Wikipedia. —Nightst a llion (?) ^{Seen this already?} 06:51, 7 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Kintyre was not part of Argyll

The term Argyll seems to be problematic. The Irish annals in the time of Somerled treat Kintyre and Argyll as separate entities. This again reflected in the King William's thirteenth century Law of Claremathan. Even 17th century maps mark only the lands of Cowal as being Argyll. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:A601:A715:9A00:E9AC:4430:2F47:1B90 (talk) 23:38, 22 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This is certainly true. Early charters of Dunfermline Abbey given by David I, Malcolm IV and William the Lyon refer to Argyll and Kintyre. They would not be mentioned separately if they were one. However this is not problematic because the meaning of Argyll suggested on this page is rubbish. Freuchie (talk) 09:38, 3 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The page discusses both the provincial lordship (earldom / dukedom) of Argyll and the much larger shire or county of the same name (the latter being the main focus of the page). Cowal, Kintyre, Knapdale and Lorn were not part of the lordship, but were (eventually) all part of the shire. This was explained in the history section, but I have now reworded the lead to try and clarify the distinction at the top of the article. Stortford (talk) 06:42, 13 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Name

The text says "The name derives from Old Irish airer Goídel, meaning "border region of the Gaels". However old the source this is nonsense. Originally Argyll did not even include Lorn. It was the area given over to the Airgialla whom Kenneth mac Alpin invited over to fill the gap when the leadership of the Cenel Loarn was needed to take control of Moray and Strathearn/Menteith. The early spelling was quite different.

What has happened is that there has been a conflation with 'Argyle'. Argyles were like bantustans attached to the new towns whose residents were exclusively foreign. So townships of Scots locals set up just outside the town walls - as can be seen from many "Argyle Steet"s. [Glasgow was an exception to this where Argyle Street is actually a late homage to a Duke of Argyll.] Freuchie (talk) 09:47, 3 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I have now noted this theory for the origin of the name in the text, but just as an alternative; there are many reliable sources which cite the 'border region of the Gaels' theory. The alternative origin you advance remains something of an outlier, albeit I see it has been included in a 2024 book which I have cited as the source. (Although given your choice of words above, would I be right in thinking you're the author of that work?) On your particular point about an Argyle being a type of suburb, whether you spell it Argyle or Argyll (consistency of spelling not being a feature of early records), the sense of "Gaelic fringe / borders" sounds valid both for suburbs outside Scoto-Norman towns and for the edges of the kingdom (Alba / Scotland) with a stronger Gaelic population. Stortford (talk) 08:24, 13 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]