Personally, I consider it one of many examples of Rowling's poor World-Building skills. While people like Tolkien and Martin can make entire worlds (Middle Earth and Westeros respectively) with their own complexities we really get to know, Rowling either leaves us in the dark about how this stuff works, or adds things in without really considering the ramifications. And in this case, we are really left in the dark on how the Magical countries work in relation to their Muggle counterparts.

Having said that, I think Magical Ireland would still be a part of Magical Britain. The British ruled over Ireland before the Statute came around, religious divisions don't seem to exist among wizards (judging by how no one batted an eye at Anthony Goldstein or the Patils), and I doubt enough Irish wizards live in Ireland to really justify giving them their own country, even if they suddenly had the same nationalism Irish muggles had.

At least, that's my Head Canon of an area I know relatively little about. While I did create a surprisingly elaborate history of Magical America, that's only because I know a lot about American history and can make educated guesses on how the it could work. I don't really know all that much about Ireland.

 

Ireland has its own international Quidditch team. I think that probably means it is independent.

 

Scotland and Wales have their own football teams but are a part of the UK.

 

Adding to that point, the Quidditch Throughout the Ages also states that the Harpies are part of the "British and Irish Quidditch League". I don't know why Ireland would require to be distinguished from Britain, unless the two are separate international entities. Moreover, the Irish team in GoF is described as the "Irish National Team" in the International Quidditch World Cup. The evidence seems to suggest that Magical Ireland is indeed autonomous and separate from Great Britain.

Whether Magical Ireland corresponds directly to Muggle Ireland, whereby Northern Ireland is under the London Ministry's sphere of control, is something that we don't know. But it's clear that JKR imagined Magical Ireland to possess a degree of verisimilitude.

 

Actually - according to Arthurian legend - Merlin conquered Ireland, bringing Stonehenge from there to Salisbury. One could easily argue that Magical Ireland - at least for a period of time - WAS part of Magical Britain. In Harry's time, though, it seems they are independent (given that the existence of an Irish National Team).

 

Does Ireland not have a national soccer team IRL? Seems to me that they do, so I don't see any reason why they wouldn't have a team for the world cup (soccer or quidditch).

 

Oh god, it hurts. As someone who grew up as a football fanatic and long time Celtic FC supporter it falls to me to tell you how much this lack of knowledge hurts me.

...Yes, Ireland does indeed have its own football team. Quite a good one I might add.

Anyway. In HBP when does Harry successfully learn to Apparate?

 

Err, no. Or what do you consider to be "quite good"?

 

For one thing, he did take the basic classes. Apparently, he did it on his own at least once.

Outside the Great Hall, the only real times we see Harry Apparate are when he brought Dumbledore from the Cave to Hogsmede (when he certainly had the Determination, and I always imagined Dumbledore was somehow helping him with it), or with Ron and Hermione (when I always pictured Hermione was the one who did all the actual Apparation).

 

Why do you need to imagine that Dumbledore is helping him and Hermione does it? It's not like it's that hard of a skill, Fred and George use it liberally in OOTP like every 2 seconds. Anyway, it's not a hard skill either way so why would Harry need all this help?

 

Considering that at the time of the establishment of Hogwarts Britain looked like this
http://www.historyfiles.co.uk/FeaturesBritain/EnglandMapAD900.htm
I think its a little silly to make claims about a magical governments reach when most of the future states had yet to form. The Ministry is described as being a ministry, I think its best to assume it follows real wold governments despite how little sense that makes.

 

Er, yeah I derped on the date of the Statue of Secrecy, thought it was late 1500s not 1600s. I wasn't counting the Normans since they only ever controlled half of the Island at most, and I'm using the word controlled loosely.

 

So my point being that even though Ireland is considered part of the UK in real life, but still has their own soccer team, which would logically be correlated to Ireland having their own quidditch team in the HP world, is stupid?

Not sure if serious, seems like a fairly straight forward deduction. If Ireland has a national team in real life for their sport (football/soccer) but are still under the authority of the UK, then why would there being a national quidditch team for Ireland be evidence that it is not under the authority of the MoM?

 

Because Ireland (excluding Northern Ireland) left the UK in 1922.

Edit: Does anyone have one of those massive ASCII facepalms I could put here? Because that post really merits one.

 

To be entirely fair to Wildfeather, instead of insulting his intelligence, you could have simply stated the mentioned historical facts. It's obvious, and not altogether unusual that he did not know them ahead of time. Thus his given question.

 

I did simply state the historical fact. And I didn't insult his intelligence.

Ignorance is not the same as lack of intelligence.

 

Excuse me for not knowing all the nuances of the UK's political history. That being said, even before 1920 when Ireland (excluding north Ireland) split off from the UK, they still had a soccer team that identified itself as the "Irish National Football Team", organized by the IFA which established itself in 1880. So kindly get off your high horse, since Ireland had a national team whilst still directly under the authority of the United Kingdom as a combined entity. Your historical fact is completely irrelevant to the discussion (whether a nation under the influence of government that also has authority over other nations would have a national team).

 

Yes, I agree that you have a point. Unfortunately I was distracted by my massive astonishment at you being unaware that Ireland is an independent nation. I'm sorry, but I really don't consider that a 'nuance of UK political history'.

Edit: You know what, it doesn't matter. I was and am shocked that you didn't know, but ragging on you for not knowing doesn't do anyone any good, so I apologise if I was out of line, and I hope we can leave it there.

 

I see where you got confused. North Ireland is still part of the UK according to wiki, which was where that portion of that comment comes from: I figured Ireland as a whole had a single team, and basically pulled it's players from the people of Ireland regardless of the north/south distinction.