Home Nations

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"Home nation" (common noun) redirects here; home nation is also used to refer to the host country of multi-sport events (eg. the Olympics), or other international sports championships.

Home Nations (often written as the common noun home nations) is a term used to refer to the four constituent countries of the United Kingdom — England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland — collectively but as separate entities, distinct from the United Kingdom as a state.^{[citation needed]}

The term is also used to refer to England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland (i.e. the whole island: both Northern Ireland and the Republic together). However, Rep. of Ireland is generally only included when referring to sporting events, mainly rugby league & rugby union but sometimes other sports like football. Media organisations in both the UK and Ireland sometimes use the term Home Nations when they are talking about the UK teams and the Republic of Ireland because though the Republic of Ireland is not part of the UK, it is often considered to have a very close relationship with Britain with the likes of Sky Sports giving as much attention to the Rep. of Ireland as the UK countries. Irish matches are also live on Sky Sports, as are matches involving Irish rugby union teams like Munster and Leinster. The BBC also give good coverage to the Republic on Match of the Day and Football Focus.

Occasionally the term Home Countries is used.^[1]

[edit] Sporting events

The term is often used when referring to sporting events in which each Home Nation competes separately, such as the now defunct British Home Championship in football. When the term came into use is not known, but it is fair to assume that before the partition of Ireland into the still-British Northern Ireland and the independent Irish Free State (now the Republic of Ireland) in 1922, all of Ireland was considered to be a Home Nation (as all of it was part of the UK). This traditional usage is still seen today in the context of sports such as rugby league and rugby union; both the Ireland national rugby league team and the Ireland national rugby union team represents both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. It is still common in Britain and elsewhere, for the team to be referred to as a Home Nation team. Examples of such usage can also be found in the media in the Republic of Ireland^[2] and on the official site of the Irish Rugby Football Union.^[3] The term "Home Union" is used to refer to the governing bodies of the four teams.

For example, within the Six Nations Championship in rugby union, the Home Nation teams play for the honour of winning the Triple Crown, send players to the British and Irish Lions and take part in hosting Grand Slam tours.

Other sports which use the term "Home Nations" include boxing, cricket,^[4] curling,^[5] cycling,^[1] disabled sports,^[5] fencing, hockey, golf, mountaineering, rowing, rugby league, skiing, swimming and tennis.

The term is also used to refer to the 7 teams from the British Islands at the Commonwealth Games.^[1]

The British Home Championship (also known as the Home International Championship) was an annual football competition contested between the UK's four national teams, England, Scotland, Wales and originally Ireland and, later, its successor Northern Ireland, from the 1883-1884 season until the 1983-1984 season.

Due to England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland not qualifying for Euro 2008 there have been calls for the competition to be reintroduced as a one-off for mid 2008, with the possible inclusion of the Republic of Ireland who have also failed to qualify. There is a Save Our Summer (SOS) petition run by Talksport to have the Home Championship in 2008. In 2009 there may be a tournament between Northern Ireland, Rep. of Ireland, Scotland and Wales. It will be called the Celtic Cup. England have also been invited but so far have not shown much interest. Each team will play each other once with alternating home and away fixtures along the same lines as the six nations.