" 

 I just want to reply to 's comment ""This is the kind of mis-conception that I mean: ""...the United Kingdom which was created in 1801 and existed until the inception of the Irish Free State..."" Eh, no. The United Kingdom that was created in 1801 still exits."" I agree of course that the present-day United Kingdom is the successor state of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, but it is a dramatically different country, smaller and with a parliament no longer obsessed by Irish questions. From 1801 the term ""United Kingdom"" meant Britain and Ireland together. In 1922 it became clear to all that that kind of ""United Kingdom"", the one created in 1801, no longer existed, and indeed the term ""United Kingdom"" was quickly dropped from the Royal titles and from many other official uses. In the mid-1920s Encyclopædia Britannica even started to call what was left of the British state ""Great Britain"". In 1927, after a long period of uncertainty, the term ""Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland"" was adopted, and ""United Kingdom"" staged a comeback in official use, but it was obviously a term used to abbreviate a different name. The pre-1922 and post-1922 United Kingdoms must be distinguished from each other in many contexts.   "