Wolfgang, thanks for the clarification. Suddenly it all makes sense. The person who originated the thread misread the sentence or misunderstood the context, or is complaining that the Americans picked up on it and used the term incorrectly.

If they were talking about a person who is a citizen of Northern Ireland who has dual citizenship, then "British-Irish" is perfectly acceptable.

But it does beg the question as to why the Guardian and BBC are still making these sorts of distinctions about Northern Irish citizens. It would have been just as correct to simply refer to the woman as a Northern Irish citizen, the same as they would refer to a Scottish or English citizen.

I do wish the Brits would get over this tiresome exercise of a "national" identity crisis. They are much too obsessed with it.