McGrath of Harlow,

Have you spent any time in Northern Ireland? I ask this because it has been my experience that some people from the Protestant/unionist/loyalist communities will identify themselves as Irish (and indeed much prefer that to "Anglo Irish"). But in my experience, most people from those communities do continue to identify themselves as British. Often not in an antagonistic way--it is just the way they identify themselves. As long as Northern Ireland is part of the UK, they are still accurate to self-identify themselves in that way, in the same way a Scottish nationalist can still identify themselves as British, and sometimes (often?) do, especially to Americans, or when participating in these international forums where they wish to identify themselves according to their citizen status of one country or another.

It is a bit like marching through a mine field for those outside these islands, trying to figure out just how you might refer to someone's nationality without starting a bloody flamewar!