Yearbooks, Neville, Quidditch, Ireland, James

[Rita Winston]

No: HPFGUIDX 680

--- In HPforGrownups at egroups.com, "Simon Branford" wrote:

> The one that I have just got from college was done more for contact 
> details. We then included a little bit about ourselves and a 
> 'friend' got to write a small bit about us.

I have been told that in American colleges, those are called 'pig 
books' and that fraternities keep a collection of pig books from all 
local colleges and frat brothers who date a girl write comments about 
her on her photo in her class's pig book, such as hints on what 
works to seduce her.
> 
> Catlady wrote: 
> > "But if Hogwarts is the only wizarding school for all the British
> > Isles (more or less equivalent to the political entities UK and 
> > Ireland), all the members of the winning Irish National Team must 
> > have gone to Hogwarts."
> The British Isles is not UK and Ireland. The British Isles is 
> England, Scotland, Wales and some islands. The UK is the British
> Isles and Northern Island, and possibly some more small islands.
> Maybe JKR meant that Hogwarts is the school for the UK and there is
> a separate one for Ireland.

JKR said in an interview that Hogwarts is the only wizarding school 
for students from the UK and Ireland. I assume that she was referring 
to the political entities United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland, 
which I believe combine to cover the physical geography called the 
islands of Britain and Ireland, plus some associated small isles. If 
the two big and numerous small islands are not collectively referred 
to as the British Isles (as in George Orwell's example of a book 
whose title in French was Les oiseaux europeenes and in English it 
was Birds of Europe and the British Isles), please educate me as to 
what they can be called collectively.

I find it very difficult to believe that the wizard folk allow their 
political or national arrangements to be changed by mere Muggles 
changing the position of Muggle political borders, so I hate to refer 
to wizard locations as UK or Republic of Ireland. I would rather 
specify which island!

I had previously believed that Hogwarts was the wizarding school for 
the whole island of Britain (and associated smaller isles), which 
would itself cover the three National Teams of England, Scotland, and 
Wales (and be pretty much the same as the UK minus Northern Ireland). 
So I was disappointed that she specified Ireland. I would have 
preferred there to be another wizarding school for the whole island 
of Ireland, 32 counties, which could if they wished have separate 
National Teams for the ancient Five Quarters of Ireland.