Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/3rd century in Ireland

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. I have to agree that as currently conceived this article fails WP:V. It pertains to a series of persons or events for which we have little or no reliable sources. Is it possible to turn this into a useful article as DGG suggests? Possibly, but not under this title. We are not losing any real content by deleting this. Anything here that is verifiable can be discussed in Early history of Ireland as noted below and expanded into a new article if that ever became necessary. Before we have the article Legendary History of Ireland in 3rd century (a plausible title change) we would first need Legendary History of Ireland. I'm sure we could construct a good article along those lines, but this article is hardly a good jumping off point. I don't see this article going anywhere or becoming verifiable any time soon which suggests it would be stuck in its current unencyclopedic state for some time which is not acceptable. Thus the delete arguments (which also outnumber the keep ones) carry the day here in my view. If any of this content would be useful in constructing a different article relating to the legendary history of Ireland I'd be happy to userfy it.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 04:56, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

3rd century in Ireland[edit]

This article contains no credible content, nor is there any content which it could contain which would be verifiable on the basis of writings by modern historians.
The most recent source on Irish chronology is Volume VIII of the Royal Irish Academy's New History of Ireland. This contains none of these items, and indeed no items for the third century in Ireland. The only referenced entries are for events concerning the "life" of Cormac mac Airt, of whom Fergus Kelly in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, fairly representing the views of modern historians, writes:

Cormac mac Airt ... features prominently in early Irish tradition. According to the annals of the four masters, he became king of Tara in the year 227 and reigned until 266. However, Irish annalistic records at such an early period are not to be taken as historically authentic, and it is likely that Cormac was a purely legendary figure.
Here, not freely accessible.

The remaining material is unreferenced, copied from the Annals of the Four Masters.
WP:NOT tells us: "When you wonder what should or should not be in an article, ask yourself what a reader would expect to find under the same heading in an encyclopedia." The answer, based on the RIA history, the largest collective work on Irish history in many years, and perhaps of all time, is that you would not expect to find any article under this heading. This cannot be fixed by merging, or allowing time for sourcing, or otherwise rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, but only by deletion. Angus McLellan (Talk) 19:47, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Ireland-related deletion discussions.
Note: This debate has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. —Angus McLellan (Talk) 20:16, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
~~Weak~~ keep - This article is considerably better than the articles on particular years, but a mere list of dates can only be regarded as a stub. It needs an introduction, explaining that the material comes fro the Annals of the Four Masters, but is regarded by historians as legendary rather than reliable history. WP has works on fictional books, so I do not see why it should not have articles on legendary events, provided they can be included without any copy-vio. They are recorded in the annals, which is an authentic source, and meets WP:V. The problem is how far the annasl are to be trusted, but this can adequately be dealt with in comment, such as what Angus McLellan has quoted above. Peterkingiron (talk) 22:34, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Don't include copies of primary sources seems to suggest that Wikipedia is not the place for the Annals of the Four Masters, either summarised or complete, and with or without commentary. We don't write about fiction as if it were real and we don't write about legend as if it were real either. As for WP:V, that says: "[a]rticles should rely on reliable, third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy ..." (not the Annals of the Four Masters then) and "[a]cademic and peer-reviewed publications are highly valued and usually the most reliable sources in areas where they are available, such as history ..." (ditto). That really leaves nothing to say about the 3rd century in Ireland in an article like this. Angus McLellan (Talk) 23:07, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete as using non-reliable primary sources, and all facts being in-universe or legendary stuff, which ought to be on an article about irish mithology, article about the annals book, or article about the particular legends. A "century in ireland" article is more for listing historical stuff that actually happened, with maybe a few very very notable myths. No need to merge or to preserve history, since it seems all info was copied from other articles. --Enric Naval (talk) 23:51, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete: Fails verifiability. Also mythological events are described as historical facts. Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 03:27, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep and clarify the nature of the evidence, and which things are legendary or semi-legendary. Legend is important, not just history, and in the case of this material a chronological presentation of the supposed dates is possible and appropriate. Of course we summarize primary sources when appropriate, but we should add secondary commentary also--there's quite a lot on earlier Irish "history", from various standpoints. Eliminating this is like asking us not to include a summary of the Magna carta. The opposition to this article is a carryover from the more reasonable opposition to the individual year articles. An all-or-none attitude to things like this didn't serve us well in dealing with modern fiction, and isn't appropriate here either. Every one of these can be sourced from both primary and secondary sources, though there are better people than me here to do it. DGG (talk) 04:03, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Support this view - note I have already voted above. Possibly the title should be Legendary History of Ireland in 3rd century. I fear that some of those voting to delete may not understand the nature of the sources. The recording of the events is fully verifiable. What we do not know is whether the events did (or did not actually) happen. Terms such as "in universe" derived from Sci-Fi or video-gaming should have no place here. The tone of the article (implying that the events are definitely historical) is inappropriate, but that is not a case for deletion: it needs the inappropriate tone changing, or tagging for that to be done. Peterkingiron (talk) 22:20, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete an article that is only ever going to be a detailed summary of a single book of legends is never going to be an article on the 3rd century in Ireland. The article could exist as a sub-article of Annals of the Four Masters but personally, in the absence of any evidence of coverage by reliable secondary sources I think that such an article would be more suitable for WikiSource as Wikipedia articles shouldn't be plot summaries. Guest9999 (talk) 09:46, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete and Early history of Ireland is sufficient. –thedemonhog talk • edits 21:47, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.