English

Proper noun

Islands of the North Atlantic

1. (rare) Great Britain, Ireland and surrounding smaller islands; the British and Irish Isles.
   • 1982, World Faiths Insight

     All of us in the islands of the North Atlantic should recognise new alignments are necessary and "we should be prepared to sacrifice for the new shared future".

   • 2002, David J. Baker, Willy Maley, British Identities and English Renaissance Literature, Cambridge University Press (ISBN 9780521782005), page 153

     As the Islands of the North Atlantic were mapped and remapped in the early modern period, as maps were decorated and redecorated, the bodies of Britain's and Ireland's heterogeneous inhabitants were fashioned and refashioned...

   • 2006, Roger Broad, Conscription in Britain, 1939-1964: The Militarisation of a Generation, Taylor & Francis (ISBN 9780714657011), page 215

     The continuing presence of Irish volunteers in the British armed forces — and, for over 20 years, as conscripts - serves to underline how relations within 'IONA' - the 'Islands of the North Atlantic' - remain more complex than constitutional niceties appear to dictate.

2. Used other than as an idiom: see islands,‎ North Atlantic.

Synonyms

• Anglo-Celtic Isles
• British Isles
• British and Irish Isles
• these islands