AI has many more current signed up members nationwide than all the IFAS clubs put together so is quite entitled to claim what it does.
AI's membership accounting practices have always struck me as a bit odd. From what I can gather it's a bit like the Hotel California, you can sign on any time you want but you can never leave, at least not when AI want to brag about membership numbers!
Anyhow, I don't think it's right for either AI or the IAS to use the definitive article in their title. The reality is that there are two national societies and to start bickering over who is 'the' national society seems stupid. It also seems like a great way to sour relationships between the two organisations.
Also, I have a small bone to pick with BOTH 'national' societies. Why are all your major talks in Dublin? Why don't your monthly talks move around the country? Do you see the Institute of Physics keep all their talks in the capital? No! There are many major urban centers in this country and they are all capable of hosting astronomy talks. I know AI have started to do some tours which is great to see but there is still FAR too much focus on Dublin by our 'national' clubs. BTW, can anyone remember a single IAS event outside the pale? I can't!
The relationship between IFAS and AI is far more at peace than in former times so let's hope everyone involved in astronomy in Ireland just enjoys the hobby no matter what club or organisation they belongs to or whether they are observers, photographers, armchair astronomers, magazine readers...
Amen to that!
Bart.
the IAS was the first society in ireland and originally it was a national one. although it was a national society it was more like IFAS than one club in there was at various times national centers (dublin and armagh being the longest lasting) in towns around ireland that acted as really indepedant clubs within a national organisation. there would be a council meeting each year and each center would send representatives. dublin and armagh were the two areas that the IAS was the strongest and their centers have been there since the founding of the IAS, others have come and gone.
in the 70's when the troubles got bad up the north the council meetings were stopped because people were afraid to meet up basically. at this point the IAS split into to halves, the armagh center basically became the IAA and the dublin center retained the IAS name.
the IAS has retained the national society bit because we do have members outside dublin, although if i remember correctly when i was secretary about 12 years ago about 70% of our members were in dublin with the rest scattered about. the IAS has had meetings outside dublin but not for a number of years. in fact the COSMOS weekend run by TAS started out as a joint venture between TAS and IAS. the IAS handed over their part in the weekend a number of years ago after the committee decided it was not in the advantage of the IAS to keep it going. TAS have done a sterling job keeping it going.The IAS tends to stick to dublin because that is where most of the membership is. it is not a perfect situation but i suppose there has been no one willing to take on the challange of organising something outside of dublin and it has become a matter of habit to default to dublin. while it is easy to chide people for not organising things outside dublin for most people in the IAS are in dublin and it hard just to get people all together just for a committee meeting never mind to commit to organise something in another part of the country. it is an amateur organisation after all.
AI is to some extent an offshoot of the IAS. Mr. Moore was a member and former president of the IAS but left after a series of disagreements between the various members of the IAS at the time (circa 1990). he went off and set up AI to be a national society under his vision of how a society should work. IAS tend to be more low key in their advertising when compared to AI, but then each to his own.
the reason AI are not a member of IFAS is simple. in 1999 when members of the various clubs met to found IFAS as an informal support organisation for all the clubs in the country, there was much discussion as to whether to include AI in the mix. AI was left out because the organisation did not match what most people thought a club should be and also because people thought basically that AI would suddenly start promoting this as their idea (think AOL and the internet). that is why each club sends two members regardless of size. i hope i have not tread on to many toes in the above explanation.
while it is true it has been a good while since there has been an IAS event outside dublin (maybe too long) nobody is perfect we are limited by other things in our lives just like everyone else. The IAS has been a national society since 1937 and has done as much as anyone else to promote astronomy in this country. true we may not be as active in other parts of ireland as we were in the past but i don't see why we should drop national society just because it puts some peoples noses out of joint.
  