thumb|[[Edmond Halley's solar eclipse 1715 map showing St. George's Channel]]
St George's Channel (, ) is a sea channel connecting the Irish Sea to the north and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It separates Wexford on the southeastern corner of Ireland from St Davids on the southwestern tip of Wales.
Origin of name
The name "St George's Channel" is recorded in 1578 in Martin Frobisher's record of his second voyage. It is said to derive from a legend that Saint George had voyaged to Roman Britain from the Byzantine Empire, approaching Britain via the channel that bears his name. The name was popularised by English settlers in Ireland after the Plantations. Some geographers restricted it to the portion separating Wales from Leinster,
A 2004 letter from the St.George's Channel Shipping Company to Seascapes, an RTÉ Radio programme, said that St George's Channel bordered the Irish coast between Howth Head and Kilmore Quay, and criticised contributors to the programme who had used "Irish Sea" for these waters.
Limits
The current (third, 1953) edition of the International Hydrographic Organization's publication Limits of Oceans and Seas defines the southern limit of "Irish Sea and St. George's Channel" as "A line joining St. David's Head () to Carnsore Point ()"; it does not define the two waterbodies separately. The 2002 draft fourth edition omits the "and St. George's Channel" part of the label.
See also
- Nicobar Islands in the Indian Ocean; the channel between Little Nicobar and Great Nicobar is also called St George's Channel
- North Channel (Great Britain and Ireland)
- Straits of Moyle