Famous Irishmen Subject Of Westminster Wiki Editing Spree

Image copyright PA

Where did Éamon de Valera die? In Ireland or in the Republic of Ireland, or both?

Earlier on Friday his Wikipedia entry said he died in Blackrock, Dublin, Ireland. As of lunchtime it was changed to say he died in the Republic of Ireland.

• Who was Eamonn de Valera?

Wikipedia showed the edits had been made from an IP address which could be traced to the House of Commons.

Minutes later, it had been "restored", by another user.

Changes to Wikipedia made from a Parliamentary IP address are published by a Twitter account, Parliament WikiEdits.

However, it is not clear who the individual or individuals behind the edits are.

The changes were first noticed by Irish language news site tuairisc.ie.

Novelist Bram Stoker's entry was also edited. The Dracula author's birthplace was changed from Ireland to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, both technically correct.

Fellow novelist James Joyce's entry was changed to clarify that when he was born in 1882, in what is now the Republic of Ireland was then a part of the United Kingdom. He died in Paris, France.

• The Irish Free State and civil war

While the term Republic of Ireland is often used to distinguish the southern Irish state from Northern Ireland, the state's actual name is simply Ireland, or in the Irish language Éire.

Samuel Beckett, George Bernard Shaw, John Redmond, W.T. Cosgrave also had their place of birth clarified by the mystery editor or editors.

What is an IP address?

An Internet Protocol address is a number assigned to a particular internet connection

It is a string of unique numbers

In a multi-device household the IP address is assigned to a router and all the devices will use the same address

IP addresses can be static, meaning a permanent internet address or dynamic - a temporary address that is assigned each time a computer or device accesses the internet

Irish rebel leader, Michael Collins, was famously killed at Bealnablath in County Cork during Ireland's civil war.

His place of death was changed from Ireland to Irish Free State, both technically correct.

A number of other edits on various aspects of Irish and British history were made from the same IP address on Friday morning.

Most of those edits were then re-edited by another user, to their original wording.