Medium used to pay top publications, so there used to be more of an incentive to build up a publication. Also, Medium didn't used to have lists or tags. Publictions used to be more important than they now are, but people continue to use them because the top writers still use them because they started here when publications were more important.

You can find stories about Britain and Ireland by looking at the tags. Then any that you really like you can add to a list. You could then even have a link to that list at the bottom of your stories. You could do all that without any stress of worrying about a publication.

https://blog.medium.com/curate-and-share-stories-with-lists-2c27326d096

https://blog.medium.com/expanding-topics-to-be-more-personalized-eec1f19307e