Wiring – How to connect wiring for this ceiling light

In the UK colours are as follows

           old UK colours   newer EU colours
live       red              brown
neutral    black            blue
earth      green            green/yellow

The switched-live from switches is often insulated with the neutral colour (e.g. black) and should have red tape over it to indicate it is switched-live not neutral.

Your problem is that, to make sense of wiring, you need to carefully study the wiring before you remove a fitting and make sure you understand how it works. It can be difficult to do this after the wires have been removed from the fitting.

In some cases, a lot of the electrical wiring is done inside the casing for long fluorescent light tubes. This can include wiring for other light fittings in other parts of the room or in other rooms.

The problem is at some stage there were two switches for the light

Typical UK 2-way switch wiring is as follows

The image shows a pendant light, but the same principle applies for a fluorescent light. In your case you have the old-colour wiring for the fixed wiring in the walls, nopt the new colours shown here.

The earth wires here are shown green but they are often bare copper - the installer should have added a green/yellow sleeve to them.

Note that you do not connect all the neutral wires together and you do not connect all the live wires together.

If you need more detailed help, take a clear well-lit well-focussed photo of the wiring at the ceiling - and of the wiring behind the associated switches. Edit the question to insert the photos (or insert URLs to public websites where you uploaded the photos)

From your wire-colours and terms I guess you are in the UK

The light itself is a 5 arm ceiling light ... I've never seen a light with an earth wire before

If it has any exposed conductive parts, they need to be earthed. Maybe the arms are metal?

What am I doing wrong?

You have probably mis-wired the ceiling rose. One of the wires from the switch loop will not be what its colour suggests.

A typical UK ceiling rose is wired like this

A is power in
B is power out (to next light fitting)
C is to/from switch

Note the red tape on the blue wire (position 2) to indicate that this is not a neutral, as the blue would suggest, but a switched live.

Since your breaker is tripped regardless of the switch position, you probably have something other than the obvious error that occurs when the tape is missing.

You should not have trouble connecting three or four earth wires to the earth terminal. You can use a connector block if that makes it easier but I believe they must be enclosed in a junction box or in the ceiling rose. There isn't much spare room in a ceiling rose.

The ones on the right are the traditional ones used in the UK, a lighting circuit uses the ones rated 5A. The connectors to the left are Wago 222 and 221 connectors - they make it easier to connect multiple wires together - the leftmost one connects three wires together. There are 2,3 or 5-position versions of each. Wago also make push-in connectors (273 and 773 series) for various numbers of solid-core wires (not stranded). Other manufacturers like Ideal also make them. You can buy these from screwfix and other suppliers.