Ireland (pronounced /ˈaɪrlənd/ ( listen), locally [ˈaɾlənd]; Irish Irish is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is now only spoken natively by a small minority of the Irish population but also plays an important symbolic role in the life of the Irish state, and is used across the country in a variety of media, personal: Éire, pronounced [ˈeːɾʲə] ( listen)) is a country in north-western Europe Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus Mountains (or the Kuma-Manych Depression), and the Black Sea to the southeast. Europe is bordered. The modern sovereign state A sovereign state, commonly simply referred to as a state, is a political association with effective internal and external sovereignty over a geographic area and population which is not dependent on, or subject to any other power or state. While in abstract terms a sovereign state can exist without being recognised by other sovereign states, occupies about five-sixths of the island of Ireland Ireland (pronounced /ˈaɪrlənd/ , locally [ˈaɾlənd]; Irish: Éire, pronounced [ˈeːɾʲə] ( listen); Ulster Scots: Airlann, Latin: Hibernia) is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island in the world. It lies to the north-west of continental Europe and is surrounded by hundreds of islands and islets. To the east of, which was partitioned on 3 May 1921.^[7] It is a parliamentary democracy A parliamentary system is a system of government where in the ministers of the executive branch are drawn from the legislature, and are accountable to that body, such that the executive and legislative branches are intertwined. In such a system, the head of government is both de facto chief executive and chief legislator and a republic A republic is a form of government in which the head of state is not a monarch and the people have an impact on its government. The word 'republic' is derived from the Latin phrase res publica which can be translated as "a public affair". It is bordered by Northern Ireland Northern Ireland is a country that is a part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and it is situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west. At the time of the 2001 UK Census, its population was 1,685,000, constituting between a quarter and a third of to the north east, the Irish Sea The Irish Sea also known as the Mann Sea or Manx Sea, separates the islands of Ireland and Great Britain. It is connected to the Atlantic Ocean in the south by St George's Channel, and in the north by the North Channel. Anglesey is the largest island within the Irish Sea, followed by the Isle of Man to the east, St George's Channel St George's Channel is a channel connecting the Irish Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the southwest. Historically, the name encompassed all the waters between Ireland in the west, and Wales and the West Country in the east; thus the Bristol Channel opened into St George's Channel. The name is now usually applied only to the waters near to the south-east, the Celtic Sea The Celtic Sea is the area of the Atlantic Ocean off the south coast of Ireland. It is bounded to the east by Saint George's Channel, the Bristol Channel and the English Channel, as well as adjacent portions of Wales, Cornwall, Devon, and Brittany. The southern and western boundaries are based on the continental shelf to the south and by the Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about 106.4 million square kilometres , it covers approximately one-fifth of the Earth's surface and about one-quarter of its water surface area. The first part of its name refers to the Atlas of Greek mythology, making the Atlantic the "Sea of to the west and north. The name of the state is Ireland, while the description the Republic of Ireland is sometimes used.^[8]

The Irish Free State The Irish Free State (1922–1937) was the state established as a Dominion on 6 December 1922 under the Anglo-Irish Treaty, signed by the British government and Irish representatives exactly twelve months beforehand state was established in 1922,^[9] as a dominion A dominion, often Dominion, refers to one of a group of semi-autonomous polities that were nominally under British sovereignty, constituting the British Empire and British Commonwealth, from the late 19th century. They included Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Newfoundland, South Africa, and the Irish Free State. After 1948, the term was used to within the British Commonwealth The Commonwealth of Nations, often referred to as the Commonwealth and previously as the British Commonwealth, is an intergovernmental organisation of fifty-three independent member states. Most of them were formerly part of the British Empire. They co-operate within a framework of common values and goals as outlined in the Singapore Declaration, and gained increasing sovereignty through the Statute of Westminster The Statute of Westminster 1931 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which established a status of legislative equality between the self-governing dominions of the British Empire and the United Kingdom, with a few residual exceptions. The Statute remains domestic law within each of the other Commonwealth realms, to the extent that it and the abdication crisis of 1936 In 1936, the desire of King-Emperor Edward VIII to marry Wallis Simpson, a twice-divorced American socialite, caused a constitutional crisis in the British Empire.^[10] A new constitution The Constitution of Ireland is the second constitution of independent Ireland and replaced the Constitution of the Irish Free State. It came into force on 29 December 1937 after having been passed by a national plebiscite on 1 July 1937 was introduced^[11] in 1937 that declared an entirely sovereign state and named it simply as Ireland.^[12] In 1949 the last formal link with the UK^[13] was severed when Ireland became a republic and left the British Commonwealth The Commonwealth of Nations, often referred to as the Commonwealth and previously as the British Commonwealth, is an intergovernmental organisation of fifty-three independent member states. Most of them were formerly part of the British Empire. They co-operate within a framework of common values and goals as outlined in the Singapore Declaration,^[14] having already ceased to participate in that organisation for several years.

During British rule and initial independence Ireland was one of the poorest countries in Western Europe Western Europe is the collection of countries in the westernmost region of Europe, though this definition is context-dependent and carries cultural and political connotations. One definition describes Western Europe as a cultural entity—the region lying west of Central Europe. Another definition was created during the Cold War and used to and had high emigration but in contrast to many other states in the period remained financially solvent as a result of low government expenditure. The protectionist economy Protectionism is the economic policy of restraining trade between states, through methods such as tariffs on imported goods, restrictive quotas, and a variety of other restrictive government regulations designed to discourage imports, and prevent foreign take-over of local markets and companies. This policy is closely aligned with anti- was opened in the late 1950s and Ireland joined the European Economic Community The European Economic Community (also referred to as simply the European Community, or the Common Market in the English-speaking world) was an international organisation that existed between 1958 and 1993 which was created to bring about economic integration (including a single market) between Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the (now the European Union The European Union is a political and economic union of 27 member states, located primarily in Europe. Committed to regional integration, the EU was established by the Treaty of Maastricht on 1 November 1993 upon the foundations of the pre-existing European Economic Community. With almost 500 million citizens, the EU combined generates an) in 1973. An economic crisis led Ireland to start large-scale economic reforms in the late 1980s. Ireland reduced taxation and regulation dramatically compared to other EU countries.^[15]

Ranked as the 31^st economic power in the world This article includes a list of countries of the world sorted by their gross domestic product , the market value of all final goods and services from a nation in a given year. The GDP dollar estimates presented here are calculated at market or government official exchange rates, Ireland today has the sixth highest gross domestic product The gross domestic product or gross domestic income (GDI) is a basic measure of a country's economic performance. It is the market value of all final goods and services made within the borders of a country in a year. It is often positively correlated with the standard of living, though its use as a stand-in for measuring the standard of living has per capita and the eighth highest per capita considering purchasing power parity The purchasing power parity theory uses the long-term equilibrium exchange rate of two currencies to equalize their purchasing power. Developed by Gustav Cassel in 1918, it is based on the law of one price: the theory states that, in ideally efficient markets, identical goods should have only one price,^[16][17] and has the fifth highest Human Development Index The Human Development Index is an index used to rank countries by level of "human development", which usually also implies whether a country is developed, developing, or underdeveloped rank in the world. The country also boasts the highest quality of life in the world, ranking first in the Economist Intelligence Unit It is a research and advisory company providing country, industry and management analysis worldwide and incorporates the former Business International Corporation, a U.S. company acquired by the parent organization in 1986. It is particularly well known for its country profiles, monthly country reports, five-year country economic forecasts,’s Quality-of-life index The Economist Intelligence Unit’s quality-of-life index is based on a unique methodology that links the results of subjective life-satisfaction surveys to the objective determinants of quality of life across countries. The index was calculated in 2005 and includes data from 111 countries and territories. Ireland was ranked sixth on the Global Peace Index The Global Peace Index is an attempt to measure the relative position of nations’ and regions’ peacefulness. It is maintained by the Institute for Economics and Peace and developed in consultation with an international panel of peace experts from peace institutes and think tanks with data collected and analysed by the Economist Intelligence. Ireland also has high rankings for its education system, political freedom and civil rights Freedom in the World is a yearly report by US-based Freedom House that attempts to measure the degree of democracy and political freedom in every nation and significant disputed territories around the world, and which produces annual scores representing the levels of political rights and civil liberties in each state and territory, on a scale from, press freedom (ranked first in 2009) and economic freedom (ranked fourth This article includes a list of countries of the world sorted by their economic freedom, as measured by Index of Economic Freedom and Economic Freedom of the World reports in 2009); it is also ranked fifth from bottom on the Failed States Index This is a list of countries by order of appearance in the Fund For Peace's Failed States Index. A failed state has several attributes. Common indicators include a state whose central government is so weak or ineffective that it has little practical control over much of its territory; non-provision of public services; widespread corruption and, being one of the most "Sustainable" states in the world. Ireland is a member of the EU The European Union is a political and economic union of 27 member states, located primarily in Europe. Committed to regional integration, the EU was established by the Treaty of Maastricht on 1 November 1993 upon the foundations of the pre-existing European Economic Community. With almost 500 million citizens, the EU combined generates an, the OECD The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (in French: Organisation de coopération et de développement économiques, OCDE) is an international organisation of 30 countries that accept the principles of representative democracy and free-market economy. Most OECD members are high-income economies with a high HDI and are regarded as, and the UN The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and the achieving of world peace. The UN was founded in 1945 after World War II to replace the League of Nations, to stop wars between countries, and.

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