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The island is often referred to as being part of the British Isles. However, some people, especially in Ireland, take exception to this name, which seems to suggest that both islands belong to Britain. For this reason, "Britain and Ireland" is commonly used as a more neutral alternative. Another suggestion, although much less used, is the Islands of the North Atlantic (IONA).

The Irish tradition of folk music and dance is also widely known. In the middle years of the 20th century, as Irish society was attempting to modernise, traditional music fell out of favour to some extent, especially in urban areas. Young people at this time tended to look to Britain and, particularly, the United States as models of progress and jazz and rock and roll became extremely popular. During the 1960s, and inspired by the American folk music movement, there was a revival of interest in the Irish tradition. This revival was inspired by groups like The Dubliners, the Clancy Brothers and Sweeney's Men and individuals like Sean Ó Riada.

Prior to the Government of Ireland Act 1920 the island had existed for centuries as one unified political entity, either on its own (as the Lordship of Ireland, the Kingdom of Ireland) or as part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Prior to English rule in mediæval times the island was made up of a patchwork of small kingdoms that were people and clan rather than territory-based. At the top of this system was the Ard Ri or High King of Ireland. See Irish States (1171-present).

As archaeological evidence from sites such as the Céide Fields in County Mayo and Lough Gur in County Limerick demonstrates, farming in Ireland is an activity that goes back to the very beginnings of human settlement. In historic times, texts such as the Táin Bó Cúailinge show a society in which cattle represented a primary source of wealth and status. Little of this had changed by the time of the Norman conquest of Ireland in the 12th century. Giraldus Cambrensis portrays a Gaelic society in which cattle farming and transhumance is the norm. Three hundred years later, the society depicted in Edmund Spenser's A View of the Present State of Ireland had changed remarkably little. Even today, when a quarter of the population of the Republic lives in Dublin, the cattle population is of the order of 6.7 million. The total population of humans on the island, north and south, only just approaches this figure.

The state was neutral during World War II but offered some assistance to the Allies. In 1949 the state was declared to be a republic; since that time it has been commonly referred to as the "Republic of Ireland". The state was plagued by poverty and emigration until the 1990s. That decade saw the beginning of unprecedented economic success, in a phenomenon known as the "Celtic Tiger". By the early 2000s, it had become one of the richest countries (in terms of GDP per capita) in the European Union, moving from being a net recipient to a net contributor and from a population with net emigration to one with net immigration.