The Republic of Ireland is a sovereign, independent state. It is a representative democracy under a parliamentary system of government, with a president, prime minister and parliament. The capital city is Dublin. While there are a number of important political parties in the state, the two largest are Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. The state is a member of the European Union.
Ireland is well supplied with museums and art galleries and offers, especially during the summer months, a wide range of cultural events. These range from arts festivals to farming events. The most popular of these are the annual Dublin Saint Patrick's Day Festival which attracts on average 500,000 people and the National Ploughing Championships with an attendance in the region of 400,000. There are also a number of Summer Schools on topics from traditional music to literature and the arts.
Ireland is divided into four provinces: Connacht (or Connaught), Leinster, Munster and Ulster. These were further divided into 32 counties for administrative purposes. Six counties remain in the United Kingdom as Northern Ireland following Ireland's partition in 1922 (the remaining 26 forming present-day Republic of Ireland); these county boundaries no longer exist in Northern Ireland for administrative purposes, apart from Fermanagh. In the Republic, the county boundaries are still adhered to for local government, albeit with Tipperary and Dublin subdivided (some cities also have their own administrative regions). For election constituencies, some counties are merged or divided, but constitutionally the boundaries have to be observed. Across Ireland, the 32 counties are still used in sports and in some other cultural areas and retain a strong sense of local identity.
The area now known as Northern Ireland has had a diverse history. From serving as the bedrock of Irish resistance in the era of the plantations of Queen Elizabeth and James I in other parts of Ireland, it became itself the subject of major planting of Scottish and English settlers after the Flight of the Earls in 1607 (when the native aristocracy left en masse).
The three most important international airports in the Republic are Dublin Airport, Cork Airport and Shannon Airport. All provide extensive services to the UK, Europe and North America. The Irish national airline Aer Lingus and low-cost operator Ryanair are based at Dublin. Shannon is an important stopover on trans-Atlantic route for refuelling operations. There are several smaller regional airports in the Republic (Galway Airport, Kerry Airport, Knock Airport, Sligo Airport, Waterford Airport) that mostly limit their services to Ireland and the United Kingdom.
For a comparatively small country, Ireland has made a disproportionate contribution to world literature in all its branches. The works that are best known outside the country are in English, but Irish Gaelic also has the most significant body of written literature, both ancient and recent, of any Celtic language, in addition to a strong oral tradition of legends and poetry. Poetry in Irish represents the oldest vernacular poetry in Europe, with the earliest examples dating from the 6th century. In more recent times, Ireland has produced four winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature; George Bernard Shaw, William Butler Yeats, Samuel Beckett and Seamus Heaney
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.
Many Irish urban centres developed as garrison towns during the years of British rule and this fact contributed towards their particular character. Another significant factor was the fact thar the Industrial Revolution had a limited impact in Ireland. Belfast had its shipbuilding and a number of towns in Ulster had mechanised linen industries, but the majority of towns developed primarily as commercial and administrative centres. By the end of the 20th century, over 50% of the population lived in these urban areas.
The whole of Northern Ireland has a temperate maritime climate, rather wetter in the west than the east although cloud cover is persistent across the region. The weather is unpredictable at all times of the year, and although the seasons are distinct they are considerably less pronounced than in interior Europe or the eastern seaboard on North America. Average daytime maximums in Belfast are 6.5°C in January and 17.5°C in July. The damp climate and extensive deforestation in the 16th and 17th Centuries results in much of the region being covered in rich green grassland.
The Anglo-Irish Treaty was narrowly ratified by the Dáil in December 1921 but was rejected a large minority, resulting in the Irish Civil War which lasted until 1923. In 1922, in the middle of this war, the Irish Free State came into being. For its first years the new state was governed by the victors of the Civil War. However in the 1930s Fianna Fáil, the party of the opponents of the treaty, were elected into government. The party introduced a new constitution in 1937 which renamed the state to simply "Ireland".
Today, Northern Ireland comprises a diverse patchwork of community rivalries, represented in some areas by whole communities where lamp posts and some homes fly the Irish national flag, the tricolour, or the Union Flag, the symbol of British identity, while even the kerbstones in less affluent areas get painted green-white-orange or red-white-blue, depending on whether a local community expresses nationalist/republican or unionist/loyalist sympathies.
Nationalist grievances at Unionist discrimination within the state eventually led to large civil rights protests in 1960s. It was during this period of civil unrest that the Provisional IRA, an extra-legal paramilitary group favouring the creation of a united Ireland, began its campaign of bombings and shootings. Other groups on both the Unionist and nationalist side also began to participate in the violence and the period known as the "Troubles" began. Owing to the civil unrest the British government suspended home rule in 1972 and imposed direct rule.
Northern Ireland currently has 18 seats in the United Kingdom House of Commons. The Northern Ireland Assembly has 108 MLAs, although this is currently in suspension. It is also represented in the European Parliament with 3 seats, and at local level by 26 district councils.
