Republic of Ireland
From The UCSC Wikipedia Trust Project
Template:Infobox Country or territoryThe Republic of Ireland (Template:Lang-ga) is the official description[1] of the sovereign state which covers approximately eighty-five percent of the surface area of the island of Ireland, off the coast of north-west Europe. The state's constitutional name is Ireland (Template:Lang), and Ireland is how international organisations and residents usually refer to the country. It is a member of the European Union, has a developed economy and a population of slightly more than 4.2 million[2]. The remaining part of the island of Ireland is known as Northern Ireland and is part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
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Name
Template:MainThe constitution provides that "the name of the state is Éire, or, in the English language, Ireland". However, the state is sometimes referred to as the "Republic of Ireland," in order to distinguish it from the island of Ireland. The name Republic of Ireland came into use after the Republic of Ireland Act defined it as the official description of the state in 1949 (the purpose of the act being to declare that the state was a republic rather than a form of constitutional monarchy). However, because this was a statutory provision, the constitutional name of "Ireland" remains the official name of the state, whilst "Republic of Ireland" is a description of the state. "Republic of Ireland" is also the accepted legal name of the state in the United Kingdom as per the Ireland Act 1949. Therefore it is the name Ireland that is used for official purposes such as treaties, government and legal documents, and membership of international organisations. However with Irish being named the European Union's 21st official language in 2007; the state will be referred to in both constitutional official languages, the Irish and English languages, similarly to other countries such as Finland and Belgium using more than one language at Template:Abbr level. This means the label 'Éire Ireland' will be used on various signage and nameplates referring to the state.[3]
The state is also known by many other names in English, such as Template:Lang, The Free State and the Twenty-six Counties. The use of Template:Lang when speaking English in Ireland has become increasingly rare, not least due to historical condescending connotations.Template:Fact Often in the United Kingdom the state is referred to as Southern Ireland, though this term is used informally and was only used officially for a brief period in Irish history. Irish people sometimes refer to the state as "The South" - it is not uncommon to hear Northern Irish people talking about going "down south".
The state has had more than one official title. The revolutionary state, declared in 1919 by the large majority of Irish Members of (the United Kingdom) Parliament elected in 1918, was known as the "Irish Republic"; when the state achieved Template:Lang independence in 1922, it became known as the "Irish Free State" (in the Irish language Template:Lang), a name that was retained until 1937.
History
Template:MainThe state known today as the Republic of Ireland came into being when 26 of the counties of Ireland seceded from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (Template:Abbr) in 1922. The remaining six counties remained within the Template:Abbr as Northern Ireland. This action, known as the Partition of Ireland, came about because of complex constitutional developments in the early twentieth century.
From 1 January 1801 until 6 December 1922, Ireland was part of the United Kingdom. During the Great Famine from 1845 to 1849 the island's population of over 8 million fell by 30 percent. One million Irish died of starvation and another 1.5 million emigrated, (see: Template:Cite journal) which set the pattern of emigration for the century to come and would result in a constant decline up to the 1960s. From 1874, but particularly from 1880 under Charles Stewart Parnell, the Irish Parliamentary Party moved to prominence with its attempts to achieve Home Rule, which would have given Ireland some autonomy without requiring it to leave the United Kingdom. It seemed possible in 1911 when the House of Lords lost their veto, and John Redmond secured the Third Home Rule Act 1914. The unionist movement, however, had been growing since 1886 among Irish Protestants, fearing that they would face discrimination and lose economic and social privileges if Irish Catholics were to achieve real political power. Though Irish unionism existed throughout the whole of Ireland, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century unionism was particularly strong in parts of Ulster, where industrialisation was more common in contrast to the more agrarian rest of the island. (Any tariff barriers would, it was feared, most heavily hit that region.) In addition, the Protestant population was more strongly located in Ulster, with unionist majorities existing in about four counties. Under the leadership of the Dublin-born Sir Edward Carson and the northerner Sir James Craig they became more militant. In 1914, to avoid rebellion in Ulster, the British Prime Minister H. H. Asquith, with agreement of the leadership of the Irish Parliamentary Party leadership, inserted a clause into the bill providing for home rule for 26 of the 32 counties, with an as of yet undecided new set of measures to be introduced for the area temporarily excluded. Though it received the Royal Assent, the Third Home Rule Act 1914's implementation was suspended until after the Great War. (The war at that stage was expected to be ended by 1915, not the four years it did ultimately last.) For the prior reasons Redmond and his Irish National Volunteers supported the Allied cause, and tens of thousands joined the British Army.
Template:History of IrelandIn January 1919, after the December 1918 general elections, 73 of Ireland's 106 MPs elected were Sinn Féin members who refused to take their seats in the British House of Commons. Instead, they set up an extra-legal Irish parliament called Dáil Éireann. This Dáil in January 1919 issued a Unilateral Declaration of Independence and proclaimed an Irish Republic. The Declaration was mainly a restatement of the 1916 Proclamation with the additional provision that Ireland was no longer a part of the United Kingdom. Despite this, the new Irish Republic remained unrecognised internationally except by Lenin's Russian Republic. Nevertheless the Republic's Aireacht (ministry) sent a delegation under Ceann Comhairle Sean T. O'Kelly to the Paris Peace Conference, 1919, but it was not admitted. After the bitterly fought War of Independence, representatives of the British government and the Irish rebels negotiated the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1921 under which the British agreed to the establishment of an independent Irish State whereby the Irish Free State (in the Irish language Saorstát Éireann) with dominion status was created. The Dáil Éireann narrowly ratified the treaty.
The Treaty was not entirely satisfactory to either side. It gave more concessions to the Irish than the British had intended to give but did not go far enough to satisfy republican aspirations. The new Irish Free State was in theory to cover the entire island, subject to the proviso that six counties in the north-east, termed "Northern Ireland" (which had been created as a separate entity under the Government of Ireland Act 1920) could opt out and choose to remain part of the United Kingdom, which they duly did. The remaining twenty-six counties became the Irish Free State, a constitutional monarchy over which the British monarch reigned (from 1927 with the title King of Ireland). It had a Governor-General, a bicameral parliament, a cabinet called the "Executive Council" and a prime minister called the President of the Executive Council.
The Irish Civil War was the direct consequence of the creation of the Irish Free State. Anti-Treaty forces, led by Éamon de Valera, objected to the fact that acceptance of the Treaty abolished the Irish Republic of 1919 to which they had sworn loyalty, arguing in the face of public support for the settlement that the "people have no right to do wrong". They objected most to the fact that the state would remain part of the British Commonwealth and that Teachtaí Dála would have to swear an oath of fidelity to King George V and his successors. Pro-Treaty forces, led by Michael Collins, argued that the Treaty gave "not the ultimate freedom that all nations aspire to and develop, but the freedom to achieve it".
At the start of the war, the Irish Republican Army (Template:Abbr) split into two opposing camps: a pro-treaty Template:Abbr and an [[Irish Republican Army (1922–1969)|anti-treaty Template:Abbr]]. The pro-Treaty Template:Abbr became part of the new National Army. However, through the lack of an effective command structure in the anti-Treaty Template:Abbr, and their defensive tactics throughout the war, Collins and his pro-treaty forces were able to build up an army capable of overwhelming the anti-Treatyists. British supplies of artillery, aircraft, machine-guns and ammunition boosted pro-treaty forces, and the threat of a return of Crown forces to the Free State removed any doubts about the necessity of enforcing the treaty. The lack of public support for the anti-treaty Irregulars, and the determination of the government to overcome them, contributed significantly to their defeat.
The National Army suffered 800 fatalities and perhaps as many as 4,000 people were killed altogether. As their forces retreated, the Irregulars showed a major talent for destruction and the economy of the Free State suffered a hard blow in the earliest days of its existence.
On 29 December 1937, a new constitution, the Constitution of Ireland, came into force. It replaced the Irish Free State by a new state called simply "Ireland". Though this state's constitutional structures provided for a President of Ireland instead of a king, it was not technically a republic; the principal key role possessed by a head of state, that of symbolically representing the state internationally remained vested, in statute law, in the King as an organ. On 21 December 1948, the Republic of Ireland Act declared a republic, with the functions previously given to the Governor-General acting on the behalf of the King given instead to the President of Ireland.
The Irish state had remained a member of the then-British Commonwealth after independence until the declaration of a republic on 18 April 1949. Under Commonwealth rules declaration of a republic automatically terminated membership of the association; since a reapplication for membership was not made, Ireland consequently ceased to be a member.
The Republic of Ireland joined the United Nations in 1955 and the European Community (now the European Union) in 1973. Irish governments have sought the peaceful reunification of Ireland and have usually cooperated with the British government in the violent conflict involving many paramilitaries and the British Army in Northern Ireland known as "The Troubles". A peace settlement for Northern Ireland, the Belfast Agreement, was approved in 1998 in referenda north and south of the border, and is currently being implemented, albeit more slowly than many would like.
Politics
Template:MorepoliticsThe state is a republic, with a parliamentary system of government. The President of Ireland, who serves as head of state, is elected for a seven-year term and can be re-elected only once. The president is largely a figurehead but can still carry out certain constitutional powers and functions, aided by the Council of State, an advisory body. The Template:Lang (prime minister), is appointed by the president on the nomination of parliament. The Template:Lang is normally the leader of the political party which wins the most seats in the national elections. It has become normal in the Republic for coalitions to form a government, and there has not been a single-party government since the period of 1987–1989.
The bicameral parliament, the Template:Lang, consists of a Senate, Template:Lang, and a lower house, Template:Lang. The Template:Lang is composed of sixty members; eleven nominated by the Template:Lang, six elected by two universities, and 43 elected by public representatives from panels of candidates established on a vocational basis. The Template:Lang has 166 members, Template:Lang, elected to represent multi-seat constituencies under the system of proportional representation by means of the Single Transferable Vote. Under the constitution, parliamentary elections must be held at least every seven years, though a lower limit may be set by statute law. The current statutory maximum term is every five years.
The Government is constitutionally limited to fifteen members. No more than two members of the Government can be selected from the Senate, and the Template:Lang, Template:Lang (deputy prime minister) and Minister for Finance must be members of the Template:Lang. The current government consists of a coalition of two parties; Template:Lang under Template:Lang Bertie Ahern and the Progressive Democrats under Template:Lang Michael McDowell.
The main opposition in the current Template:Lang consists of Fine Gael and Labour. Smaller parties such as the Green Party, Sinn Féin and the Socialist Party also have representation in the Dáil.
Ireland joined the European Union in 1973 but has chosen to remain outside the Schengen Treaty. Citizens of the UK can freely enter Ireland without a passport thanks to the Common Travel Area.
Administrative divisions
Template:MainThe Republic of Ireland traditionally had twenty-six counties, and these are still used in cultural and sporting contexts. Dáil constituencies are required by statute to follow county boundaries, as far as possible. Hence counties with greater populations have multiple constituencies (e.g. Limerick East/West) and some constituencies consist of more than one county (e.g. Sligo-North Leitrim), but by and large, the actual county boundaries are not crossed.
As local government units, however, some have been restructured, with the now-abolished County Dublin distributed between three new county councils in the 1990s and County Tipperary having been administratively two separate counties since the 1890s, giving a present-day total of twenty-nine administrative counties and five cities. The five cities — Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Galway , and Waterford — are administered separately from the remainder of their respective counties. Five boroughs — Clonmel, Drogheda, Kilkenny, Sligo and Wexford — have a level of autonomy within the county:
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These counties are grouped together into regions for statistical purposes.
Geography
Template:Main The island of Ireland extends over 84,421 km² or 32,556 mi², of which 83% (approx. five-sixths) belong to the Republic (70,280 km²; 27,103 mi²) and the remainder constituting Northern Ireland. It is bound to the west by the Atlantic Ocean, to the northeast by the North Channel. To the east is found the Irish Sea which reconnects to the ocean via the southwest with St George's Channel and the Celtic Sea. The west-coast of Ireland mostly consists of cliffs, hills and low mountains (the highest point being Carrauntoohil at 1,041 m or 3,414 ft). The interior of the country is mostly relatively flat farmland, traversed by rivers such as the River Shannon and several large lakes or loughs. The centre of the country is part of the River Shannon watershed, containing large areas of bogland, used for peat production.
The local temperate climate is modified by the North Atlantic Current and is relatively mild. Summers are rarely very hot (temperatures only exceed 30ºC usually once every decade, though commonly reach 29ºC (84ºF most summers), but it freezes only occasionally in winter (temperatures below -5ºC are very rare). Precipitation is very common, with up to 275 days with rain in some parts of the country. Chief cities are the capital Dublin on the east coast, Cork in the south, Limerick, Galway on the west coast, and Waterford on the south east coast (see Cities in Ireland).
Education
Template:SeealsoThe education system is under the direction of the government via the Minister for Education and Science (currently Mary Hanafin). Recognised primary and secondary schools must adhere to the curriculum established by authorities that have power to set them.
Economy
Template:MainThe economy of Ireland has transformed in recent years from an agricultural focus to one dependent on trade, industry and investment. Economic growth in Ireland averaged an exceptional 10% from 1995–2000, and 7% from 2001–2004. Industry, which accounts for 46% of [[Gross Domestic Product|Template:Abbr]], about 80% of exports, and 29% of the labour force, now takes the place of agriculture as the country's leading sector.
Exports play a fundamental role in the state's robust growth, but the economy also benefits from the accompanying rise in consumer spending, construction, and business investment. On paper, the country is the largest exporter of software-related goods and services in the world. In fact, a lot of foreign software, and sometimes music, is filtered through the country to avail of the state's non-taxing of royalties from copyrighted goods.
One key reason for the country's economic surge might be the government's role in the past ten years. A number of initiatives to address the problems of high inflation (with poor results in recent years), large tax burdens, government spending, lack-lustre foreign investment and low job skills have been introduced.
A key part of economic policy, since 1987, has been Social Partnership which is a neo-corporatist set of voluntary 'pay pacts' between the Government, employers and trades unions. These usually set agreed pay rises for three-year periods.
The state joined in launching the euro currency system in January 1999 (leaving behind the Irish pound) along with ten other Template:Abbr nations. The 1995 to 2000 period of high economic growth led many to call the country the Celtic Tiger. The economy felt the impact of the global economic slowdown in 2001, particularly in the high-tech export sector — the growth rate in that area was cut by nearly half. Template:Abbr growth continued to be relatively robust, with a rate of about 6% in 2001 and 2002. Growth for 2004 was over 4%, and for 2005 was 4.7%.
With high growth came high levels of inflation, particularly in the capital city. Prices in Dublin, where nearly 30% of Ireland's population lives, are considerably higher than elsewhere in the country [1], especially in the booming property market.
Ireland has the fourth-highest Template:Abbr (based on PPP) per capita in the world after Luxembourg, Norway and the United States, and lies fourth in the 2006 UN Human Development Index, which counts Template:Abbr per capita as a factor.
The Economist Intelligence Unit's Quality of Life Index ([2]) placed Ireland first in its "World in Review 2005" survey.
Poverty figures show that 6.8% of Ireland's population suffer "consistent poverty" [3] (2004).
Military
Template:MainThe Republic's armed forces are organised under the Irish Defence Forces (Template:Lang). The Irish Army is relatively small compared to other armies in the region but well equipped, with 8,500 full-time military personnel (13,000 in the reserve army).[4] This is principally due to Ireland's designationTemplate:Fact as