Ireland

Ireland 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.

Politically, the sovereign country of Ireland (described as the Republic of Ireland) covers five-sixths of the island, with Northern Ireland (part of the United Kingdom) covering the remainder in the north-east.

History:

The first settlements in Ireland date from 8000 BC. By 200BC Celtic migration and influence had come to dominate the island.

Relatively small scale settlements of both the Vikings and Normans in the Middle Ages gave way to complete English domination by the 1600s.

Protestant English rule resulted in the marginalisation of the Catholic majority, although in the north-east, Protestants were in the majority due to the Plantation of Ulster.

The Great Famine:

Between 1845 and 1852 Ireland experiences a severe  famine during which the population dropped by 20 - 25%. This was a watershed event for Ireland - with the loss of approximately 1 million through death, and a further million through emigration, it changed forever the social landscape and became a rallying point for various nationalist movements.

Politics:

Ireland became part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1801. The Anglo-Irish War ended in 1921 with the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, creating the Irish Free State, a Dominion within the British Empire with effective internal independence but still constitutionally linked with the British Crown.

Northern Ireland, consisting of six of the 32 Irish counties which had been established as a devolved region under the 1920 Government of Ireland Act, immediately exercised its option under the treaty to retain its existing status within the United Kingdom.

The Free State left the Commonwealth to become a republic in 1949. In 1973 both parts of Ireland joined the European Community. Conflict in Northern Ireland led to much unrest from the late 1960s until the 1990s, which subsided following a peace deal in 1998.

Population:

The population of the island is slightly under 6 million (2006), with 4.2 million in the Republic and an estimated almost 1.75 million in Northern Ireland. This is a significant increase from a modern historical low in the 1960s, but still much lower than the peak population of over 8 million in the early 19th century, prior to the Great Famine.

The Name 'Ireland':

The name Ireland derives from the name of the Celtic goddess Ériu (in modern Irish, Éire) with the addition of the Germanic word land. Most other western European names for Ireland, such as French Irlande, derive from the same source.

Geology:

Geologically the island consists of a number of provinces – in the far west around Galway and Donegal is a medium to high grade metamorphic and igneous complex of Caledonide (Scottish Highland) affinity.

Across southeast Ulster and extending southwest to Longford and south to Navan is a province of Ordovician and Silurian rocks with more affinities with the Southern Uplands province of Scotland.

Further south, there is an area along the Wexford coast of granite intrusives into more Ordovician and Silurian rocks with a more Welsh affinity.

Carrauntoohil, the highest peak in Ireland, is located in Macgillycuddy's Reeks.

Hydrocarbon exploration is ongoing. The first major find was the Kinsale Head gas field off Cork/Cobh by Marathon Oil in the mid-1970s. More recently, in 1999, Enterprise Oil announced the discovery of the Corrib Gas Field. This has increased activity off the west coast. The Helvick oil field, estimated to contain over 28 million barrels (4,500,000 m3) of oil, is another recent discovery.