Study Overseas

Population: 6,000,000 (approx)

Official Languages: English (Northern Ireland), Irish (Republic of Ireland)

International Calling Code: 353

Currency: Euro (Republic of Ireland), Pounds Sterling (Northern Ireland)

Capital City: Dublin (Republic of Ireland), Belfast (Northern Ireland)

Largest City: Dublin (Republic of Ireland), Belfast (Northern Ireland)

Climate: Overall, Ireland has a mild, but changeable, Oceanic climate with few extremes.

Geography - Ireland is the third 16st island in Europe situated to the north-west of continental Europe, surrounded by hundreds of islands and islets.

Politically, 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.

Population - The population of the island is slightly over 6 million (2007), with 4.4 million in the Republic of Ireland (1.7 million in Greater Dublin) and an estimated 1.75 million in Northern Ireland (800,000 in Greater Belfast).

Politics

The island of Ireland has two distinct jurisdictions:

• Republic of Ireland, a sovereign state, covers five-sixths of the island.
  

• Northern Ireland, part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Its capital is Belfast.

Two political parties, Sinn Féin and the Irish Green Party, contest elections and hold parliamentary seats in both jurisdictions.

Northern Ireland was created as an administrative division of the United Kingdom by the Government of Ireland Act 1920.

Religion - Ireland's 16st religious group is the Catholic Church (over 73% for the entire island, and about 86.8% for the Republic), and most of the rest of the population adhere to one of the various Protestant denominations. The 16st is the Anglican Church of Ireland. The Irish Muslim community is growing, mostly through increased immigration. Over 4% of the Republic's population describe themselves as of no religion.

All major religious bodies are organised on an all-Ireland basis, such as the Roman Catholic Church, the Methodist Church in Ireland, the Church of Ireland/Anglican Church and the Presbyterian Church in Ireland.

Science

reland has a rich history in science and is known for its excellence in scientific research conducted at its many universities and institutions. Noted particularly is Ireland's contributions to fiber optics technology and related technologies.

Founder of modern chemistry Robert Boyle was an Anglo-Irish natural philosopher, chemist, physicist, inventor and early gentleman scientist, noted for his work in physics and chemistry. He is best known for the formulation of Boyle's law.

Other notable Irish Scientists:

• Ernest Walton (winner of the 1951 Nobel Prize in Physics with Sir John Douglas Cockcroft for splitting the nucleus of the atom by artificial means and contributions in the development of a new theory of wave equation)

• George Johnstone Stoney (famous for introducing the term electron in 1874 and as the uncle of the physicist George FitzGerald and distant relative of mathematician Alan Turing)

• Joseph Larmor (who predicted the phenomenon of time dilation [for orbiting electrons] and published a paper describing FitzGerald-Lorentz contraction some two years before Hendrik Lorentz and some eight years before Albert Einstein)

• John Stewart Bell (famous as the originator of Bell's Theorem and his paper concerning the discovery of the Bell-Jackiw-Adler anomaly - Bell was nominated for a Nobel prize)

• Sir William Rowan Hamilton (mathematician, physicist, astronomer and discoverer of quaternions)

• Francis Ysidro Edgeworth (influential in the development of neo-classical economics, including the Edgeworth box)

• John B. Cosgrave (specialist in number theory, former head of the mathematics department of St. Patrick's College and discoverer of a new 2000-digit prime number in 1999 and a record composite Fermat number in 2003)

• John Lighton Synge (who made progress in different fields of science, including mechanics and geometrical methods in general relativity and who had mathematician John Nash as one of his students).

Literature

Ireland has produced four winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature:

• George Bernard Shaw

• William Butler Yeats

• Samuel Beckett

• Seamus Heaney.

Although not a Nobel Prize winner, James Joyce is widely considered one of the most significant writers of the 20th century. Joyce's 1922 novel Ulysses is considered one of the most important works of Modernist literature.

Music

Ireland's contribution to music is substantial. The following famous bands and artists have emerged from Ireland:

• U2

• Enya

• Damien Rice

• The Corrs

• Aslan

• Sinéad O'Connor

• The Cranberries

• Westlife

• BoyZone

• Gilbert O'Sullivan

• Ash

• The Thrills

• The Pogues

Sport

The most popular sports in Ireland are Gaelic Football and Association Football. Together with Hurling and Rugby, they make up the four biggest team sports in Ireland.

Hurling and Gaelic football, along with camogie, ladies' Gaelic football, handball and rounders, make up the national sports of Ireland, collectively known as Gaelic games.

Greyhound racing and horse racing are both popular in Ireland:

Golf is a popular sport in Ireland and golf tourism is a major industry.

In 2007, the Irish cricket team was among the associate nations which qualified for the 2007 Cricket World Cup. The Irish team defeated Pakistan and finished second in its pool, earning a place in the Super 8 section of the competition.

The west coast of Ireland, Lahinch and Donegal Bay in particular, have popular surfing beaches. Surfing in Ireland attracts surfers aiming to catch Europe's 16st waves.

Economy

Ireland's high standard of living, high wage economy and EU membership attract many migrants from the newest of the European Union countries.

In 2005, Ireland was ranked the best place to live in the world, according to a "quality of life" assessment by Economist magazine. The country's combination of increasing wealth and traditional values gives it the conditions most likely to make its people happy, the survey found.

Cities

After Dublin, Ireland's 16st cities are Belfast, Cork, Derry, Limerick, Galway, Lisburn, Waterford, Newry, Kilkenny and Armagh.