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Ireland is an island on the western fringe of Europe between latitude 51 1/2 and 55 1/2 degrees north, and longitude 5 1/2 to 10 1/2 degrees west. Its greatest length, from Malin Head in the north to Mizen Head in the south, is 486 km and its greatest width from east to west is approximately 275 km. Since 1921 the island has been divided politically into two parts. The independent twenty-six county area, comprising 70,282 sq. km, has a population of 3,523,401 (1991). Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom and contains six of the nine counties of the ancient province of Ulster, has a population of 1,569,971 (1991). In 1973 Ireland became a member of the European Union (EU).

Ireland has been inhabited since Stone-Age times and for more than five thousand years has been the recipient of peoples moving westwards across the European continent. Each new group of immigrants has contributed something to its population and culture and no group ever entirely obliterated the character of the earlier ones. It is these diverse elements that have come together to form the distinctive Irish nation of today.

The population of all Ireland was 8.2 million in 1841 and four-fifths of those lived in rural areas. After the famine of 1846, when many people died and many more emigrated, the population began to decrease, so that by 1930 it was only half what it had been in 1846. One result of this large-scale emigration, which continued throughout the latter part of the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century, was that many people of Irish descent have made their homes in other countries. Irish men and women have made a significant contribution to life in Britain, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.

From the 1960s population numbers gradually stabilised and between 1971 and 1986 there was a modest annual increase averaging just over one per cent. From 1986, however, the population declined for a few years as a result of renewed high emigration. The total number of people living in the state in 1991 was 3,523,401, a decrease of 17,242 on the 1986 figure. The overall density of population is 50 per square kilometre. There is a strong and continuing movement from rural areas to towns so that 52 per cent of the population now live in urban areas of 1,500 inhabitants or more. The rural population, which is mainly in dispersed, isolated farmsteads, is fairly evenly distributed throughout the country except in the mountainous areas and the peat bogs. Densities as high as 180 per square kilometre occur along the western seaboard, where the farms are small. Low rural densities are associated with the larger farms on the richer land in the east. The influence of Dublin and other urban areas is clearly seen in the above-average densities in their contiguous rural areas.

In Ireland (Republic) Roman Catholics comprise 95 per cent of the community. Other denominations include Church of Ireland (Anglican), Presbyterian, Methodist and a number of smaller Protestant groups. They are strongest in the counties bordering Northern Ireland, especially in Donegal (12 per cent), and in the Eastern Region which includes Dublin, Kildare, Meath and Wicklow (7 per cent). In Northern Ireland 65 per cent of the population is Protestant, mainly Church of Ireland and Presbyterian. They dominate in the three eastern counties of Ulster and comprise 40-50 per cent of the population in the west. There is also a small Jewish community centred in Dublin, Belfast and Cork.

For the great majority of the people in Ireland, English is the language in everyday use, but a quarter of the population claims to be competent in Irish as well. Irish remains the first language in the Gaeltacht (Irish speaking areas), located along the remoter areas of the western seaboard, and in some very small pockets of Irish speakers in West Cork, Waterford and Meath.

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