Ireland

Ireland was a Celtic land that, uniquely in western Europe, was never conquered by Rome, developing its own Gaelic culture. After converting to Christianity it became, in the early Middle Ages, an island of saints and scholars whose monasteries produced masterpieces such as the Book of Kells. Norse and then Norman invaders arrived, and from the twelfth century England gradually extended control over the island, beginning centuries of often harsh rule, dispossession, and resistance that profoundly shaped Irish history.

Old Irish tradition, set down in medieval texts, tells of a series of mythical peoples who settled Ireland in waves, ending with the Milesians, said to be the ancestors of the Gaelic Irish, who arrived from Iberia and defeated the supernatural Tuatha De Danann. These tales were long treated as a kind of national history, but scholars regard them as legend and myth woven from older traditions rather than a record of actual events, even as they preserve a deep sense of Irish identity.

Ireland is a green and rainy island, its mild, moist Atlantic climate keeping the countryside lush, hence its nickname. The interior is a low plain of farmland and peat bogs, ringed by ranges of low mountains and hills near the coasts, while the western seaboard is wild and dramatic, with cliffs, inlets, and islands facing the ocean. Rivers and many lakes, or loughs, thread the land, and there are no extremes of terrain, only a soft, watered landscape.

The flag of Ireland is a vertical tricolour of green, white, and orange. The green represents the Gaelic and Catholic tradition of the island, the orange the Protestant community descended from settlers, and the white in between stands for the hope of lasting peace between them. Adopted during the struggle for independence, the flag expresses a wish for unity and reconciliation among the different traditions of the Irish people.

Ireland was for centuries one of the most devoutly Roman Catholic countries in the world, with the Church central to its identity, education, and daily life, a faith bound up with national identity during the long period of British rule. In recent decades, however, Ireland has secularised with remarkable speed, with religious practice falling sharply and the Church's influence much reduced, even as Catholic heritage remains a strong part of the country's culture and traditions.

Irish cuisine is traditionally simple and hearty, built on the produce of its farms and seas. The potato became central to the Irish diet, with lasting and tragic consequences, and dishes such as Irish stew, of lamb or mutton with potatoes and onions, colcannon of mashed potato and cabbage, and soda bread are classics. The island's lush pastures yield excellent dairy and beef, and Ireland is world-famous for its drinks, above all the dark stout Guinness.

Agriculture is important to Ireland and shaped by its green, rain-fed pastures. The mild, wet climate is ideal for grass, making dairy and beef cattle and sheep the heart of Irish farming, and the country is a major exporter of dairy products and beef, prized for being grass-fed. Tillage of grains is more limited. Irish farming, with its small green fields divided by hedgerows, is central to the rural landscape and to the country's image abroad.

The golden age of early Irish Christianity and learning, and the long centuries of English and British rule, define the island's history. The catastrophic Great Famine of the 1840s, when the failure of the potato crop killed around a million people and drove many more to emigrate, scarred the nation and created a vast worldwide diaspora. After the Easter Rising and a war of independence, most of Ireland gained self-government in 1922, becoming a fully independent republic.

The Republic of Ireland has a population of around 5.3 million people, the great majority ethnically Irish, with English the everyday language alongside the Irish, or Gaelic, tongue that is an official language and a cherished part of the heritage. Centuries of emigration mean that people of Irish descent around the world, especially in the United States, Britain, and Australia, far outnumber those on the island. The population is increasingly urban and centred on the capital, Dublin.