Between Three-and-a-half and four million people live in the
	Republic (3.621 million at the time of the 1996 Census).  It is
	divided into twenty six counties:

	Carlow, Cavan, Clare, Cork, Donegal, Dublin*, Galway, Kerry,
	Kildare, Kilkenny, Laois, Leitrim, Limerick, Longford, Louth,
	Mayo, Meath, Monaghan, Offaly, Roscommon, Sligo, Tipperary,
	Waterford, Westmeath, Wexford and Wicklow.

	[ * The counties do not necessarily coincide with
	administrative units any more.	For example, Dublin has at
	least _four_ councils, Fingal on the northside, Dublin City,
	Dun Laoghaire/Rathdown and South Dublin on the southside. ]

	Dublin, with a population of over a million, is the most
	important city.  The government has tried to slow emigration
	from rural areas to Dublin using measures ranging from grants
	to relocating government offices, but with limited success.

	Irish is the official first language, but is spoken mainly in
	areas located along the western seaboard known as Gaeltachts.
	Irish is a compulsory subject at school, but English is the
	language generally used in every day life. There are also a
	lot of Irish speakers in the cities (particularly Dublin),
	but they are less concentrated there than in the Gaeltachts.
	By the way, in Irish, Dublin is called Baile Átha Clíath
	(often abbreviated to B.A.C).

	Until recently the Republic had a high "dependency ratio",
	meaning that the number of people working was relatively
	small compared to the number of people they had to support.
	As the children of the baby boom of the early and mid-seventies
	comes of age, more and more of them will be entering the labour
	force, making this less of a problem.  With the extraordinary
	economic boom of the nineties, unemployment in the Republic
	has fallen from nearly a fifth to a single percentage figure
	below the European Union average.

	Ireland celebrates its national day on March 17th, the day of its
	patron saint, Patrick, who introduced Christianity to the country.
	The day is celebrated in the U.S. almost as much as (some would
	say more than) in Ireland.

	The republic has a bicameral Parliament (Oireachtas) consisting
	of an upper house or Senate (Seanad Éireann) and a lower house
	or House of Representatives (Dáil Éireann).  Members of the
	Dáil (known as Teachtaí Dála or T.D.s) are elected directly and
	this house has the primary legislative role.  The Seanad (whose
	members are not elected by the people at large) has limited
	powers and can in general be overridden by the Dáil.


	Chief of State:
	Uachtarán (President) Mary McAleese

	Head of Government:
	Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Bertie Ahern


	The national flag is divided into three equal vertical bands of
	green (hoist side), white, and orange.  The green symbolises the
	nationalist culture, the orange the unionist culture, and white
	symbolises peace.