Ireland is a parliamentary, representative democratic republic and a member state of the European Union.

At the 2011 election, the largest parties in order were Fine Gael, Labour and Fianna Fáil;[1] at the 2016 election, the largest parties in order were Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin;[2] and at the 2020 election, the largest parties were Fianna Fáil first in seats (second in votes), Sinn Féin second in seats (first in votes), and then Fine Gael.

He formed a historic three-party coalition consisting of Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Green Party.

The previous Taoiseach and leader of Fine Gael, Leo Varadkar, became the Tánaiste (deputy head of government).

[5][needs update] According to the V-Dem Democracy indices Ireland was the "7th most electoral democratic country" in the world in 2023.

[6] The state operates under the Constitution of Ireland (Irish: Bunreacht na hÉireann) which was adopted in 1937 by means of a plebiscite.

Important constitutional referendums have concerned issues such as abortion, the status of the Catholic Church, divorce, the European Union and same-sex marriage.

In keeping with the state's parliamentary system of government, the President exercises a mainly ceremonial role but does possess certain specific powers.

A candidate may be nominated for election as president by no fewer than 20 members of the Oireachtas or by four or more of Ireland's 31 County and City Councils.

The President may not veto bills passed by the Oireachtas but may, after consultation with the Council of State, refer them to the Supreme Court of Ireland for a ruling on whether they comply with the constitution.

Members of the Dáil are directly elected at least once in every five years under the single transferable vote form of proportional representation from multi-seat constituencies.

Judges are appointed by the President after being nominated by the Government and can be removed from office only for misbehaviour or incapacity, and then only by resolution of both houses of the Oireachtas.

The Supreme Court rarely sits as a full bench and normally hears cases in chambers of three, five or seven judges.

Commercial activities, where the state involves itself, are typically through the state-sponsored bodies which are usually organised in a similar fashion to private companies.

The civil service is expected to maintain the political impartiality in its work, and some sections of it are entirely independent of Government decision making.

For instance local authorities, Education and Training Boards and Garda Síochána are considered to be public services.

It first formed a government on the basis of a populist programme of land redistribution and national preference in trade and republican populism remains a key part of its appeal.

The current-day party split from this older Sinn Féin in a dispute over political ideology and a perceived lack of support for the so-called “armed struggle” against British rule in Northern Ireland, and as a result the newer party has been historically linked to the Provisional IRA.

The third-largest party in the Dáil is Fine Gael, which has its origins in the pro-Treaty faction of Michael Collins in the Irish Civil War.

Despite expressions of Social Democracy by previous leader Garret FitzGerald, today, it remains a Christian democratic, economically liberal party along European lines, with a strongly pro-European outlook.

Fine Gael was formed in 1933 out of a merger of Cumann na nGaedheal (which had split from the original Sinn Féin in 1922), the National Centre Party and the paramilitary Blueshirts organisation.

Labour won a record number of seats, 37, at the 2011 general election, becoming the second-largest party for the first time in its history, following the collapse in support for Fianna Fáil.

Much of this was due to being part of a government that had introduced unpopular austerity measures to deal with the economic crisis.

This policy has helped the Irish Defence Forces to be successful in their contributions to UN peace-keeping missions since 1960 (in the Congo Crisis ONUC) and subsequently in Cyprus (UNFICYP), Lebanon (UNIFIL), Iran/Iraq Border (UNIIMOG), Bosnia and Herzegovina (SFOR & EUFOR Althea), Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE), Liberia (UNMIL), East Timor (INTERFET), Darfur and Chad (EUFOR Tchad/RCA).

After the formation of Northern Ireland in 1921 following its opt out from the newly formed Irish Free State, many Roman Catholics and Republicans were discriminated against.

The abolition of Proportional Representation and the gerrymandering of constituency boundaries led to Unionists being over-represented at Stormont and at Westminster.

This conflict exploded into violence in the late sixties with the beginning of the Troubles, involving groups such as the Provisional IRA, loyalist paramilitaries, the police and the British army, the latter originally drafted in to protect Catholic communities from loyalist violence.

These clashes were to result in the suspension of the Stormont Parliament and unsuccessful efforts by the British Government to encourage a power-sharing Executive in Northern Ireland which were only realised following the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.

The Troubles caused thousands of deaths in Northern Ireland but also spilled over into bombings and acts of violence in England and the Republic.

While Sinn Féin have long organised in both Northern Ireland and the Republic, Fianna Fáil did not register as a party in Derry until December 2007,[13] when it also began recruiting members at Queen's University, Belfast although both are extremely small.