ABSTRACT

The Republic of Ireland has a population of 4.7 million people. The major cities are Dublin (1.1 million); Cork (200,000); Limerick (90,000); Galway (80,000); and Waterford (50,000). Over 90 per cent of the population are practising Roman Catholics and the country has two official languages: English and Irish. Irish (Gaelic) is spoken mainly in areas located along the western seaboard and has about 83,000 native speakers. The unit of currency is the Euro.