The many sports played and followed in Ireland include Gaelic games (mainly Gaelic football and hurling), horse racing, show jumping, greyhound racing, basketball, fishing, handball, motor sport, target shooting and tennis.
Hockey, golf, rowing, cricket, rugby union and Olympic target shooting are organised in an all-island basis, with a single team representing the whole of Ireland in international competitions. Other sports, such as soccer and netball, have separate organizing bodies in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.
As Northern Ireland is a constitute nation of the United Kingdom it also sends a Northern Ireland Team to the Commonwealth Games. At the Olympic Games, a person from Northern Ireland can choose to represent either Ireland or Great Britain.
Gaelic football is the most popular sport in Ireland in terms of match attendance, and in 2003 accounted for 34% of total sports attendances at events in the Republic of Ireland, followed by hurling at 23%, soccer at 16% and rugby at 8%, and Initiative's ViewerTrack study measuring 2005 sports audiences showed the sport's highest-profile match, the All-Ireland Football Final, to be the most watched event of the nation's sporting year. Gaelic football is the most played team sport in Ireland. Soccer, hurling, golf, aerobics, cycling, swimming and billiards/snooker are the other sporting activities with the highest levels of playing participation in the Republic of Ireland.
Ireland (i/ˈaɪərlənd/; Irish: Éire [ˈeːɾʲə]; Ulster-Scots: Airlann [ˈɑːrlən]) is an island in the North Atlantic. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel, the Irish Sea, and St George's Channel. Ireland is the second-largest island of the British Isles, the third-largest in Europe, and the twentieth-largest on Earth.
Politically, Ireland is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially named Ireland), which covers five-sixths of the island, and Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom, and located in the northeast of the island. In 2011 the population of Ireland was about 6.4 million, ranking it the second-most populous island in Europe after Great Britain. Just under 4.6 million live in the Republic of Ireland and just over 1.8 million live in Northern Ireland.
The island's geography comprises relatively low-lying mountains surrounding a central plain, with several navigable rivers extending inland. The island has lush vegetation, a product of its mild but changeable climate which avoids extremes in temperature. Thick woodlands covered the island until the Middle Ages. As of 2013, the amount of land that is wooded in Ireland is about 11% of the total, compared with a European average of 35%. There are 26 extant mammal species native to Ireland. The Irish climate is very moderated and classified as oceanic. As a result, winters are milder than expected for such a northerly area. However, summers are cooler than those in Continental Europe. Rainfall and cloud cover are abundant.
Ireland usually refers to:
Ireland may also refer to:
Coordinates: 52°03′36″N 0°20′54″W / 52.06002°N 0.34836°W / 52.06002; -0.34836
Ireland is a hamlet in the civil parish of Southill, Bedfordshire, England.
Media related to Ireland, Bedfordshire at Wikimedia Commons