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Use of 'Republic of Ireland' and 'Ireland' for the Irish state

In general the state should be referred to as Ireland. There are situations however when, for clarity and/or disambiguation, distinctions will need to be made a) between Ireland-the-state and Ireland-the-island and b) to avoid confusion with regard to Northern Ireland. In these situation the preferred means to do so is to call the island Ireland and the state the Republic of Ireland (this can be emphasised where necessary by use the phrase island of Ireland).

While the final decision to use one set of terms or the other should be determined by the unique contexts of each situation, the following rules of thumb will generally hold true:

• In lists of sovereign states, when discussing economies, governments or other qualities of states, the state should be referred to as Ireland e.g. Economy of Europe, NATO
• When describing the area served by an organisation that is primarily all-island, use the phrase island of Ireland in the first instance and either Ireland or island of Ireland thereafter e.g. Supermacs
• Always use the official titles of state offices (e.g. the President of Ireland, never the President of the Republic of Ireland)
• When writing about the state and Northern Ireland in the same context, use the Republic of Ireland (or the Republic thereafter) e.g. the border should be described as being between "the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland" never as being between "Ireland and Northern Ireland".
• For articles where historical correctness is important (e.g. The Emergency (Ireland)) the state should be called the Irish Free State for the period between 6 December 1922 to 29 December 1937. In the same kind of articles, for the period thereafter until the coming into force of the Republic of Ireland Act (18 April 1949), the state not be referred to as the Republic of Ireland (another means to distinguish Ireland-the-state from Ireland-the-island should be used as necessary).