Ireland

The

head of government The head of government is the highest or the second-highest official in the executive branch of a sovereign state, a federated state, or a self-governing colony, autonomous region, or other government who often presides over a cabinet, a g ...

, or prime minister, of

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel, the Irish Sea, and St George's Channel. Ireland is the s ...

is known as the

Taoiseach The Taoiseach is the head of government, or prime minister, of Ireland. The office is appointed by the president of Ireland upon the nomination of Dáil Éireann (the lower house of the Oireachtas, Ireland's national legislature) and the offic ...

and heads a cabinet called the

Government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government i ...

. However, since 1919, heads of government in the Irish state have borne a number of titles. Under the short-lived

Irish Republic The Irish Republic ( ga, Poblacht na hÉireann or ) was an unrecognised revolutionary state that declared its independence from the United Kingdom in January 1919. The Republic claimed jurisdiction over the whole island of Ireland, but by ...

of 1919–22 the head of government was known first as the

President of Dáil Éireann President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) *President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese fu ...

and later as the President of the Republic. Under the

Irish Free State The Irish Free State ( ga, Saorstát Éireann, , ; 6 December 192229 December 1937) was a state established in December 1922 under the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921. The treaty ended the three-year Irish War of Independence between the ...

of 1922–37 the head of government was the President of the Executive Council. There also briefly existed, immediately before the creation of the Irish Free State, an interim office of

Chairman of the Provisional Government The Chairman of the Provisional Government of the Irish Free State was a transitional post established in January 1922, lasting until the creation of the Irish Free State in December 1922. The Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921 was passed by th ...

. For a brief period in 1921 the offices of President of the Republic and Chairman of the Provisional Government existed simultaneously.

Offices

List of officeholders

Northern Ireland

The most recent devolved cabinet in Northern Ireland is the

Northern Ireland Executive The Northern Ireland Executive is the devolved government of Northern Ireland, an administrative branch of the legislature – the Northern Ireland Assembly. It is answerable to the assembly and was initially established according to the term ...

, established under the

Good Friday Agreement The Good Friday Agreement (GFA), or Belfast Agreement ( ga, Comhaontú Aoine an Chéasta or ; Ulster-Scots: or ), is a pair of agreements signed on 10 April 1998 that ended most of the violence of The Troubles, a political conflict in N ...

. The Executive has been in operation, intermittently, since 1999; but had existed continuously since 2007, but after elections following a government collapsed on 16 January 2017, no Executive was formed until January 2020, when the parties came to an agreement and an Executive was subsequently established. Since 1921, there have been three different prime ministerial offices in Northern Ireland. The most recent structure, the Office of the First Minister and deputy First Minister, represents a

diarchy Diarchy (from Greek , ''di-'', "double", and , ''-arkhía'', "ruled"),Occasionally misspelled ''dyarchy'', as in the ''Encyclopaedia Britannica'' article on the colonial British institution duarchy, or duumvirate (from Latin ', "the office of ...

. As such, there is no longer a singular executive office, but rather a dual office.

Offices

List of officeholders

Notes

References

{{reflist Lists of heads of government Political history of Ireland Irish heads of government

Ireland

Offices

List of officeholders

Northern Ireland

Offices

List of officeholders

See also

Notes

References