The American people and government have enjoyed amicable and supportive relations with the Republic of Ireland, an independent nationstate, and the smaller Northern Ireland, an integral part of the United Kingdom, since Ireland’s division in 1920.

However, relations were strained during the Second World War when the Irish state, then known as Éire, remained neutral. Northern Ireland, on the other hand, was the site of bases for US forces staging for the invasion of western Europe. Since the war, US—Irish relations improved greatly during the Kennedy administration, while US—Northern Irish relations were muted after the return of “the Troubles” in 1969 due to British insistence that they were strictly an internal affair. Since that time, however, the US, through the International Fund for Ireland, has provided capital for economic development in Northern Ireland, and the Clinton administration has played an important role in the peace initiatives of the late 1990s.

The US continues to welcome Irish immigrants, in what is part of the special relationship between the two lands, while Irish Americans, the second-largest group of European ancestry in the US, sustain wide social and cultural ties with families and friends in the “Zold country.” Today Ireland, North and South, has become a favorite location for American corporations (particularly in the fields of services, software and communications) that want access to the European Union, which both Irelands joined in 1973.