The
Republic of Ireland – United Kingdom border is the international boundary between
Ireland and the
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It is also referred to as the
Irish border, or (on the island of
Ireland) simply as
the Border.
The border runs for a total of 360 kilometres (224 miles) from Lough Foyle on the northern edge of the island to Carlingford Lough in the east on the Irish Sea, and is the only land frontier in either Ireland or the United Kingdom. In common with many international borders in the European Union, it is very inconspicuous and open by world standards. While both countries are outside the European Union's Schengen Area, they do share a common travel area resulting in an essentially open border.
The border was created in 1921 under the United Kingdom Parliament's Government of Ireland Act of 1920, legislating for Home Rule in Ireland, with separate parliaments for Southern Ireland and what became Northern Ireland.[1] Six of the thirty-two counties of Ireland were assigned to Northern Ireland, and the rest of the island of Ireland to Southern Ireland. The Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921, which led to the creation of the Irish Free State (a Dominion established for the whole island of Ireland on 6 December 1922), retained the 1920 border as a provisional frontier.
Originally intended as an internal frontier within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the border became an international frontier in December 1922 when the Parliament of Northern Ireland exercised its right to opt out of the Irish Free State. The Irish Free State was largely independent of the United Kingdom from its creation, with this status being formalised by the adoption of the Statute of Westminster in 1931. An Irish Boundary Commission met to draw a border between the two jurisdictions, based on the demographic make-up in the north of Ireland (including the counties now in the Republic of Ireland). However, its recommendations were not favoured by either side and the boundary was agreed formally, without changes from the 1920 demarcation lines. The Boundary Commission Report has never been published.
