Ireland is an English-speaking country with close cultural, economic and educational links with the English-speaking world, especially with the UK - our next-door neighbor and with the USA, where Irish Americans form a high proportion of the population. We are European - part of the EU family of nations and cultures and of the increasingly integrated European Education Area. Ireland is Global in outlook - for several centuries Irish people have emigrated to and settled in many countries around the globe and today we welcome people to Ireland from all over the world.

... from the mediaeval monastic centers, to the "hedge schools" of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, to the schools and colleges of today ...
... from the Irish scholar monks in Europe in the middle ages, to the missionary teachers of the 19th and 20th century in Asia, Africa and the Americas, to the international scholars and researchers of today ...
... from the 8th century Book of Kells to Joyce, Beckett, Shaw, Heaney ...
...from the traditional, cultural and literary to leading-edge, 21st century science and technology.

Ireland has one of the best education systems in the world according to the 2004 IMD World Competitiveness Report. It has close links to industry and is characterized by creativity, flexibility, agility, pragmatism and informality. Education has been a key factor in making Ireland one of the fastest growing economies in the world over the past decade. Government policy on investment in research and "4th level" education as the key to developing Ireland as a knowledge society in the new global economy.