Irish States have existed under a number of different names for nearly a thousand years. A unified Irish proto-state had been coalescing from the multitude of small tribal kingdoms that existed circa AD 500, similar to the pattern elsewhere in Europe. The development of the several dynastic regional kingdoms into a nascent national kingdom, however, was extinguished by the Anglo-Norman invasion of 1169.

This list deals with the various states that existed from 1171 onwards that owed their origin to English involvement on the island of Ireland. Until the whole island was conquered in 1609 these states shared the island of Ireland with a patchwork of indigenous states that existed outside of their authority.

The list below refers to all-Ireland (or nominally all-Ireland) states and to the post-partition states, not the patchwork of small Gaelic kingdoms.

• The Lordship of Ireland (1171-1541)

• The Kingdom of Ireland (1541-1800)

• Confederate Ireland was an Irish government that controlled much of Ireland between 1641 and 1649.

• Part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (1801-1922)

• The unilaterally declared Irish Republic (1919-22) also called Poblacht na hÉireann and later known as Saorstat na hÉireann or Respublica Hibernica.

• Northern Ireland (1921- present) and Southern Ireland (1921-22), both created by the Government of Ireland Act 1920, though only the former existed in reality; Southern Ireland became

• The Irish Free State (Saorstát Éireann) (1922-37), and then

• Éire or, in the English language, Ireland (1937 - present), often known since 1949 as

• The Republic of Ireland (1949 - present), being an official description.

The constitutional name of the republic in English remains Ireland, the President being referred to as the President of Ireland, rather than the President of the Republic of Ireland.

For international purposes the King of Great Britain was also King of Ireland until 1949, but from 1937 his internal powers in Éire had been transfered to the President of Ireland.