The Ambassador from the United Kingdom to Ireland is the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

's foremost diplomatic representative

Diplomat

A diplomat is a person appointed by a state to conduct diplomacy with another state or international organization. The main functions of diplomats revolve around the representation and protection of the interests and nationals of the sending state, as well as the promotion of information and...

 in Ireland

Republic of Ireland

Ireland , described as the Republic of Ireland , is a sovereign state in Europe occupying approximately five-sixths of the island of the same name. Its capital is Dublin. Ireland, which had a population of 4.58 million in 2011, is a constitutional republic governed as a parliamentary democracy,...

 and is in charge of the UK's diplomatic mission

Diplomatic mission

A diplomatic mission is a group of people from one state or an international inter-governmental organisation present in another state to represent the sending state/organisation in the receiving state...

 in Ireland.

Official title

For several decades the British and Irish governments disputed the respective names of their States: the United Kingdom of Great Britiain and Northern Ireland and Ireland respectively. The UK's official policy was to refer to Ireland as the Republic of Ireland. The UK styled its Ambassador in Ireland as Her Majesty's Ambassador to the Republic of Ireland. Up to and including the year 1999, the Diplomatic List issued by the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office referred to the Republic of Ireland. However, this dispute over names was ended following the Good Friday Agreement. Consequently, since 2000 the British Diplomatic List has referred to Ireland, and the credentials presented by the British ambassador, Stewart Eldon, in 2003, were addressed to the President of Ireland. The British Ambassador to Ireland has since been styled officially as Her Majesty's Ambassador to Ireland.

List of heads of mission

The first British diplomatic representatives to Ireland did not have the title of Ambassador, instead having the title of "Representative". In 1949, when the Oireachtas

Oireachtas

The Oireachtas , sometimes referred to as Oireachtas Éireann, is the "national parliament" or legislature of Ireland. The Oireachtas consists of:*The President of Ireland*The two Houses of the Oireachtas :**Dáil Éireann...

 passed the Republic of Ireland Act

Republic of Ireland Act

The Republic of Ireland Act 1948 is an Act of the Oireachtas which declared the Irish state to be a republic, and vested in the President of Ireland the power to exercise the executive authority of the state in its external relations, on the advice of the Government of Ireland...

 and thereby left the British Commonwealth

Commonwealth of Nations

The Commonwealth of Nations, normally referred to as the Commonwealth and formerly known as the British Commonwealth, is an intergovernmental organisation of fifty-four independent member states...

, the office was upgraded to ambassador status.

Representatives

• 1939–1948: John Maffey
  John Maffey, 1st Baron Rugby
  John Loader Maffey, 1st Baron Rugby, GCMG, KCB, KCVO, CSI, CIE was a British civil servant.Maffey was the younger son of Thomas Maffey, a commercial traveller of Rugby, Warwickshire, and his wife Mary Penelope, daughter of John Loader...
  
  
• 1949–1950: Gilbert Laithwaite
  Gilbert Laithwaite
  Sir Gilbert John Laithwaite, GCMG, KCB, KCIE, CSI was a civil servant and diplomat.-Early life:Gilbert Laithwaite was the eldest of two sons and two daughters, born in Dublin. His father was John Laithwaite of the Post Office survey. His mother was Mary Kearney whose family hailed from Castlerea,...
  
  

The appointment of the first United Kingdom representative in the late 1930s was a matter of some political discussion in the UK cabinet, the cabinet's minutes of September 1939 recording the following extract:

The Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs

Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs

The position of Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs was a British cabinet level position created in 1925 responsible for British relations with the Dominions — Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Newfoundland, and the Irish Free State, as well as the self-governing colony of...

 reported that Mr de Valera had expressed himself as willing to receive a representative of the United Kingdom Government in Dublin. He proposed that this representative should have the title of Ambassador, but it had been intimated that this was impossible from our point of view and the title "Representative" had been agreed. The Secretary of State thought that until [the United Kingdom] representative had been appointed, it would be undesirable that the Defence Departments should raise with the Éire Government, the grant of any major defence facilities (e.g. the use of Brerhaven)

Ambassadors to Ireland

• 1950–1951: Gilbert Laithwaite
  Gilbert Laithwaite
  Sir Gilbert John Laithwaite, GCMG, KCB, KCIE, CSI was a civil servant and diplomat.-Early life:Gilbert Laithwaite was the eldest of two sons and two daughters, born in Dublin. His father was John Laithwaite of the Post Office survey. His mother was Mary Kearney whose family hailed from Castlerea,...
  
  
• 1951–1955: Walter Hankinson
• 1955–1959: Alexander Clutterbuck
• 1959–1964: Ian Maclennan
• 1964–1967: Sir Geofroy Tory
• 1967–1970: Andrew Gilchrist
  Andrew Gilchrist
  Sir Andrew Graham Gilchrist, KCMG was a Special Operations Executive operative and later a UK ambassador.-Early career in Foreign Office and SOE:...
  
  
• 1970–1973: John Peck
• 1973–1976: Sir Arthur Galsworthy
• July 1976: Christopher Ewart-Biggs
  Christopher Ewart-Biggs
  Christopher Ewart-Biggs, CMG, OBE was the British Ambassador to Ireland and an author. He was assassinated by the Provisional Irish Republican Army in Sandyford, Dublin....
  
  
• 1976–1980: Walter Robert Haydon
• 1980–1983: Leonard Figg
• 1983–1986: Alan Goodison
• 1986–1991: Nicholas Fenn
• 1991–1995: Sir David Blatherwick
  David Blatherwick (diplomat)
  Sir David Elliott Spiby Blatherwick, KCMG, OBE is a retired British diplomat.Educated at Lincoln School and Wadham College, Oxford, he joined the Foreign Office in 1964. His diplomatic postings were in Kuwait, New York City, the Republic of Ireland and Egypt. He served as ambassador to Ireland...
  
  
• 1995–1999: Veronica Sutherland
  Veronica Sutherland
  Dame Veronica Evelyn Sutherland, DBE, CMG is a former British career diplomat who served in government from 1965 until 1999, including a stint as Ambassador to the Republic of Ireland...
  
  
• 1999–2003: Sir Ivor Roberts
  Ivor Roberts (ambassador)
  Sir Ivor Anthony Roberts, KCMG, MA Oxford, FCIL is President of Trinity College, Oxford and was formerly British Ambassador to Yugoslavia, Ireland, and Italy...
  
  
• 2003–2006: Stewart Eldon CMG QBE
• 2006–2009:: David Reddaway
  David Reddaway
  David Norman Reddaway, CMG, MBE is the British ambassador to Turkey.-Biography:Before his appointment to Turkey in 2009, he was the British ambassador to Ireland....
  
  
• 2009–: Julian King
  Julian King (diplomat)
  Julian Beresford King, CMG , is the British Ambassador to Ireland, appointed in September 2009, succeeding David Reddaway....
  
  

External links

• Anglo-Irish role call– list of ambassadors, from the Sunday Independent
  Sunday Independent
  The Sunday Independent is a broadsheet Sunday newspaper published in Ireland by Independent News and Media plc. The newspaper is edited by Aengus Fanning, and is the biggest selling Irish Sunday newspaper by a large margin ; average circulation of 291,323 between June 2004 and January 2005,...
  
  newspaper, 16 July 2006
• British Embassy in Ireland