*Note: I'm not going to pretend to be an expert on European/British history, because I definitely am not, but this is a quick and dirty version. If you're particularly interested, you should research it further.
So, as you can see, Ireland is not related to England/Great Britian/United Kingdom at all. In fact, Ireland was about as assertive as the USA when it separated from the oppression of the British. Thanks to my Australian roommate, who is half-Aussie, half-Irish, I now know that the British absolutely took over Ireland and made the Irish their slaves. (You might also remember that the Scottish also did this if you have seen Braveheart, but they still didn't quite create a republic like the Irish.)
The Irish fought for their independence and defeated the British in the Irish War of Independence from 1919-1921. This, primarily, was a war of religious freedom. The Irish are, as you might know, Catholic and the British are Protestant. In short, the British came in to Ireland, took over the land, turned the Irish in to their slaves and forced them to practice their Protestant Christian religion. Sound familiar? It should. (Think Spanish/Native Americans.) We can see from this that the British have always been pretty good at pushing their beliefs on their colonies. Look what came out of that--a brand new nation completely founded on the concept of religious freedom. So, that actually worked out pretty good for Americans (and the Irish!).
As you can see, Scotland, Wales, and England all create the Great Britain, which refers to the union of those countries that make up the island itself. These three countries as well as Northern Ireland (which isn't technically its own country) make up the United Kingdom, which means all these countries are directly under the Queen.
The Republic of Ireland has no part in either of these bodies and most certainly does not have any connection with the Queen or British monarchy, much like the United States of America.
Then we have the topic of British Commonwealths, which I have also learned about from the Australians and the Canadian upstairs. (We, literally, have the "gathering of nations" in Clarence Dock.) Okay, so Australia, for example, is a member of the Commonwealth, which means that they, technically, are under the Queen as well. Even though Australia has a sovereign parliament, the Queen still "oversees" the nation. Australia has a Governor General who will sign legislation "on behalf of the Queen," but if the Queen wanted to intervene, she could. In fact, the Australian constitution is an act of the British Parliament. If Australia ever wanted to become a republic (like Ireland or the USA), they would have to completely rewrite their constitution and declare their independence from the British Crown. Australia's form of government is called the "Washminster" model because it is a mix between the Washington way of government, and the Westminster way of parliament. Australia has the Queen on their money and in their national anthem.
There are 54 countries who are still members of the Commonwealth. Each of these countries have sovereign governments and voluntary remain connected to England and are usually countries that were colonized by the British.
Sound confusing? Don't understand why any country would feel connected to the British monarchy BESIDES England? Then you are probably an American or from another nation that aggressively asserted its independence from whatever nation was oppressing it.
It is difficult for Americans to even grasp this type of concept since we were so assertive in declaring our independence from the British, but other countries just don't feel the same way about independence and individualism as we do. Take the European Union for example. The EU established a collection of norms for European nations to take to, essentially making them all quite similar, and effectively diminishing individualism. If you are an EU citizen travelling within the EU, it is literally like you never even leave the country, the currency is the same, the immigration laws are practically nonexistent, you pay EU taxes (which could go to any member of the EU), the list goes on. Can you imagine the US joining a union with Canada and Mexico and standardizing everything? The other day I casually noted that I didn't notice very many British flags flying and my German roommate responded that the flag flying was quite American and that you wouldn't see a flag flying on every corner in Germany either.
That was a little scattered, but it was something I wanted to talk about because it has been on my mind. Comment if you have any other thoughts!
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