New Ireland

New Ireland volcanic island (1990 pop. 64,615), c.3,340 sq mi (8,650 sq km), SW Pacific, in the Bismarck Archipelago , part of Papua New Guinea. New Ireland is largely mountainous, rising to c.4,000 ft (1,220 m). Much of the island is under cultivation, especially the east coast. Kavieng is the chief town and port. The island was first sighted in 1616 but until 1797 was thought to be part of New Britain, from which it is separated by a 20-mi (32-km) channel. The island was a German protectorate from 1884 to 1914 and was called Neu Mecklenburg (New Mecklenburg) by the Germans.

New Ireland, one of the Bismarck archipelago islands and part of the Australian mandated territory of New Guinea. Its capital Kavieng, was only defended by an Australian Independent Company (see Australia, 5(e)) when the Japanese landed there on 23 January 1942. It was quickly overrun and Kavieng became an important Japanese base with the island being garrisoned by about 11,000 troops. For this reason it was, like Rabaul, bypassed during MacArthur's advance northwards, and Emirau island and Hollandia were occupied instead. The garrison surrendered at the end of the war.See also Pacific war.

New Ireland, Papua New Guinea Nova Hibernia, New Mecklenburg First discovererd by Jakob le Maire, a Dutch navigator, who thought that it was a part of a single large island that included New Britain and New Guinea. In 1767 Philip Carteret (d.1796), a British navigator, discovered that New Britain was an island in its own right and so named the smaller island lying to the north‐east Nova Hibernia ‘New Ireland’. It was annexed by Germany in 1884 and renamed New Mecklenburg. The previous name was restored when Australia assumed a League of Nations mandate after the First World War. After the Second World War it was part of the UN Trust Territory of New Guinea before joining Papua New Guinea when it achieved independence in 1975.