The Taoiseach (/ˈtiːʃəx/; Irish pronunciation: [ˈt̪ˠiːʃəx] ( listen)) is the head of government or prime minister of Ireland. The Taoiseach is appointed by the President upon the nomination of Dáil Éireann, the lower house of the Oireachtas (parliament), and must, in order to remain in office, retain the support of a majority in the Dáil. The current Taoiseach is Enda Kenny, TD who was appointed on 9 March 2011.

The earliest known use of the term is from a 5th- or 6th-century ogham inscription in both Gaelic and British. The plural of taoiseach is taoisigh (Irish pronunciation: [t̪ˠiːʃiː] or [t̪ˠiːʃəɟ]).

Under the Constitution of Ireland, the Taoiseach must be appointed from among the members of Dáil Éireann. He is nominated by a simple majority of the chamber's members, and formally appointed to office by the President. Since the President is required to appoint whomever the Dáil nominates without the right to decline appointment, it is often said that the Taosieach is "elected" by the Dáil.

Enda Kenny (born 24 April 1951) is an Irish Fine Gael politician, and has been the Taoiseach since 2011. He has led Fine Gael since 2002. He served as Minister for Tourism and Trade from 1994 to 1997. He is also a two-term Vice President of the European People's Party.

Kenny has been a Teachta Dála (TD) for Mayo since 1975, having succeeded his father Henry Kenny. He is the longest-serving TD currently in Dáil Éireann, which makes him the incumbent Father of the Dáil.

Kenny led Fine Gael in the 2011 general election. He subsequently brokered an agreement with the Labour Party and formed a coalition government on 9 March 2011. He is Fine Gael's first Taoiseach since John Bruton from 1994 to 1997, and the first Fine Gael leader to win government in an election since Garret FitzGerald in 1982.

Enda Kenny was born in the village of Islandeady near Castlebar, County Mayo in 1951, the third child of five. He was educated locally at St. Patrick's National School in Cornanool and St. Gerald's College (De La Salle) in Castlebar. Kenny subsequently attended St Patrick's College of Education in Dublin and University College Galway. He briefly worked as a primary school teacher, and is a Gaeilgeoir.

Garret FitzGerald (9 February 1926 – 19 May 2011) was an Irish politician who was twice Taoiseach of Ireland, serving in office from July 1981 to February 1982 and again from December 1982 to March 1987. FitzGerald was elected to Seanad Éireann in 1965 and was subsequently elected to Dáil Éireann as a Fine Gael TD in 1969. He served as Foreign Affairs Minister from 1973 to 1977. FitzGerald was the leader of Fine Gael between 1977 and 1987.

He was the son of Desmond FitzGerald, the first Minister for External Affairs of the nascent Irish state following independence from the United Kingdom in 1922. At the time of his death, FitzGerald was the President of the Institute of International and European Affairs, had a column in The Irish Times and made occasional appearances on television programmes.

Garret FitzGerald was born in Dublin in 1926 into a very politically active family. His mother Mabel McConnell had worked for Under-Secretary for Ireland, James Macmahon decoding messages sent from London. Each day between 2:30 and 3:30 she would pass any information acquired to either Joe McGrath, Liam Tobin or Garret's father, Desmond.Desmond FitzGerald was the London-born and raised. He was Minister for External Affairs at the time of his son's birth. FitzGerald senior, whose father had emigrated as a labourer from Skeheenarinky in County Tipperary, had been active in Sinn Féin during the Irish War of Independence, and had been one of the founders of Cumann na nGaedheal. The party was formed to support the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921, which created the Irish Free State.

Dermot John Morgan (31 March 1952 – 28 February 1998) was an Irish comedian, actor and previously a schoolteacher, who achieved international renown for his role as Father Ted Crilly in the Channel 4 sitcom Father Ted.

Born in Dublin and educated at Oatlands College, Stillorgan, and University College, Dublin (U.C.D.), Morgan first came to prominence as part of the team of the highly successful RTÉ television show The Live Mike, presented by Mike Murphy. Between 1979 and 1984 Morgan, previously a full-time teacher at St. Michael's College, Ailesbury Road, played a range of comic characters, who would appear between segments, including Father Trendy, an unctuous trying-to-be-cool Catholic priest given to drawing ludicrous parallels with non-religious life in two-minute 'chats' to camera. He also played (among other characters) an intolerant GAA bigot, who would wave his hurley around aggressively while verbally attacking his pet hates. He lampooned the Wolfe Tones' song "A Nation Once Again" by singing of a dog who saves his Irish Republican Army (I.R.A.) master by eating a grenade during a search by the Black and Tans. When the dog farts and the grenade detonates, the British commented that, "It must have been something he ate." The song climaxed with the words, "I hope that I shall live to see Fido an Alsatian once again."

Gerry Adams (Irish: Gearóid Mac Ádhaimh; born 6 October 1948 in Belfast, Northern Ireland) is an Irish republican politician and Teachta Dála (TD) for the constituency of Louth. From 1983 to 1992 and from 1997 to 2011, he was an abstentionist Westminster Member of Parliament for Belfast West. He is the president of Sinn Féin, the second largest political party in Northern Ireland and the largest nationalist party. From the late 1980s onwards, Adams was an important figure in the Northern Ireland peace process, initially following contact by the then Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) leader John Hume and subsequently with the Irish and British governments and then other parties. In 2005, the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) indicated that its armed campaign was over and that it is now exclusively committed to democratic politics. Under Adams, Sinn Féin changed its traditional policy of abstentionism towards Oireachtas Éireann, the parliament of the Republic of Ireland, in 1986 and later took seats in the power-sharing Northern Ireland Assembly. However, Sinn Féin retains a policy of abstentionism towards the Westminster Parliament, but since 2002, receives allowances for staff and takes up offices in the House of Commons.