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There are many small airports throughout Ireland, the three most important international airports in the Republic are Cork Airport, Shannon Airport and Dublin Airport. In Northern Ireland there are three main airports. Belfast International provides routes to Ireland and Britain as well as many international services the most recent of which is Belfast- New York ( Newark). The City of Derry Airport and Belfast City often provide few flights to locations outside of the United Kingdom; there are also several small airports in the Republic that limit their services to Ireland and the United Kingdom.
The rail network in Ireland was developed by various private companies with the help of British Government funding throughout the late 19th century, reaching its greatest extent around the 1920s. The standard gauge of 1600 mm (5 ft 3 in) was standardised upon thoughout the island, although there were narrow gauge (3 ft) railways also. Ireland also has one of the largest freight railways in Europe, operated by Bord na Móna, this company has a narrow gauge railway of 1200 miles.
The island of Ireland has a quite extensive road network, despite the low quality of many of these until recently. Northern Ireland has historically had better main roads, while the Republic of Ireland has an increasing motorway network, focused on Dublin.
For much of their existence electricity networks in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland were entirely separate. Both networks were designed and constructed independently, but are now connected with three interlinks and also connected by Northern Ireland Electricity (NIE) though Great Britain to mainland Europe. The Electricity Supply Board (ESB) in the Republic drove a rural electrification programme in the 1940s until the 1970s.
The natural gas network is also now all-island, with a connection from Northern Ireland to Scotland.
Ireland, north and south has faced difficulties in providing continuous power at peak load. Especially during the winter, power outages have been forced due to inadequate power generation. The situation in Northern Ireland is complicated by the issue of private companies not supplying NIE with enough power, while in the Republic, the government has failed to modernise power plants owned by ESB. In the latter case, availability of power plants has averaged 66% recently, one of the worst such figures in Western Europe.
There have been recent efforts in Ireland to use renewable energy such as wind energy with large wind farms being constructed in coastal counties such as Mayo and County Antrim. These constructions have in some cases been delayed by opposition from locals, some of whom consider the wind turbines to be unsightly. Another issue in the Republic of Ireland is the failure of the aging network to cope with the varying availability of power from such installations. Turlough Hill is the only energy storage mechanism in Ireland.
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