New Ireland

• Location: Papua New Guinea
• Variant names: 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.

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