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The Bank of Ireland, officially known as the Governor and Company of the Bank of Ireland is a commercial bank operation on the island of Ireland, one of the 'Big Four'. The bank was formed by an Act of the Irish Parliament in 1782 to support public and commercial finances in Ireland. The headquarters of the bank until the 1970s was the impressive, Bank of Ireland building in Dublin. This building hosted the Irish Parliament before the Act of Union 1800. Today visitors can still view the impressive Irish House of Lords chamber within the building. The banks headquaters is now a modern building in Baggot Street, Dublin, but the Bank of Ireland in College Green remains a working branch.
In 1958, the Bank took over the Hibernian Bank Limited and in 1965 the National Bank of Ireland Limited, and rebranded them as Bank of Ireland.
Today the bank is based throughout the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom, it offers the Laser payment system. In Northern Ireland, the bank prints its own banknotes in Pound Sterling. In the UK, the bank expanded largely through the takeover of the Bristol and West Building Society in 1996.
Until the 1970s, the Bank of Ireland was the government's banker but not the central bank. The central bank was only formed twenty years after the Irish Free State and is called the Central Bank of Ireland.
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