The Trade deal with England feels like the "Special Relationship"

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. Ireland's GDP is a bit odd, because many multinationals use it as their EU headquarters

because it has an advantageous tax regime. This means there's "income" there which then gets paid abroad to a parent company, typically in the USA. If you look at Gross National Income ("equal to gross domestic product (GDP), plus factor incomes received from non-resident by residents, minus factor income paid by residents to non-resident" ), it's more or less equal with the US: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GNI_%28nominal%29_per_capita (still comfortably above UK's GNI per capita, though).