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The Irish Sea (Irish Muir Éireann or Muir Meann; Scottish Gaelic Muir Eireann Welsh Môr Iwerddon, Manx Mooir Vannin) separates the islands of Ireland and Great Britain. It is connected to the Celtic Sea portion of the Atlantic Ocean by St George's Channel between Ireland and Wales, and to the north by the North Channel between Northern Ireland and Scotland which forms part of the International Hydrographic Organisation designated Inner Seas off the West Coast of Scotland marine area. The Isle of Man lies within of the Irish Sea. The sea is of significant economic importance to regional trade, shipping and transport, fishing and power generation in the form of wind power and nuclear plants. There has been long discussion of building an 80&_160;km (50 mile) rail tunnel to link Britain and Ireland. Annual traffic between the two islands amounts to over 12 million passengers and 17 million tonnes of trade. Unlike Britain, Ireland has no tunnel or bridge connection to mainland Europe. Thus the vast majority of heavy goods trade is done by sea. Northern Irish ports handle 10 million tonnes of goods trade with Britain annually, while ports in the Republic handle 7.6 million tonnes, representing 50% and 40% respectively of total trade by weight. The Port of Liverpool handles 32 million tonnes of cargo and 734 thousand passengers a year.[1] Holyhead port handles most of the passenger traffic from Dublin and Dún Laoghaire ports, as well as 3.3 million tonnes of freight.[2] Ports in the Republic handle 3,600,000 travellers crossing the Irish Sea each year, amounting to 92% of all sea travel.[3] This has been steadily dropping for a number of years (20% since 1999), probably as a result of low cost airlines.[citation needed]
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