Italy is 4.3 times larger than Ireland.
Area: 70,273 km2 World Factbook
Population: 4,832,765 (July 2014) World Factbook
Ireland, also commonly referred to as the Republic of Ireland, is a sovereign state in Europe occupying about five-sixths of the island of Ireland. Wikipedia
Area: 301,340 km2 World Factbook
Population: 61,680,122 (July 2014) World Factbook
Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a unitary parliamentary republic in Southern Europe. To the north, Italy borders France, Switzerland, Austria, and Slovenia, and is approximately delimited by the Alpine watershed, enclosing the Po Valley and the Venetian Plain. Wikipedia