A Brief History of Ireland

Ireland, situated on the western periphery of Europe, was one of the last places on the continent to be settled by humans around 10,000BC. These early settlers probably crossed by land bridge from Scotland during the Mesolithic or Middle Stone Age period and were predominantly hunter/gatherers dwelling mainly on the shores of lakes, rivers or the sea.

Following the Bronze Age a new cultural influence appeared in Ireland in the form of the Celts. Originating from central Europe these Celtic people quickly spread throughout much of modern day continental Europe and reached Ireland and the UK about 500BC. They were greatly aided in their endeavours as a result of the discovery of iron. This expansion of the Celtic peoples was more akin to a cultural expansion as opposed to any tangible empire and the Celts are credited with laying the foundations of what we perceive today to be modern Irish culture.

Between the 3rd and 5th century AD, Christian missionaries brought the new religion of the Roman Empire to Ireland. St Patrick is generally credited with bringing the Christian faith to Ireland however some sources claim that missionaries were active on the island long before his arrival. Whatever the real truth this new religion was to have an undoubtedly profound effect on the people and history of Ireland. Christianity not only provided the Irish with religious faith but also with a written language - Latin. Irish scholars excelled and monasteries flourished leading to the country being dubbed as the “island of saints and scholars”.

This golden age of Christian Irish culture was violently interrupted following the beginning of Viking raids in the 8th century. These Vikings made surprise raids along Irelands eastern shores, expertly sailing their longboats up Irish rivers and plundering nearby towns and monasteries. The lack of a unified defence and inferior Irish weapons gave the Vikings a free hand to do in Ireland as they wished. The Vikings established a number of permanent settlements in Ireland, most notably in Dublin, Waterford, and Wexford, and engaged in intermittent warfare with the indigenous Celtic population for a further two hundred years. The Vikings power in Ireland began to decline following their defeat by Brian Boru and his Irish forces in the Battle of Clontarf in 1014 heralding a new era of assimilation between Viking and Celtic tribes.

By the 12th century Ireland had become a land ruled by a number of provincial kings, each vying with the other in a number of petty squabbles aiming to increase their overall power. Ironically it was one of these kings who first led English troops to Ireland and in doing so began over 800 years of direct English involvement in Irish affairs. When one of these kings, Diarmait Mac Murchada of Leinster was exiled he sought the permission of Henry II of England to recruit Norman knights to help him restore his power in Ireland. These Norman barons led by Srongbow succeeded in restoring some of Diarmait’s power and Strongbow, by now Diarmait’s son-in-law, was named the successor to his lands. Henry II was alarmed by these developments and, fearing a strong rival Norman state on his western flanks, sought to establish his authority over Ireland.

Armed with papal consent Henry II became the first English king to set foot on Irish soil when he landed an army in Waterford in 1171. He then proceeded to pass on his new territories to his son thus bringing control of a large part of Ireland under the British crown. Over the next three centuries however these Anglo Norman nobles and their offspring assimilated gradually and successfully into Irish society and by the turn of the 16th century London’s direct control over Ireland was restricted to a small area around Dublin known as “the Pale”.

When Henry VIII broke with Rome following the pope’s refusal to grant him permission for a divorce he effectively placed England at odds with Catholic Europe and therefore Ireland. Henry VIII sought to re-establish English control over Ireland in an effort to consolidate his power and prevent Ireland being used as a base from which his enemies might attack him. In 1534 the earl of Kildare and effective ruler of Ireland led an attack on the English garrison in Dublin. This rebellion was ruthlessly and aggressively quashed and by 1541 the lands of Irish lords of questionable loyalty were confiscated, the Irish church eliminated, and King Henry VIII had himself declared the King of Ireland.
Elizabeth and James I saw this re-conquest of Ireland completed. The Desmond Rebellions and the Nine Years War saw too it that all was not plain sailing for the English in Ireland however. Ulster remained the last area of the country to be subdued by the English but the Battle of Kinsale in 1601 spelled the end for their determined resistance and when the Irish chiefs sailed for Europe in what became known as the “flight of the Earls” in 1607 the British crown was left to act with impunity in Ireland. Try as they might however the English could not convert the Catholic Irish to their Protestant religion and the brutal and repressive measures they utilised in their attempts only succeeded in strengthening Irish resolve and hatred of their English neighbours.

Following the English civil war in 1641 and Irish support for the Catholic Charles I, the victorious Protestants, fearing a threat to their newly established authority sent Oliver Cromwell and a large force of invaders to re-establish English control from the Catholic gentry who briefly ruled the country. Cromwell and his forces utilised barbaric and savage methods to reassert control and his name has become synonymous in Ireland with English brutality. More than 25% of the countries lands were confiscated and redistributed to loyal Protestants.
The Irish attempted further resistance against the English by rallying behind James II, who promised to return lands to Catholic ownership. However on the 12th of July 1690 he was comprehensively beaten by the superior forces of Dutch Protestant William of Orange. The 12th of July has become a contentious date in Northern Irelands calendar as members of the Orange Order seek to march through predominately Catholic areas in commemoration of this resounding victory. This defeat heralded a new era of repression known as the Penal Laws aimed at eradicating Catholicism in Ireland. Along with the Catholic faith, Irish language, culture and education were banned. So too was the Catholic ownership of land and by the end of the 18th century Catholics owned barely 5% of Irish lands.
　
The Irish rebellion of 1798, organised mostly by protestants seeking greater freedom, (the most notably of whom was Wolf Tone), was the catalyst for the passing of the Act of Union in 1801 which abolished self-government in Ireland totally. All decisions regarding Ireland were, henceforth, to be taken in Westminster.
In 1823 the Kerry-born Daniel O Connell, known as ‘the liberator,’ began a campaign to achieve emancipation and to win a parliamentary seat. He utilised the mass rally as his primary and most effective weapon of protest. Although O’Connell successfully stood for a seat in Co.Clare, Catholics were not entitled to take a seat in the British parliament. In an attempt to assuage the growing undercurrent of violence sweeping the country the British government passed the 1829 Act of Catholic Emancipation entitling well off Catholics voting rights and the right to a parliamentary seat.

The great famine struck Ireland between 1845 -1849 when blight struck the potato crop, the staple food of most Irish households. The great tragedy of this disaster is that more than enough food was being produced in the country in terms of grain and dairy but Ireland was forced to export its food while its people starved. Millions of Irish people died of hunger while millions more emigrated. This trend of emigration, predominately to the U.S.A., continued long after the famine ended and by 1911 the population had dropped to four million from over eight million before the famine.

Major land reform spread throughout Ireland during the late 19th century as a result of the work of Michael Davitt and the Land League. The agitation of the League eventually produced the Wyndham Land Purchase Act of 1903 which provided for the break-up of large estates and the transfer of these lands to the tenant farmers. This period also saw a re-awakening on the issue of self government for Ireland and as a result of the political prowess of Charles Stewart Parnell and his parliamentary party. He succeeded in bringing the issue of Home Rule for Ireland to the forefront of many peoples minds.

On Easter Monday 1916 a small group of volunteers led by Padraig Pearse and James Connolly took over a number of strategic buildings throughout Dublin city and Pearse proceeded to read out the Declaration of Irish Independence to puzzled onlookers from the steps of the General Post Office. The rebels held out for little under a week before eventually succumbing to superior British fire power. These rebels were initially unpopular with the people of Ireland given that a large number of Irishmen were at the time fighting alongside British soldiers in European trenches against the Germans. Public opinion changed dramatically however when 15 of the leaders were executed. A major change in attitudes towards Irish self rule occurred and Sinn Fein, the new Irish political party, won a large majority of seats in the 1918 general election. These newly elected Sinn Feinners ignored the British parliament, formed the first Dail Eireann under the leadership of Eamon de Valera and declared Ireland independent.

Michael Collins was the leader of the Irish Republican Army in the ensuing war of independence which lasted for over twp years. He was a clever tactician and utilised guerrilla warfare or hit and run tactics to avoid large scale skirmishes with the better trained and superiorly armed British forces. These tactics eventually brought the British to the negotiating table and in December of 1921 representatives from both sides signed the Anglo-Irish Treaty creating the Irish Free State, a self-governing dominion in the commonwealth similar in status to Canada and Australia. Although not complete freedom proponents of the treaty saw it as freedom to achieve the ultimate freedom. Northern Ireland opted out of the Free State leaving a twenty-six county Irish Free State which opponents of the treaty saw as a sell-out to the British and sowing the seeds of discontent in the six counties which manifested itself in violent troubles for many years to come.

Between 1922 and 1923 both sides, pro treaty and anti-treaty, fought in a bloody civil war with the Irish Free state troops eventually defeating the anti-treaty Irish Republican Army. Eamon de Valera, opposed to the treaty established a new political party, Fianna Fail, who won a majority of seats in the 1932 election and put in place the Irish Constitution in 1937. In 1949 the state was formally declared a republic and left the British Commonwealth. The 1960’s heralded an era of relative economic prosperity under the reforming Taoiseach (prime minister) Sean Lemass, and his reforms are seen by many as the founding pillars on which the extraordinary successes of the Celtic Tiger were based.