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History of Ireland
The Irish people are mainly of Celtic origin, with the country's only significant sized minority having descended from the Anglo-Normans. English is the common language, but Irish (Gaelic) also is an official language and is taught in the schools.
Anglo-Irish writers, including Swift, Sheridan, Goldsmith, Burke, Wilde, Joyce, Yeats, Shaw, and Beckett, have made a major contribution to world literature over the past 300 years.
What little is known of pre-Christian Ireland comes from a few references in Roman writings, Irish poetry and myth, and archaeology. The earliest inhabitants--people of a mid-Stone Age culture--arrived about 6000 BC, when the climate had become hospitable following the retreat of the polar icecaps. About 4,000 years later, tribes from southern Europe arrived and established a high Neolithic culture, leaving behind gold ornaments and huge stone monuments. This culture apparently prospered, and the island became more densely populated. The Bronze Age people, who arrived during the next 1,000 years, produced elaborate gold and bronze ornaments and weapons.
The Iron Age arrived abruptly in the fourth century BC with the invasion of the Celts, a tall, energetic people who had spread across Europe and Great Britain in the preceding centuries. The Celts, or Gaels, and their more numerous predecessors divided into five kingdoms in which, despite constant strife, a rich culture flourished. This pagan society was dominated by druids--priests who served as educators, physicians, poets, diviners, and keepers of the laws and histories.
But the coming of Christianity from across the Irish Sea brought major changes and civilizing influences. Tradition maintains that in 432 AD, St. Patrick arrived on the island and, in the years that followed, worked to convert the Irish to Christianity. Probably a Celt himself, St. Patrick preserved the tribal and social patterns of the Irish, codifying their laws and changing only those that conflicted with Christian practices. He also introduced the Roman alphabet, which enabled Irish monks to preserve parts of the extensive Celtic oral literature.
The pagan druid tradition collapsed in the spread of the new faith, and Irish scholars excelled in the study of Latin learning and Christian theology in the monasteries that flourished. Missionaries from Ireland to England and the continent spread news of the flowering of learning, and scholars from other nations came to Irish monasteries. The excellence and isolation of these monasteries helped preserve Latin learning during the Dark Ages. The arts of manuscript illumination, metalworking, and sculpture flourished and produced such treasures as the Book of Kells, ornate jewelry, and the many carved stone crosses that dot the island.
This golden age of culture was interrupted by 200 years of intermittent warfare with waves of Viking raiders who plundered monasteries and towns. The Vikings established Dublin and other seacoast towns but were eventually defeated. Although the Irish were subsequently free from foreign invasion for 150 years, internecine clan warfare continued to drain their energies and resources.
The Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland at the invitation of disaffected chief Diarmait MacMurchada in 1167 was facilitated by the existence of competing Irish dynasties with no established system of succession. Pope Adrian IV granted overlordship of the island to Henry II of England, who began an epic struggle between the Irish and the English which not only burned intermittently for 800 years but which continues to affect Irish politics and bilateral relations to this day.
The Reformation and Henry VIII's break with Rome radically altered England's role in Ireland. It exacerbated the oppression of the Roman Catholic Irish. As England's relationship with Spain and France deteriorated, Henry became concerned about the threat of an invasion. Ireland had now taken on strategic importance and was raised to the constitutional status of a Kingdom to assert royal power. Religion became a cause of division when Henry imposed Protestantism by force. Although Catholic Queen Mary I initiated the first plantations in the midlands it was under the reign of Elizabeth I, that significant numbers of English settlers began to colonize the country and Gaelic culture was seriously challenged for the first time.
Hugh O'Neill, the last of the great Irish chieftains, was forced to surrender at Mellifont in 1603. The defeat of Ulster's Irish Kings after the Nine Years War led to the Flight of the Earls in 1607. Their departure left the Irish leaderless and opened the way for the Plantation of Ulster which began in 1610. The best land was confiscated from the native Irish and given to the settlers, most of whom were Scottish Presbyterians. Colonists also established an English colony around Dublin, known as the Pale. Dispossessed Catholics rose in rebellion in 1641 but were defeated when Cromwell's avenging army arrived in 1649.
When King James II came to the throne in 1685 the Protestant political elite became fearful of a Catholic ascendancy. In 1688 they asked William of Orange to overthrow the King. James and William met at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690 and William was victorious. Political authority was restored to the Anglican ascendancy who then implemented the Penal Laws. These were a series of punitive measures against Catholics, to secure the political, economic and social ascendancy of the new Protestant settlers.
There was no serious conflict between the 1690s and the 1790s. But following the 1790s there were numerous rebellions and political movements which aimed to liberate Ireland from England. All the rebellions failed. However, there were political gains. Daniel O'Connell's astute political leadership succeeded in gaining Catholic emancipation and Charles Stewart Parnell put Home Rule on the parliamentary agenda.
From 1800 to 1921, Ireland was an integral part of the United Kingdom. Religious freedom was restored in 1829. But this victory for the Irish Catholic majority was overshadowed by severe economic depression and mass famine from 1846-48 when the potato crop failed. The famine spawned the first mass wave of Irish emigration to the United States. A decade later, in 1858, the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB--also known as the Fenians) was founded as a secret society dedicated to armed rebellion against the British. An aboveground political counterpart, the Home Rule Movement, was created in 1874, advocating constitutional change for independence. Galvanized by the leadership of Charles Stewart Parnell, the party was able to force British governments after 1885 to introduce several home rule bills. The turn of the century witnessed a surge of interest in Irish nationalism, including the founding of Sinn Fein ("Ourselves Alone") as an open political movement.
The Protestants in the north-east of Ireland had benefited greatly from the industrial revolution and associated their economic success with their Protestant faith and culture. They supported union with Britain and opposed the demand for an Irish parliament, fearing it would discriminate against Protestants. When the Third Home Rule Bill in 1912 seemed likely to succeed Protestants, under the leadership of Sir Edward Carson, signed the Ulster Solemn League and Covenant. The following year the UVF, a Protestant militia, was set up to resist Home Rule by force.
Nationalism was and is a potent populist force in Irish politics. The outbreak of war in Europe in 1914 put home rule efforts on hold, and, in reaction, Padraic Pearse and James Connolly led the unsuccessful Easter Rising of 1916. The decision by the British-imposed court structure to execute the leaders of the rebellion, coupled with the British Government's threat of conscription, alienated public opinion and produced massive support for Sinn Fein in the 1918 general election. Under the leadership of Eamon de Valera, the elected Sinn Fein deputies constituted themselves as the first Dail. Tensions only increased: British attempts to smash Sinn Fein ignited the Anglo-Irish War of 1919-1921.
The end of the war brought the Anglo-Irish treaty of 1921, which established the Irish Free State of 26 counties within the British Commonwealth and recognized the partition of the island into Ireland and Northern Ireland, though supposedly as a temporary measure. The six predominantly Protestant counties of northeast Ulster--Northern Ireland--remained a part of the United Kingdom with limited self-government. A significant Irish minority repudiated the treaty settlement because of the continuance of subordinate ties to the British monarch and the partition of the island. This opposition led to further hostilities--a civil war (1922-23), which was won by the pro-treaty forces.
In 1932, Eamon de Valera, the political leader of the forces initially opposed to the treaty, became prime minister, and a new Irish constitution was enacted in 1937. The last British military bases were soon withdrawn, and the ports were returned to Irish control. Ireland was neutral in World War II. The government formally declared Ireland a republic in 1948; however, it does not normally use the term "Republic of Ireland," which tacitly acknowledges the partition but refers to the country simply as "Ireland."
