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IRISH HISTORY
Ireland was known to the Romans as
Hibernia, but no invasion was ever attempted. Christianity
was introduced by St Patrick about 432, and during the 5th and
6th centuries Ireland became the home of a civilization which
sent out missionaries to Britain and Europe.
From about 800 the Danes began to raid
Ireland, and later founded Dublin and other coastal towns,
until Brian Boru (king from 976) defeated them at
Clontarf in 1014.
Anglo-Norman adventurers invaded Ireland
1167, but by the end of the medieval period English rule were
still confined to the Pale, the territory around
Dublin. The Tudors adopted a policy of conquest,
confiscation of Irish land, and plantation by English
settlers, and further imposed the Reformation and English law
on Ireland. The most important of the plantations was that of
Ulster, carried out under James I 1610. In 1641
the Irish took advantage of the developing struggle in
England between king and Parliament to begin a revolt which
was crushed by Oliver Cromwell 1649, the estates of all
"rebels" being confiscated.
Another revolt 1689-91 was also defeated, and the Roman Catholic
majority held down by penal laws. In 1739-41 a famine killed
one-third of the population of 1.5 million.
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The subordination of the Irish parliament to
that of England, and of Irish economic interests to English, led to
the rise of a Protestant patriot party, which in 1782 forced the
British government to remove many commercial restrictions and grant
the Irish parliament its independence. This did not satisfy the
population, who in 1798, influenced by French revolutionary ideas,
rose in rebellion, but were again defeated. In 1800 William Pitt
induced the Irish parliament to vote itself out of existence by the
Act of Union, effective 1 Jan 1801, which brought Ireland
under the aegis of the British crown. During another famine 1846-51,
1.5 million people emigrated, mostly to the US.
By the 1880s there was a strong movement for
home rule for Ireland; Gladstone supported it but was
defeated by the British Parliament. By 1914, home rule was conceded
but World War I delayed implementation.
The Easter Rising took place April 1916, when
nationalists seized the Dublin general post office and proclaimed a
republic. After a week of fighting, the revolt was suppressed by the
British army and most of its leaders executed.
From 1918 to 1921 there was guerrilla warfare
against the British army, especially by the Irish Republican Army
(IRA), formed by Michael Collins 1919. This led to a split in the
rebel forces, but in 1921 the Anglo-Irish Treaty resulted in
partition and the creation of the Irish Free State in southern
Ireland.
It's the one
place on Earth
That heaven has kissed
With melody, mirth,
And meadow, and mist.
Irish Saying
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