Celtic Ireland  (4th c. BC ® 12th c. AD)

Small kindgoms/tribes, no unity, St. Patrick converts the Irish

Viking invasion (9th -10th c.)       

1st towns are founded, International trade

Norman invasion (1169 -)   

Walled towns, Normans assimilate, Gaelic Revival

Protestant colonization  (1550s)

No to Protestantism, Penal Laws, Uprisings/Rebellions, Test Act

Union with Britain (1800)  

Emancipation, Famine, Emigration, Land Reform, No Home Rule 

Independence, Partition (1921-) 

Civil War, Republic, Civil Rights Protests, 'The Troubles', IRA, Direct Rule

Self-government in NI  (1999-)   

Ceasefire, 1st Protestant-Catholic Coalition Government

Megalithic tombs (Newgrange, Meath)

...built by Neolithic farming communities about 5000 years ago, the passage tombs have clear astronomical alignments such as the Winter Solstice Sunrise. 

an Ogham stone

4th c. BC Celtic tribes begin to invade: came from Central Europe, many were tall, red haired

§  5 kingdoms:  Ulster, Meath, Leinster, Munster, Connaught + Tara (Tara: the seat of the high-king)                                                                                     

§  Each kingdom was further subdivided into mini-kingdoms (tuath) ~ 150

§  Class society:  king, druids, bards, poets, soldiers, craftsmen, farmers, herdsmen, slaves

§  No towns! ®  but farms with large families

§  Religion: Druidism

§  "Writing": inscriptions or runes (Ogham stones) - Ogham was an alphabet used primarily to represent Gaelic languages.

St Patrick

§  Writing was introduced

§  ~800 monasteries were built:

ú  Centres of education and religion (eg. Glendalough, Cashel - see below)

ú  Produced invaluable manuscripts: Book of Kells (4 Gospels)

“From the fall of Rome to the rise of Charlemagne - the dark ages - learning, scholarship, and culture disappeared from the European continent.  The great  heritage of Western civilization – from Greek and Roman classics to Jewish and Christian works - would have been  utterly lost were it not for the holy men and women of the unconquered Ireland.  Here, far from the Barbarian  destruction of the continent, that had viped off most libraries  and collections, monks and scribes preserved the written  treasury of the West.” (Thomas Cahill, How the Irish Saved Civilization)

ú  Sent out missionaries to all over Europe who were instrumental in spreading the Christian faith and classical learning: St.Columba established the monasteries of Derry + Iona (Sc), Coloman came to Hungary (12th c)

ú  Architecturally unique:

Round tower, Celtic Cross

Brian Boru

§  Their main target: monasteries (great treasures) ® decline of the great monasteries

§  Main merit: established the 1st towns in Ireland!! E.g. Dublin (in 841), Cork, Limerick, Wexford, Waterford (all on the south-eastern coast) ® extensive international trade (slave, silver,etc) with far away lands (Mediterranean, Baltic, etc.)

Brian Boru: 

§  defeated the Vikings ® Vikings started to assimilate

§  United the country: 1st king of all Ireland (1002) (after him Ireland is divided again by powerful warlords)

Internal power-struggle ® An Anglo-Norman army (1169  led by Strongbow of Wales) was invited by the king of Leinster to help him become the king of all 5 kingdoms.  They were paid with land. ® Henry II of England (1171) becomes the overlord of Ireland on paper (the pope, who was English, gave Ireland to Henry) ® a century later ¾ of Ireland (The Pale) belong to the Normans    

Irish Revival:  14th-15th c  Anglo-Norman influence shrinks to Dublin (the English are busy fighting in France the Hundred Year Wars and then the Wars of the Roses) ® intermarrying among Normans and Irish (inspite of laws forbidding it) ® Renaissance of Gaelic language and culture 

Henry VIII

Elizabeth

O'Neill

Oliver Cromwell

James II

Henry VIII

1st English king to control all Ireland and call himself king of Ireland   

TO CONVERT IRELAND TO PROTESTANTISM ®

§  Convents + monasteries were closed (1539) Catholic churches and cathedrals are turned into Anglican Churches (Christ Church Cathedral and  St. Patrick’s Cathedral to this day are Anglican churches in a country that is 95% Catholic!?)

§  WAR for land turns into war for 'religion'  (religion defined alliances and enemies!)

§  1550s: 1st English settlers (Protestants)

§  1st Penal Laws force the Irish to convert to the Anglican Faith

Elizabeth

§  1560s Irish rebellions ® Spanish come to help: but the Spanish Armada is destroyed

§  1590s O’Neill’s Rebellion in the North (Ulster): Irish victories  ® 

§  1601 Elizabeth’s army defeats the Irish (Battle of Kinsale) ®  (thousands flee to Spain) ®   Rebels' lands (mainly in Ulster) given to English and Scottish Protestants (the Plantation) 40.000 Scots by 1618 !

§  1st time:  All Ireland is centrally run by an English Central Government

§  Had they not been divided by religion, the Scots, the English and the Irish probably would have intermarried and assimilated to the Irish – as it had  happened in the 14-15th c with the Anglo-Normans and the native Irish.

Charles I

(Instead of calling Parliament together in England to vote for new taxes in England) he imposed new taxes on the Irish ®

1641 Protestant settlers were massacred in Ireland (many churches were destroyed) ® Catholics temporarily regained their lost lands ® Charles needs money to raise an army against Ireland (fed up with the English Parliament that wouldn’t give him control) ® Civil War in England (1642-5) ® Cromwell’s pay off (1649-52): invaded Ireland (massacred the population of Drogheda + Wexford) ® Catholic landowners are forced to move west of the River Shannon ® most Irish land was in Protestant (English, Scottish) hands from the 1650s until the 1920s! 60.000 Irish Catholics are sold as slaves to the Caribbean's… Population of Ireland is reduced from 1.5 million to half a million.

Charles II

More Irish boys and women are sold to work in slavery

James II

flees to Ireland when his daughter and son-in-law (William of Orange) are invited by Parliament to take his place on the throne (Glorious Revolution 1688) ® William defeats the Irish fighting against his father-in-law in the biggest battle ever fought on Irish ground: 1690 James II vs William (of Orange) III: Battle of the Boyne “Flight of the Wild Geese”: Irish soldiers flee to France

William III

Penal Laws:  all power given to the Protestants (10% of population) To force conversion to Protestantism (1690 – 1790s) Catholics could NOT:

ú  Inherit or buy land

ú  Practice their religions

ú  Live in larger towns

ú  Attend Catholic schools (these were closed or turned into Protestant schools)

ú  Go to University

ú  Take office  (teacher, lawyer, Member of Parliament, army)

ú  Vote

ú  Defend themselves (carry weapons)

ú  Marry a Protestant

ú  All Catholic priests had to leave the country ® death sentence for those who refused and to those giving them shelter!  (~1000 priests were exiled) ® French priests poured in as missionaries risking their life

ú  Celebrating mass was illegal (including Christenings, Weddings, Funerals in old abbeys or monasteries)

ú  Attending the Anglican church service was compulsory (missing it cost 12 pence each Sunday)

ú  Taking the Oath of Supremacy was mandatory:

ú  Anyone reporting a priest or any offence against the Penal laws was rewarded

® To evade the evils of the Penal Laws all that was required was to renounce the Catholic faith and become an Anglican (Church of Ireland)!  False converts were sifted out and punished…

® Despite the unbearable hardships the Irish Catholics did not give up their religion.  They became a landless, helpless, hopeless, uneducated and disenfranchised people in their own country, too poor and weak to pose any threat to the oppressor Protestant foreign elite.  And while their hard work contributed to the prosperity of the English and Scottish rulers, the Irish had the lowest living standards in all of Europe!

§  Jonathan Swift  born of English parents in Dublin; Dean of St. Patrick’s Cathedral Sharply criticizes the Penal Laws in his writings (eg.: Modest Proposal, 1724)

§  Huge famine in 1740s (300.000 dead)

§  1759  Arthur Guinness starts producing stout  (black beer); Today Guinness is one of the biggest beer companies in Europe.

§  Concessions lead to the Revolution of 1798

§  Britain needed Irish soldiers to fight against America ® Reforms: Catholics can inherit land (1778  no danger: nothing to inherit!), Catholic priests can return to Ireland (1782), open Catholic schools, practice law. The American War of Independence convinced the British of the importance to give limited self-government to its colonies ®

§  1782  the Irish Parliament is granted legislative independence!

§  1793 (Catholic Relief Act):

ú  Catholics can vote (but they could not vote FOR a CATHOLIC person – Catholics cannot be MPs, plus voting was open – always in line with the English landlord’s wishes)

ú  Could become sheriffs, jurors, officers (but could not obtain the necessary education)

ú  Own weapons (under specific conditions) ® Protestants become alarmed ®

§  1795 Protestants establish the Orange Order: named after their hero, William of Orange, to defend and preserve Protestants and their rule in Ireland.

(Still active in Northern Ireland in the 21st century!  They organize big processions throughout N.I. on 12 July every year to commemorate the victory of William of Orange over the Irish – a source of conflict between Catholic and Protestant sections of towns.)                   

§  Society of United Irishmen (formed by Protestants and Catholics in Belfast, 1791) aimed at making Ireland a republic (following suit with France) through an uprising with French help ® turns into civil war (1798 Catholics against Protestants) ® 30.000 casualties  ®

Daniel O’Connell

The Irish Parliament was suspended  ® (MPs from Dublin went to sit in Westminster)

No Catholic MPs in Westminster … ® Daniel O’Connell “The Liberator”  (a Catholic lawyer educated in France – oldest Dublin bridge and avenue are named after him + countless number of streets) founds the Catholic Association

§  became a mass-based organization

§  aim: peacefully achieve the right for Catholics to be MPs + repeal the Union

§  Success in achieving Catholic Emancipation (1829):

§  Catholics can become MPs in (Westminster)

§  However, no home rule granted to Ireland (only in 1914, taking effect in 1921)

§  Irish Catholics no longer have to pay taxes (tithes) to the Anglican Church (1838)

1845-48  Famine: 1 million people starved to death

§  Potato crop was attacked by a fungus

§  People couldn’t pay rent to the landlords ® had to leave the land + their home

§  1 million emigrated to the USA (Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Canada) on “coffin ships”  (20% of the people died before landing)

§  Others earned their miserable living digging ditches and building roads – paid by the British Government to relieve the desperate situation = resentment and anger towards the English for “standing by idly” (England was doing very well economically)

® 1848 a failed uprising

® IRB: Irish Republican Brotherhood: organization set up in Dublin 1858 ®  sister organization established in America (1859) seeking to establish Ireland as a republic through organizing an uprising « opposed by the Catholic Cardinal… ®  could not become a mass based organization!!!

§  1867 many Irish return from America to fight for independence ® put down

§  Ulster is industrialized at a rapid pace (leaving the south behind): shipbuilding, linen-making

§  The Irish Party became the “Tip of the scale” in British politics in the 1860s and onwards – both the Liberals and the Tories tried to gain their favour.  No party could gain enough seats to win the elections and form a government on their own.

Charles Parnell

William Gladstone

Arthur Griffith