In Depth History

BEFORE AND DURING THE CELTIC PERIOD

The first people settled in Ireland about 6000 B.C. They crossed from Scotland and settled on the Antrim coast where the town of Larne is situated today. They lived on fish and other food that they gathered in the area. Their tools included knives and scrapers made of flint. Gradually, the settlers moved northwards along the coast to Magilligan Point, in County Derry; southwards to Dalkey Island, in County Dublin; and inland along the Bann and Lagan valleys.

About 3000 B.C., a second wave of settlers arrived who used domesticated animals and who knew how to make textiles and pottery. These settlers made tools of polished stone and tilled the land and grew cereals. They lived in small communities in round or rectangular wooden houses thatched with straw. The most striking survivals of these people in Ireland are the megaliths (great stone monuments) that they erected over their dead. The simplest type of megalith is the dolmen, which consists of three or more upright stones, with a flat capstone laid across them. An impressive dolmen is at Legananny, in County Down. The most striking megaliths are passage graves, of which the one at Newgrange, in County Meath, is world-famous.

About 2000 B.C., a group of metalworkers arrived in Ireland. They knew how to make bronze by mixing copper and tin. At that time, Ireland had abundant resources of copper and gold, and these people made the country an important centre of metalwork. They exported metal goods to Britain, France, Iberia (now Portugal and Spain), Crete, and some other areas. These exported goods included torques and twisted ribbons of gold.

The Celts. From about 400 B.C. up to about the time of the birth of Christ, groups of invaders arrived in Ireland. These tall, fair-haired people came from the region between the Rhine and Danube rivers on the mainland of Europe. The invaders were called Celts. They were armed with iron swords and soon conquered the other peoples in the country. Their language was an old form of what is now Irish.

The Celts were farmers who grew cereals and flax. They also spent much of their time tending large herds of cattle and sheep. They are said to have worn tunics or tight-fitting breeches and loose cloaks fastened with small iron brooches. Historians do not know how the ordinary people lived, but Celtic kings dwelt in houses fortified by banks of earth, or in lake dwellings called crannogs.

Scholars have not discovered much about Celtic religious beliefs. The Celts believed in a life after death, and in another world, which is sometimes called Tir na nOg (land of youth). Their priests, called druids, not only offered sacrifices to the gods, but also served as teachers and judges.

The Celts divided the country into about 150 small communities called tuatha. A king, called a ri tuaithe, ruled over each tuath. Sometimes a number of these kings recognized one of their number as an overking and paid tribute to him. In the same way, a number of overkings formed a kind of federation under a king of one of the five provinces into which the country was divided.

The original provinces, sometimes called the five fifths of Ireland, were probably Ulster, Leinster, Munster, Connacht, and Mide. But the number of provinces and their boundaries were constantly changing. According to tradition, King Cormac mac Airt built a splendid palace at Tara, in Meath, formed the new kingdom of Meath, and called himself Ard Ri (high king). Though he was never the ruler of Ireland, his descendants claimed that he founded the high kingship of Tara.

During its early period, Ireland had one of the more advanced civilizations of Western Europe. The people built hill forts and established minor kingdoms, and skilled artisans designed metalwork.

Christianity had been established in Ireland by the beginning of the 5th century, before the arrival of the bishop Palladius from Gaul in 431 and the later arrival of St. Patrick. The monasteries established by St. Patrick and other missionaries enabled a world of classical learning to be introduced on the island, and this learning was later carried to many parts of Europe. (See also St. Patrick.) During the 9th and early 10th centuries, Viking raiders overran the south and east coasts of Ireland. They ravaged the monasteries and churches and later became traders in the coastal towns. The Vikings were finally defeated in 1014 at Clontarf, near Dublin, but some remained in coastal settlements and were accepted by the Irish.

ENGLISH CONQUEST

The English conquest of Ireland began when a local ruler asked King Henry II and his barons to help him regain his kingdom. Some of the barons arrived first, in 1169, and Henry followed in 1171. Henry encouraged his followers to seize parts of the island and hold them as fiefs of the crown. Henry's descendants intermarried with the local population and increasingly adapted Irish customs. However, the English did not control the island effectively, and they regarded the Irish and the English-Irish as their enemies. The authority of the English crown was eventually restored over the entire island during the 16th century by Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, who also attempted to suppress the Roman Catholic church.

King James I settled English and Scottish Protestants in the northern province of Ulster. Roman Catholics in Ulster rebelled in 1641 and killed thousands of Protestant settlers. This revolt spread to the south but was put down by Oliver Cromwell from 1649 to 1650. He took much land and many rights away from Irish Catholics.

James II, a Roman Catholic, tried to reverse the discriminatory policies of the preceding rulers. After being driven from the throne by the revolution of 1688, James went to France and then to Ireland. There he was welcomed by the Irish Catholics who hoped he could lead them in regaining their land. In 1690 James and the Irish were defeated by the Protestant forces of the English king William III in the battle of the Boyne. Protestants of the Church of England, or Anglicans, then dominated Ireland for about 150 years. Catholics and non-Anglican Protestants had few legal rights, and they could not vote or hold office. In 1801 the Act of Union joined Great Britain and Ireland into the United Kingdom.

STRUGGLE FOR HOME RULE

In 1823 the Catholics, led by Daniel O'Connell, began agitating for emancipation. In 1829 Parliament passed an act giving the Catholics political equality for most purposes. O'Connell then began a struggle to eliminate the Act of Union. This struggle turned into a movement later called Home Rule. However, such efforts were stifled by famine and mass emigration that were the result of a blight that destroyed Ireland's vital potato crop in the mid-1800s.

Several attempts to put through Home Rule bills for Ireland failed during the late 1800s. The Catholics in southern Ireland were determined to have the right to Home Rule, but the Protestants in Ulster insisted on maintaining the Act of Union with Great Britain. In 1914 the British Parliament passed a Home Rule bill setting up a separate parliament for all Ireland, but World War I soon broke out and the Home Rule act was suspended.

On Easter Monday in 1916 armed Irish Volunteers and members of the Citizen Army staged an unsuccessful rebellion in Dublin. The British executed 14 of the leaders, which aroused public support for an independent Ireland. In the 1918 elections Sinn Fein, the Irish revolutionary party, won most of the Irish seats. Sinn Fein had earlier pledged not to take their seats in the English Parliament, however, and after the election they set up an Irish parliament, the Dail Eireann, in Dublin. The Dail issued a declaration of independence and was headed by Eamon de Valera, a surviving leader of the Easter uprising.

The English attempted to suppress the new government, and violence erupted between British troops and the Volunteers, who became the Irish Republican Army. In 1920 Ireland was partitioned, and separate parliaments were set up for northern and southern Ireland. Fighting continued until a truce was called in 1921. The terms of the truce established the southern part of Ireland as the Irish Free State, which became part of the Commonwealth. Renewed fighting broke out between the Irish who accepted the dominion status and those who demanded complete independence. A new constitution went into effect in 1937.

THE REPUBLIC

In 1948 Eire seceded from the Commonwealth. The new Republic of Ireland was proclaimed on April 18, 1949. In 1973 the republic acknowledged British sovereignty over Northern Ireland as long as this was the wish of the majority of the people in the north. But fighting continues in Northern Ireland between the Protestants and the Catholics. Over Protestant opposition in Northern Ireland, Britain and the Republic of Ireland signed an agreement in 1985 that gave the latter a voice in Northern Ireland affairs. The republic's first female president, Mary Robinson, was inaugurated in December 1990. In the early 1990s Ireland's economy still lagged behind those of the other nations of Western Europe; consequently, many wanted to immigrate to more prosperous countries.

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