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Prehistoric
The period before the coming of Christianity in Ireland is largely prehistoric. The island, which was mostly ice-covered and joined by land to Britain and Europe during the last ice age, has been inhabited for about 9,000 years. Stone age inhabitants arrived sometime after 8000 BC, with the culture progressing from Mesolithic to high Neolithic over the course of three or four millennia. This saw the appearance of huge stone monuments, many of them astronomically aligned (for example, see Newgrange below). The Bronze Age, which began around 2500 BC, saw the production of elaborate gold and bronze ornaments and weapons. See the Early history of Ireland for a more complete account of this period of Irish history.
Iron Age
The Iron Age in Ireland is associated with people now known as Celts. (The 17th century discovery that the languages of Ireland and pre-Roman Britain were related to Gaulish, whose speakers referred to themselves as Celts, led to this name eventually being applied to the people of Ireland, although they would certainly not have identified themselves as Celts.) They are traditionally thought to have colonised Ireland in a series of waves between the 8th and 1st centuries BC, with the Gael, the last wave of Celts, conquering the island and dividing it into five or more kingdoms. Many scholars, however, now favour a view that emphasises cultural diffusion from overseas over significant colonisation.
The Romans referred to Ireland as Hibernia. Ptolemy in AD 100 records Ireland's geography and tribes. Native accounts are confined to Irish poetry, myth, and archaeology. The exact relationship between Rome and the tribes of Hibernia is unclear; the only references are a few Roman writings.
Early Christian era and Vikings (432?1014)
Tradition maintains that in AD 432, St. Patrick arrived on the island and, in the years that followed, worked to convert the Irish to Christianity. The druid tradition collapsed in the face of the spread of the new faith. Irish scholars excelled in the study of Latin learning and Christian theology in the monasteries that flourished, preserving Latin learning during the Early Middle Ages. The arts of manuscript illumination, metalworking, and sculpture flourished and produced such treasures as the Book of Kells, ornate jewellery, and the many carved stone crosses that dot the island. Sites dating to this period include clochans, ringforts and promontory forts. This golden age was interrupted in the 9th century by 200 years of intermittent warfare with waves of Viking raiders (mainly Vikings from Denmark and Norway) who plundered monasteries and towns. Eventually they settled in Ireland, and established many towns, including the modern day cities of Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Waterford. In 1014 a Norse or Norwegian earl or jarl of Orkney, Sigurd the Stout, made a bid to become high king of Ireland. He was defeated and killed in the battle of Clontarf. The established high king, Brian Boru, was killed in the same battle.
Anglo-Norman and English control (1172?1800)
In 1172, King Henry II of England gained Irish lands, and from the 13th century, English law began to be introduced. English rule was largely limited to the area around Dublin, known as the Pale, and Waterford, but this began to expand in the 16th century with the final collapse of the Gaelic social and political superstructure at the end of the 17th century, as a result of the English and Scottish Plantation of Ulster and other plantations in Leix ("King's County", modern day Laois) and Offaly ("Queen's County"). In an incident known as the Flight of the Earls, the leaders of Gaelic Ireland in Ulster fled to France and onwards to Rome in 1607. Having been defeated by Elizabethan forces in 1603, they found life under English suzerainty intolerable. The higher echelons of the clan left en masse to take titles in Catholic Europe, thus marking the end of the Gaelic aristocracy in Ireland. After the Protestant Reformation and the Irish Rebellion of 1641, Irish Catholics were barred from voting or attending the Irish Parliament.
Union with Britain (1801-1922)
Eamon de Valera ? First Taoiseach and former President of Ireland.
In 1800 the Irish Parliament passed the Act of Union which, in 1801, merged the Kingdom of Ireland and the Kingdom of Great Britain to create the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The whole island of Ireland would remain within the United Kingdom, ruled directly by the UK Parliament in London. The 19th century saw considerable economic difficulties for Ireland, including the Great Famine of the 1840s in which at least 1 million Irish people died and over a million were forced to emigrate.
The late 19th and early 20th century saw a vigorous but unsuccessful campaign for Irish home rule, followed by the eclipse of moderate nationalism by militant separatism. In 1922, following the Anglo-Irish War, twenty-six counties of Ireland seceded from the United Kingdom as the Irish Free State. The remaining six, in the north-east, remained within the Union as Northern Ireland. Secession for the rest of Ireland led directly to the Civil War, as militant nationalists split into two factions and turned against one another.
Irish Independence
The Anglo-Irish Treaty was narrowly ratified by the Dᩬ in December 1921 but was rejected by a large minority, resulting in the Irish Civil War which lasted until 1923. In 1922, in the middle of this civil war, the Irish Free State came into being. For its first years the new state was governed by the victors of the Civil War. However in the 1930s Fianna Fᩬ, the party of the opponents of the treaty, were elected into government. The party introduced a new constitution in 1937 which renamed the state to simply "ɩre or in the English language, Ireland" (preface to the Constitution).
The state was neutral during World War II but offered some assistance to the Allies. In 1949 the state declared itself to be a republic and that henceforth it should be described as the Republic of Ireland. The state was plagued by poverty and emigration until the 1990s. That decade saw the beginning of unprecedented economic success, in a phenomenon known as the "Celtic Tiger". By the early 2000s, it had become one of the richest countries (in terms of GDP per capita) in the European Union, moving from being a net recipient to a net contributor and from a population with net emigration to one with net immigration.
The period before the coming of Christianity in Ireland is largely prehistoric. The island, which was mostly ice-covered and joined by land to Britain and Europe during the last ice age, has been inhabited for about 9,000 years. Stone age inhabitants arrived sometime after 8000 BC, with the culture progressing from Mesolithic to high Neolithic over the course of three or four millennia. This saw the appearance of huge stone monuments, many of them astronomically aligned (for example, see Newgrange below). The Bronze Age, which began around 2500 BC, saw the production of elaborate gold and bronze ornaments and weapons. See the Early history of Ireland for a more complete account of this period of Irish history.
Iron Age
The Iron Age in Ireland is associated with people now known as Celts. (The 17th century discovery that the languages of Ireland and pre-Roman Britain were related to Gaulish, whose speakers referred to themselves as Celts, led to this name eventually being applied to the people of Ireland, although they would certainly not have identified themselves as Celts.) They are traditionally thought to have colonised Ireland in a series of waves between the 8th and 1st centuries BC, with the Gael, the last wave of Celts, conquering the island and dividing it into five or more kingdoms. Many scholars, however, now favour a view that emphasises cultural diffusion from overseas over significant colonisation.
The Romans referred to Ireland as Hibernia. Ptolemy in AD 100 records Ireland's geography and tribes. Native accounts are confined to Irish poetry, myth, and archaeology. The exact relationship between Rome and the tribes of Hibernia is unclear; the only references are a few Roman writings.
Early Christian era and Vikings (432?1014)
Tradition maintains that in AD 432, St. Patrick arrived on the island and, in the years that followed, worked to convert the Irish to Christianity. The druid tradition collapsed in the face of the spread of the new faith. Irish scholars excelled in the study of Latin learning and Christian theology in the monasteries that flourished, preserving Latin learning during the Early Middle Ages. The arts of manuscript illumination, metalworking, and sculpture flourished and produced such treasures as the Book of Kells, ornate jewellery, and the many carved stone crosses that dot the island. Sites dating to this period include clochans, ringforts and promontory forts. This golden age was interrupted in the 9th century by 200 years of intermittent warfare with waves of Viking raiders (mainly Vikings from Denmark and Norway) who plundered monasteries and towns. Eventually they settled in Ireland, and established many towns, including the modern day cities of Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Waterford. In 1014 a Norse or Norwegian earl or jarl of Orkney, Sigurd the Stout, made a bid to become high king of Ireland. He was defeated and killed in the battle of Clontarf. The established high king, Brian Boru, was killed in the same battle.
Anglo-Norman and English control (1172?1800)
In 1172, King Henry II of England gained Irish lands, and from the 13th century, English law began to be introduced. English rule was largely limited to the area around Dublin, known as the Pale, and Waterford, but this began to expand in the 16th century with the final collapse of the Gaelic social and political superstructure at the end of the 17th century, as a result of the English and Scottish Plantation of Ulster and other plantations in Leix ("King's County", modern day Laois) and Offaly ("Queen's County"). In an incident known as the Flight of the Earls, the leaders of Gaelic Ireland in Ulster fled to France and onwards to Rome in 1607. Having been defeated by Elizabethan forces in 1603, they found life under English suzerainty intolerable. The higher echelons of the clan left en masse to take titles in Catholic Europe, thus marking the end of the Gaelic aristocracy in Ireland. After the Protestant Reformation and the Irish Rebellion of 1641, Irish Catholics were barred from voting or attending the Irish Parliament.
Union with Britain (1801-1922)
Eamon de Valera ? First Taoiseach and former President of Ireland.
In 1800 the Irish Parliament passed the Act of Union which, in 1801, merged the Kingdom of Ireland and the Kingdom of Great Britain to create the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The whole island of Ireland would remain within the United Kingdom, ruled directly by the UK Parliament in London. The 19th century saw considerable economic difficulties for Ireland, including the Great Famine of the 1840s in which at least 1 million Irish people died and over a million were forced to emigrate.
The late 19th and early 20th century saw a vigorous but unsuccessful campaign for Irish home rule, followed by the eclipse of moderate nationalism by militant separatism. In 1922, following the Anglo-Irish War, twenty-six counties of Ireland seceded from the United Kingdom as the Irish Free State. The remaining six, in the north-east, remained within the Union as Northern Ireland. Secession for the rest of Ireland led directly to the Civil War, as militant nationalists split into two factions and turned against one another.
Irish Independence
The Anglo-Irish Treaty was narrowly ratified by the Dᩬ in December 1921 but was rejected by a large minority, resulting in the Irish Civil War which lasted until 1923. In 1922, in the middle of this civil war, the Irish Free State came into being. For its first years the new state was governed by the victors of the Civil War. However in the 1930s Fianna Fᩬ, the party of the opponents of the treaty, were elected into government. The party introduced a new constitution in 1937 which renamed the state to simply "ɩre or in the English language, Ireland" (preface to the Constitution).
The state was neutral during World War II but offered some assistance to the Allies. In 1949 the state declared itself to be a republic and that henceforth it should be described as the Republic of Ireland. The state was plagued by poverty and emigration until the 1990s. That decade saw the beginning of unprecedented economic success, in a phenomenon known as the "Celtic Tiger". By the early 2000s, it had become one of the richest countries (in terms of GDP per capita) in the European Union, moving from being a net recipient to a net contributor and from a population with net emigration to one with net immigration.