Ireland

Early Ireland was never a single kingdom but a patchwork of Gaelic tuatha, small kingdoms bound by a shared Celtic language, law and culture and loosely presided over by provincial over-kings and a notional high kingship at Tara. Unconquered by Rome, the island developed its own distinctive society of warrior aristocracies, learned poets and a sophisticated body of native law. Into this world Christianity came in the fifth century. The chronicler Prosper records that in 431 Pope Celestine I sent the bishop Palladius 'to the Irish believing in Christ', and tradition credits the British-born missionary Patrick with the conversion of much of the island in the decades that followed.

Patrick, a Romano-British Christian who had been carried to Ireland as a captive in his youth, returned as a missionary bishop and is remembered for securing toleration for Christians, fostering a native clergy and encouraging the monastic life; his feast is kept on 17 March. The church he helped plant took on a strongly monastic character. Great monasteries such as Clonard, Clonmacnoise and Bangor became centres of worship, scholarship and art, their scribes copying the scriptures and the literature of the classical and native past, producing illuminated masterpieces in the tradition of the Book of Kells.

Irish monasticism did not stay at home. Columba founded the influential monastery of Iona off the Scottish coast in 563, a base from which Christianity spread into Scotland and northern England, while other monks such as Columbanus carried Irish learning deep into continental Europe. For much of a Europe disordered by the collapse of Roman authority, these centuries were a dark age; for Ireland they were a golden age, when Irish monks preserved and transmitted a body of Western and native learning that would later help re-seed the culture of the Continent.

Turning points

1. 431 — Religion:

   Palladius sent to the Irish

   Pope Celestine I commissioned the bishop Palladius as the first bishop 'to the Irish believing in Christ', marking the formal arrival of organised Christianity on the island.

   [1] [2]

2. 5th century — 432 — Religion:

   The mission of St Patrick

   The British-born missionary Patrick, traditionally active from the 430s, evangelised much of Ireland, secured toleration for Christians and fostered a native clergy and monasticism; his feast is 17 March.

   [2] [1]

3. 563 — Religion:

   Columba founds Iona

   The Irish monk Columba established the monastery of Iona off western Scotland, a launching point for the spread of Christianity and Irish learning into Scotland and Northumbria.

   [1]

4. 6th–8th c. — 600 — Culture & Ideas:

   The monastic golden age

   Monasteries such as Clonard, Clonmacnoise and Bangor became renowned centres of learning whose scribes copied Western literature and produced illuminated manuscripts, while Irish missionaries evangelised Europe.

   [1]

Figures of the era

The age of the monasteries was shattered from the sea. The first recorded Viking raid struck Rathlin Island in 795, and over the following decades Scandinavian fleets plundered the wealthy, undefended monasteries of the coasts and rivers. From raiding the Norse turned to settlement: in 841 they established a longphort, a fortified ship-camp, at Dublin, the kernel of what would become Ireland's most important town. Similar Norse foundations grew at Waterford, Wexford, Cork and Limerick, and through them Ireland was drawn into the trading networks of the Viking world.

The newcomers became a permanent feature of Irish politics, intermarrying with Gaelic dynasties and fighting in their wars as often as against them. Out of the resulting struggles rose Brian Boru, a king of the Dál Cais of Munster, who by force and diplomacy made himself High King of Ireland around 1002, the most powerful ruler the island had yet known and a claimant to authority over the whole of Ireland.

Brian's supremacy was challenged by a coalition of the Norse of Dublin under Sitric Silkenbeard and the men of Leinster. The two sides met at the Battle of Clontarf, near Dublin, on Good Friday, 23 April 1014. Brian's forces won the day and broke the independent power of the Dublin Norse, but the aged king was himself killed in the fighting. Clontarf entered legend as the moment Viking dominance in Ireland was ended, though the disputed high kingship would remain a prize fought over by rival Gaelic dynasties until the coming of the Normans.

Turning points

1. 795 — War & Rupture:

   First Viking raids on Ireland

   Scandinavian raiders struck Rathlin Island in 795, beginning decades of assaults on the rich coastal monasteries recorded with alarm in the Irish annals.

   ↗See the data

   [3] [4]

2. 841 — Formation:

   Founding of Dublin as a longphort

   The Vikings built a fortified ship-camp (longphort) at Dublin in 841 and overwintered there, founding what would become Ireland's most important town and a hub of Norse trade.

   [3] [4]

3. c. 1002 — 1002 — Politics & Power:

   Brian Boru becomes High King

   Brian Boru of the Dál Cais of Munster made himself High King of Ireland around 1002, the most powerful ruler the island had known and a claimant to authority over all of Ireland.

   [3]

4. 23 Apr 1014 — 1014 — War & Rupture:

   Battle of Clontarf

   On Good Friday 1014 Brian Boru's army defeated the Norse of Dublin and the men of Leinster near Dublin, breaking Viking political power in Ireland; Brian was killed in the battle.

   ↗See the data

   [3] [4]

Figures of the era

English involvement in Ireland began with an Irish invitation. Diarmait Mac Murchada (Dermot MacMurrough), the deposed king of Leinster, sought help from Henry II of England and recruited Anglo-Norman lords from Wales. In 1169 a force of Norman, Welsh and Flemish warriors landed in County Wexford, and in 1170 the powerful Richard de Clare, Earl of Pembroke, known as Strongbow, arrived, took Dublin and Waterford and married Diarmait's daughter Aoife, making himself heir to Leinster. Alarmed at the prospect of an independent Norman lordship, Henry II landed at Waterford in 1171, the first English king to set foot in Ireland, and established the Lordship of Ireland; in 1177 he granted the title Dominus Hiberniae, Lord of Ireland, to his son John.

For four centuries English rule was real but limited, strongest in the fortified region around Dublin known as the Pale and weaker beyond it, where Gaelic and Gaelicised Norman lords held sway. That balance changed decisively in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Tudor monarchs reasserted control, Henry VIII was declared King of Ireland in 1541, and the suppression of Gaelic resistance was followed by plantation: the systematic settlement of English and Scottish Protestant colonists on confiscated land. After the defeat of the northern Gaelic lords and the Flight of the Earls in 1607, the Plantation of Ulster from 1609 settled Protestant colonists across the north, planting a religious and political division that would prove enduring.

Conquest was completed in blood. In 1649 Oliver Cromwell landed with a parliamentary army and stormed Drogheda and Wexford with notorious slaughter; the wars and accompanying famine and plague are reckoned to have carried off a large fraction of the population. The subsequent land settlement, framed by the Act for the Settlement of Ireland of 1652, transferred most Catholic-owned land to Protestant soldiers and adventurers and transplanted dispossessed Catholics westward to Connacht. After the Catholic King James II was defeated by the Protestant William III, decisively at the Boyne in 1690 and finally at the surrender of Limerick in 1691, the victorious Protestant Ascendancy entrenched its dominance through the Penal Laws.

Turning points

1. 1169 — War & Rupture:

   Anglo-Norman landing in Ireland

   At the invitation of the exiled Leinster king Diarmait Mac Murchada, Anglo-Norman, Welsh and Flemish forces landed in Wexford in 1169, beginning centuries of English involvement in Ireland.

   ↗See the data

   [5] [6]

2. 1171 — Politics & Power:

   Henry II and the Lordship of Ireland

   Henry II landed at Waterford in 1171, the first English king in Ireland, and established the Lordship of Ireland; in 1177 he made his son John 'Lord of Ireland'.

   [6] [5]

3. 1593–1603 — 1601 — War & Rupture:

   The Nine Years' War and the Battle of Kinsale

   The Ulster lords Hugh O'Neill and Hugh Roe O'Donnell led a war against Elizabethan rule with Spanish support; at Kinsale on Christmas Eve 1601 (3 January 1602 by the new calendar) their army was routed by Lord Deputy Mountjoy, and the war ended in 1603.

   ↗See the data

   [23] [24]

4. May 1606 — 1606 — Peoples & Migration:

   Scottish settlement of Antrim and Down

   The private settlement of the Ayrshire Scots James Hamilton and Hugh Montgomery brought hundreds of Scottish families to north Down from 1606, and others settled in Antrim; these two counties lay outside the official Plantation of Ulster.

   ↗See the data

   [25] [26]

5. 1607–1609 — 1609 — Colonisation:

   Flight of the Earls and the Plantation of Ulster

   After the Gaelic earls sailed from Rathmullan in September 1607, King James I planted English and Scottish Protestant settlers on confiscated lands in six Ulster counties (Armagh, Cavan, Coleraine, Donegal, Fermanagh and Tyrone) from 1609, embedding a lasting religious and political division.

   ↗See the data

   [26] [25] [1]

6. 1649 — War & Rupture:

   Cromwellian conquest

   Oliver Cromwell's parliamentary army stormed Drogheda and Wexford with notorious massacres; the conquest was followed by the 1652 Act for the Settlement of Ireland and the mass confiscation of Catholic land.

   ↗See the data

   [7]

7. 1690–1691 — 1691 — Politics & Power:

   Williamite victory and the Penal era

   The Protestant William III defeated the Catholic James II at the Boyne in 1690 and Limerick in 1691, after which the Protestant Ascendancy entrenched its rule through the anti-Catholic Penal Laws.

   [11]

Figures of the era

Through the eighteenth century the Catholic majority lived under the Penal Laws, a body of legislation imposed from the 1690s that excluded Catholics from Parliament, the professions and most landholding, restricted worship and education, and secured the dominance of the Protestant Ascendancy; most were repealed only in the 1790s. After the failed republican rising of 1798, the British government abolished the separate Irish Parliament: by the Act of Union, which took effect on 1 January 1801, Ireland was merged with Great Britain into the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, governed directly from Westminster.

The defining catastrophe of the century was the Great Famine. From 1845 the potato blight Phytophthora infestans destroyed the crop on which the poor depended, and the failures of the following years, above all the 'Black 47' of 1847, brought mass starvation and disease. About one million people died and at least a further million emigrated; Ireland's population, which had approached 8.4 million, fell catastrophically and continued to decline for generations through sustained emigration. The inadequacy of the British government's laissez-faire response left a deep and lasting bitterness.

Out of grief and grievance grew a powerful national movement. Daniel O'Connell had already won Catholic Emancipation in 1829; later in the century the Land League founded in 1879 mobilised tenant farmers against landlordism in the 'Land War'. Above all, Charles Stewart Parnell forged the Irish Parliamentary Party into a disciplined force at Westminster and made Home Rule, self-government for Ireland within the United Kingdom, the central question of British politics. Though Gladstone's Home Rule bills of 1886 and 1893 were defeated, and Parnell's career ended in the scandal that broke his party before his death in 1891, the demand for self-rule had become irresistible.

Turning points

1. 1 Jan 1801 — 1801 — Politics & Power:

   Act of Union

   The Act of Union merged the Kingdom of Ireland with Great Britain into the United Kingdom on 1 January 1801, abolishing the Irish Parliament and placing Ireland under direct rule from Westminster.

   [8] [12]

2. 1845–1852 — 1845 — Catastrophe:

   The Great Famine (An Gorta Mór)

   Potato blight destroyed Ireland's staple crop from 1845; about a million people died and a million more emigrated, and the population fell sharply even as food continued to be exported amid an inadequate British relief effort.

   ↗See the data

   [9] [10]

3. 1879 — Politics & Power:

   The Land League and the Land War

   The Irish National Land League, founded in 1879 with Charles Stewart Parnell as president, mobilised tenant farmers against landlordism, opening the 'Land War' over rents and ownership.

   [8]

4. 1886 & 1893 — 1886 — Politics & Power:

   The Home Rule bills

   Under Parnell's pressure the Liberal government introduced Home Rule bills in 1886 and 1893 to give Ireland self-government within the UK; both were defeated, but Home Rule became the central Irish demand.

   [8]

5. 28 Sep 1912 — 1912 — Politics & Power:

   The Ulster Covenant

   Against the third Home Rule Bill, 471,414 people signed Ulster's Solemn League and Covenant or, in the case of women, the Declaration, pledging to use 'all means which may be found necessary' to defeat a Home Rule parliament in Dublin.

   [27]

Figures of the era

Home Rule was finally enacted in 1914 but suspended for the duration of the First World War, and the initiative passed to more radical nationalists. On Easter Monday, 24 April 1916, a small force of republicans seized buildings in Dublin, including the General Post Office, where Patrick Pearse read a Proclamation declaring Ireland a sovereign independent republic. The Easter Rising was crushed within a week, but the execution of fifteen of its leaders, among them Pearse and the socialist James Connolly, transformed public opinion and radicalised Irish nationalism.

In the 1918 general election the separatist party Sinn Féin won a landslide, refused to sit at Westminster and convened the first Dáil Éireann, an independent Irish parliament, in 1919. There followed the War of Independence (1919-1921), a guerrilla struggle between the Irish Republican Army and British forces, marked by ambush, assassination and reprisal, until a truce was agreed on 11 July 1921. Negotiations produced the Anglo-Irish Treaty, signed on 6 December 1921, which established the Irish Free State as a self-governing dominion of the British Empire and required an oath to the Crown.

The Treaty carried two heavy consequences. It confirmed the partition created by the Government of Ireland Act 1920: six north-eastern counties remained in the United Kingdom as Northern Ireland, with its Protestant unionist majority. And it split the independence movement: pro-Treaty forces under Michael Collins fought anti-Treaty republicans led by Éamon de Valera in the Civil War of 1922-1923. The Free State survived, adopted a new constitution in 1937 that renamed the state Éire/Ireland and laid territorial claim to the whole island, and finally, by the Republic of Ireland Act in force from 18 April 1949, declared itself a republic and left the British Commonwealth.

Turning points

1. 18 Sep 1914 — 1914 — Politics & Power:

   Home Rule enacted and suspended

   The third Home Rule Bill received Royal Assent as the Government of Ireland Act 1914, but a Suspensory Act passed alongside it suspended its operation for the duration of the First World War; it never came into effect.

   [28]

2. 24 Apr 1916 — 1916 — War & Rupture:

   The Easter Rising

   Republicans seized the General Post Office and other Dublin sites and proclaimed an Irish Republic; the rising was suppressed within a week, but the execution of its leaders turned opinion towards independence.

   ↗See the data

   [12]

3. Dec 1918 — 1918 — Politics & Power:

   Sinn Féin's general election victory

   In the December 1918 general election Sinn Féin won 73 of Ireland's 105 Westminster seats; its elected members refused to sit in London and constituted themselves as the first Dáil in Dublin.

   [29]

4. 1919–1921 — 1919 — War & Rupture:

   War of Independence

   After Sinn Féin's 1918 victory and the first Dáil in 1919, the IRA waged a guerrilla war against British forces until a truce on 11 July 1921 opened the way to negotiations.

   ↗See the data

   [12]

5. 23 Dec 1920 — 1920 — Politics & Power:

   Government of Ireland Act: six counties

   The Act created two Home Rule parliaments and defined Northern Ireland as the six counties of Antrim, Armagh, Down, Fermanagh, Londonderry and Tyrone. In March 1920 the Ulster Unionist Council had rejected a nine-county Ulster, which the 1911 census showed to be only about 56 per cent Protestant, as bringing an anti-unionist representation strong enough to endanger a northern parliament, leaving Cavan, Donegal and Monaghan to the south.

   [30] [31] [32] [33]

6. 6 Dec 1921 — 1921 — Independence:

   Anglo-Irish Treaty

   The Treaty signed in London created the Irish Free State as a dominion within the British Empire; under its Article 12 Northern Ireland, already established by the Government of Ireland Act 1920, could opt out within a month, and a Boundary Commission would then determine the border.

   ↗See the data

   [12] [34]

7. 1922–1923 — 1922 — War & Rupture:

   Civil War over the Treaty

   The Treaty split the movement: pro-Treaty forces under Michael Collins fought anti-Treaty republicans under Éamon de Valera in a civil war that the Free State won at heavy cost.

   ↗See the data

   [12]

8. 6–7 Dec 1922 — 1922 — Independence:

   The Free State is born; Northern Ireland opts out

   The Irish Free State formally came into being on 6 December 1922; the following afternoon the Parliament of Northern Ireland decided to exercise its right under the Treaty to remain outside it.

   ↗See the data

   [35] [36] [34]

9. 3 Dec 1925 — 1925 — Politics & Power:

   Boundary Commission report suppressed

   After the Morning Post revealed in November 1925 that the Treaty's Boundary Commission would propose only a minor two-way transfer of territory, the British, Free State and Northern Ireland governments agreed to revoke Article 12 and confirm the existing border; the report was suppressed and published only in 1969.

   [37]

10. 29 Dec 1937 — 1937 — Formation:

    A new Constitution claims the whole island

    Bunreacht na hÉireann, enacted by referendum on 1 July 1937, came into operation; its Article 2 declared that the national territory 'consists of the whole island of Ireland', a claim replaced in 1999 under the Good Friday Agreement.

    [38] [39]

11. 18 Apr 1949 — 1949 — Independence:

    Declaration of the Republic

    The Republic of Ireland Act, signed 21 December 1948 and in force from 18 April 1949, declared the twenty-six-county state a republic, removed the King's last role and left the Commonwealth.

    ↗See the data

    [13]

Figures of the era

For its first decades the Republic was poor, conservative and marked by emigration. The decisive turn came with Europe. After a referendum in May 1972, in which more than 80 per cent voted in favour, Ireland joined the European Economic Community on 1 January 1973. Membership transformed the country, drawing it out of economic dependence on Britain, modernising agriculture and, with later structural funds and the single market, helping to lay the ground for the boom of the mid-1990s and 2000s known as the Celtic Tiger, when foreign investment and rapid growth turned one of western Europe's poorer states into one of its most prosperous.

The unresolved question of the North overshadowed these years. From the late 1960s Northern Ireland descended into three decades of violence between unionists, who wished to remain in the United Kingdom, and nationalists seeking a united Ireland, a conflict known as the Troubles. The Republic's 1937 Constitution had laid a formal territorial claim to the entire island in its Articles 2 and 3. The breakthrough came with the Good Friday (Belfast) Agreement of 10 April 1998, endorsed by referendums in both jurisdictions on 22 May 1998. It rested on the principle of consent, that there would be no change in Northern Ireland's status without the agreement of a majority of its people, and on new institutions including a power-sharing Assembly, a North-South Ministerial Council and a British-Irish Council. As part of the settlement Ireland amended Articles 2 and 3, replacing the territorial claim with an aspiration to unity 'brought about only by peaceful means with the consent of a majority of the people, democratically expressed, in both jurisdictions'.

One small territorial question persisted offshore. Rockall, a tiny uninhabited Atlantic islet, was annexed by the United Kingdom in 1955 and declared part of Scotland by the Island of Rockall Act 1972. Successive Irish governments have never recognised British sovereignty over Rockall, but, significantly, have never claimed it for Ireland either, holding to the principle, reflected in the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, that rocks which cannot sustain human habitation generate no continental shelf or exclusive economic zone. In 1988 Ireland and the United Kingdom agreed a delimitation of the continental shelf between them, leaving the question of the rock itself to one side.

Turning points

1. 1955 — Politics & Power:

   UK annexes Rockall

   British Royal Marines landed on the uninhabited Atlantic islet of Rockall in 1955 and claimed it for the United Kingdom; it was declared part of Scotland by the Island of Rockall Act 1972.

   [19] [20]

2. 5 Oct 1968 — 1968 — War & Rupture:

   Derry civil rights march and the start of the Troubles

   The RUC baton-charged a civil rights march in Derry, scenes broadcast worldwide; the day is widely regarded as the beginning of the Troubles. Of the 3,532 deaths the Sutton Index records from 1969 to 2001, republican paramilitaries caused 58 per cent, loyalist paramilitaries 29 per cent and the British security forces 10 per cent.

   ↗See the data

   [40] [41]

3. 30 Jan 1972 — 1972 — War & Rupture:

   Bloody Sunday

   British soldiers shot dead 13 civilians on a civil rights march in Derry and wounded others, one of whom later died; the Saville Inquiry found in 2010 that none of the casualties was posing a threat of causing death or serious injury, and the Prime Minister called the killings 'unjustified and unjustifiable'.

   ↗See the data

   [42] [43]

4. 21 Jul 1972 — 1972 — War & Rupture:

   Bloody Friday

   The IRA planted and exploded 22 bombs across Belfast in the space of 75 minutes, killing nine people and seriously injuring about 130.

   ↗See the data

   [44] [42]

5. 1 Jan 1973 — 1973 — Economy & Trade:

   Accession to the European Communities

   After a 1972 referendum carried by over 80 per cent, Ireland joined the European Economic Community on 1 January 1973, beginning a transformation from an agricultural economy to a modern European state.

   ↗See the data

   [14] [15] [16]

6. 17 May 1974 — 1974 — War & Rupture:

   Dublin and Monaghan bombings

   Four car bombs in Dublin and Monaghan killed 33 civilians and an unborn child. The loyalist UVF claimed sole responsibility in 1993 and no one was ever convicted; the Barron Report (2003) found the evidence of collusion by Northern Ireland security forces 'not sufficiently strong', while judging it 'not absurd' to conclude that some might have helped the bombers.

   ↗See the data

   [45] [46]

7. 1988 — Politics & Power:

   UK–Ireland continental shelf agreement

   Ireland and the United Kingdom agreed a delimitation of the continental shelf between them; Ireland maintained that Rockall, an uninhabitable rock, generates no continental shelf or exclusive economic zone.

   [19] [20]

8. c. 1995–2007 — 1995 — Economy & Trade:

   The Celtic Tiger

   From the mid-1990s, foreign direct investment and the single market fuelled rapid growth, the 'Celtic Tiger', turning one of western Europe's poorer countries into one of its most prosperous.

   ↗See the data

   [14]

9. 10 Apr 1998 — 1998 — Politics & Power:

   Good Friday (Belfast) Agreement

   The 1998 Agreement settled the conflict over Northern Ireland on the principle of consent and created power-sharing institutions; Ireland amended Articles 2 and 3 of its Constitution to replace its territorial claim with a peaceful aspiration to unity.

   [17] [18]

10. 15 Aug 1998 — 1998 — War & Rupture:

    Omagh bombing

    A car bomb claimed by the Real IRA, a group opposed to the IRA ceasefire, killed 29 people in Omagh, among them nine children and a woman pregnant with twins: the greatest loss of life in any single incident of the conflict, months after the Good Friday Agreement.

    ↗See the data

    [47]

11. 22 Sep 2022 — 2022 — Politics & Power:

    Census: more of Catholic than Protestant background

    Northern Ireland's 2021 census, published in 2022, counted 45.7 per cent of residents as Catholic by current religion or upbringing and 43.5 per cent as Protestant or other Christian, against 45.1 and 48.4 per cent in 2011; 9.3 per cent had no religion either way.

    [48] [49]

12. 3 Feb 2024 — 2024 — Politics & Power:

    First nationalist First Minister

    Power-sharing was restored two years after the DUP left the Executive over post-Brexit trade arrangements, and Sinn Féin's Michelle O'Neill became the first nationalist First Minister of Northern Ireland, alongside the DUP's Emma Little-Pengelly as deputy First Minister.

    [50]

Figures of the era