Chapter 01 · c. 400 – 795
Gaelic Ireland and the Monastic Golden Age
A land of Celtic Gaelic kingdoms embraced Christianity and became one of early medieval Europe's brightest centres of learning and missionary zeal.
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.
“What was for most of Europe the Dark Ages was for Ireland the golden age, when Irish monks copied all the Western literature they could obtain.”
— On early medieval Irish monasticism
Turning points
- 431Religion
- 5th centuryReligion
- 563Religion
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.
- 6th–8th c.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.
Figures of the era
St Patrick5th century
Missionary bishop, patron saint of Ireland
Carried to Ireland as a captive in his youth and later returning as a missionary, Patrick became the figure most associated with the conversion of the Irish. He fostered a native clergy and monasticism; his feast on 17 March is celebrated worldwide.
Columba (Colum Cille)c. 521 – 597
Monk and missionary
An Irish noble turned monk, Columba founded the monastery of Iona in 563, which became a beacon of Christianity and learning for Scotland and northern England and a symbol of Ireland's missionary golden age.
Chapter sources: Ireland Converts to Christianity, Saint Patrick
Chapter 02 · 795 – 1169
Vikings, Brian Boru and the Battle of Clontarf
Norse raiders turned settlers founded Ireland's first towns, including Dublin, before a Munster king united the island and broke their power at Clontarf.
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.
“The Vikings established the first foundation at Dublin as a longphort, overwintering there from 841 onwards.”
— On the Norse origins of Dublin
Turning points
- 795War & 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 - 841Formation
- c. 1002Politics & 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.
- 23 Apr 1014War & 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
Figures of the era
Brian Boruc. 941 – 1014
High King of Ireland
King of the Dál Cais of Munster, Brian rose to become High King of Ireland around 1002. His victory over the Dublin Norse and Leinster at Clontarf in 1014, in which he died, made him a lasting symbol of Irish kingship.
Sitric Silkenbeardc. 970 – 1042
Norse king of Dublin
The long-reigning Hiberno-Norse king of Dublin, Sitric allied with Leinster against Brian Boru and helped raise the coalition defeated at Clontarf in 1014, after which Dublin's independent power waned.
Chapter sources: The Vikings in Ireland, How the Vikings Shaped Ireland
Chapter 03 · 1169 – 1691
Anglo-Norman Invasion, Plantation and Conquest
A Leinster king's appeal for help drew in the Anglo-Normans, beginning centuries of English involvement that culminated in conquest, plantation and the rise of a Protestant ruling class.
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.
“Henry landed with a large fleet at Waterford in 1171, becoming the first King of England to set foot on Irish soil.”
— On the beginning of English rule in Ireland
Turning points
- 1169War & 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 - 1171Politics & Power
- 1607–1609Colonisation
Flight of the Earls and the Plantation of Ulster
After the Gaelic earls fled Ireland in 1607, King James I planted English and Scottish Protestant settlers across confiscated lands in Ulster from 1609, embedding a lasting religious and political division.
See the data - 1649War & 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 - 1690–1691Politics & Power
Figures of the era
Strongbow (Richard de Clare)c. 1130 – 1176
Anglo-Norman Earl of Pembroke
Leader of the Anglo-Norman expedition of 1170, Strongbow seized Dublin and Waterford and married Aoife, daughter of Diarmait Mac Murchada, becoming heir to Leinster and the symbol of the Norman arrival in Ireland.
Oliver Cromwell1599 – 1658
Lord Protector, conqueror of Ireland
Commander of the parliamentary army that subdued Ireland from 1649, Cromwell became infamous for the massacres at Drogheda and Wexford and for the land confiscations that followed, making his name a byword for conquest in Irish memory.
Chapter sources: Normans Invade Ireland, Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland, The Cromwellian Conquest and Land Settlement of Ireland, The Penal Laws in Ireland
Chapter 04 · 1691 – 1914
Union, Famine and the National Movement
Bound to Britain by the Act of Union, devastated by the Great Famine and stirred by campaigns for the land and for Home Rule, Ireland forged a modern national movement.
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.
“Throughout the darkest years of the Great Hunger, Ireland remained a net exporter of food, even as a million died and a million more emigrated.”
— On the Great Famine, 1845–1852
Turning points
- 1 Jan 1801Politics & Power
- 1845–1852Catastrophe
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 - 1879Politics & 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.
- 1886 & 1893Politics & 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.
Figures of the era
Charles Stewart Parnell1846 – 1891
Leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party
An Anglo-Irish Protestant landowner, Parnell led the Land League and built the Irish Parliamentary Party into a disciplined force that made Home Rule the central question of British politics, until a divorce scandal split his party shortly before his death.
Daniel O'Connell1775 – 1847
'The Liberator', campaigner for emancipation
Through mass popular agitation O'Connell won Catholic Emancipation in 1829, opening Parliament and public office to Catholics, and later led the campaign to repeal the Act of Union, becoming the model of peaceful mass politics in Ireland.
Chapter sources: Charles Stewart Parnell and the Home Rule Movement, Irish Potato Famine: Date, Cause & Great Hunger, The Great Hunger: The History of An Gorta Mór, Irish History Timeline – From 1916 to Today
Chapter 05 · 1914 – 1949
Rising, Independence and Partition
The 1916 Easter Rising and the War of Independence won a treaty that created the Irish Free State, but also partitioned the island and split the nation in civil war.
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.
“On 6 December 1921 the Irish representatives signed the Anglo-Irish Treaty, which established the Irish Free State and recognised the partition of Ireland.”
— On the founding settlement of the Irish state
Turning points
- 24 Apr 1916War & 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 - 1919–1921War & 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 - 6 Dec 1921Independence
Anglo-Irish Treaty
The Treaty signed in London created the Irish Free State as a dominion within the British Empire and confirmed the partition of Ireland, leaving six northern counties in the United Kingdom.
See the data - 1922–1923War & 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 - 18 Apr 1949Independence
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
Figures of the era
Patrick Pearse1879 – 1916
Leader of the Easter Rising
Schoolteacher, barrister and Irish-language activist, Pearse was commander-in-chief of the 1916 rebels and read the Proclamation of the Republic outside the GPO. His execution by firing squad made him a martyr of the independence movement.
Éamon de Valera1882 – 1975
Revolutionary and statesman
A surviving commander of the 1916 Rising, de Valera led the anti-Treaty side in the Civil War, founded Fianna Fáil and dominated independent Ireland for decades, framing the 1937 Constitution and serving as Taoiseach and President.
Chapter sources: Irish History Timeline – From 1916 to Today, Republic of Ireland Act comes into effect in 1949
Chapter 06 · 1949 – present
The Republic, Europe and the Northern Question
A poor agricultural republic became a prosperous European state, the bitter conflict over Northern Ireland was settled by consent, and a curious dispute over an Atlantic rock endured.
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.
“Northern Ireland's status would not change without the consent of a majority of its people; in return Ireland amended its constitutional claim to the whole island.”
— On the 1998 Good Friday Agreement
Turning points
- 1955Politics & Power
- 1 Jan 1973Economy & 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 - 1988Politics & Power
- c. 1995–2007Economy & 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 - 10 Apr 1998Politics & Power
Figures of the era
John Hume1937 – 2020
Nationalist leader and Nobel laureate
Leader of the SDLP, Hume was a principal architect of the peace process whose insistence on non-violence and dialogue helped produce the Good Friday Agreement, for which he shared the 1998 Nobel Peace Prize with David Trimble.
Mary Robinsonborn 1944
President of Ireland
Elected in 1990 as Ireland's first woman president, Robinson came to symbolise a more open, outward-looking republic during the years of European integration and the early peace process, later serving as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Chapter sources: Benefits of EU membership for Ireland, Ireland and the EU at 50: Timeline of Key Events, Reaction on Decision to Join the EEC (1972), The Agreement Reached in the Multi-Party Negotiations (Good Friday/Belfast Agreement), The Belfast Agreement / Good Friday Agreement 1998, Who owns Rockall? The history of the Atlantic dispute between Ireland and the UK, Who owns Rockall? A history of disputes over a tiny Atlantic island