General History
Ireland has been inhabited for about 7,000 years, and has experienced many incursions and invasions, resulting in a rich mixture of ancestry and traditions. By the sixth century B.C. Celtic invaders had established a cultural and linguistic unity on the island. The introduction of christianity, traditionally credited to St. Patrick, occurred in the fifth century. Viking incursions in the ninth and tenth centuries influenced the development of trade, particularly in Dublin, Waterford and Cork.
The twelfth century witnessed the arrival of the Normans, who had earlier settled in England and Wales. They quickly gained control over large parts of Ireland, which then came under the political authority of the King of England.
Following a series of revolts against the English crown in Ireland, the last Gaelic stronghold, Ulster, was brought under crown control in 1603. The Ulster plantation which followed brought many English and Scots settlers to Ulster and had a lasting impact on the religious and political complexion of the province.
Conflict emerged again during the seventeenth century and a struggle for supremacy was finally settled at the Battles of the Boyne (1690) and Aughrim (1691). Many of the defeated Irish leaders and followers (known as ‘the Wild Geese’) left Ireland to pursue military, religious or commercial careers in continental europe and their legacy is still evident today. The Protestants of the Established Church monopolised political power and ownership of the land in Ireland, and penal laws discriminated against Catholics.
Eighteenth Century
The eighteenth century saw significant economic development in Ireland. The linen industry flourished, particularly in Ulster, and Irish wool, beef, butter and pork became important exports. The Protestant Ascendancy came to see itself as the Irish nation and developed a vigorous and distinctive parliamentary tradition.
The developing dispute between Britain and her colonies in North America from the 1760s helped create a tradition of radical patriotism that was ultimately, under the influence of the French Revolution, to produce the society of United Irishmen. In 1798 a rebellion led by the United Irishmen was crushed and the Act of Union of 1800 created a full parliamentary union between Britain and Ireland.
The nineteenth century was dominated, initially, by the pursuit of Catholic emancipation. In 1829, catholics, led by Daniel O’Connell, won the right to sit in parliament. thereafter, there was a succession of efforts to reform or undo the Union between Great Britain and Ireland.
In the late 1840s, as a result of the wholesale failure of the potato crop in successive years, a terrible famine occurred: one million people died of starvation and epidemic disease and a further million were forced to leave Ireland. The population had fallen by more than a quarter from 8 million to less than 6 million by 1856, and would fall further as emigration became a dominant feature of Irish society. The Great Famine had far-reaching political repercussions, strengthening the desire among Irish voters for self-government and the right to purchase their holdings.
The question of self-government, or ‘Home Rule’ had not, however, been settled. Under the leadership of Charles Stewart Parnell in the 1880s, the Irish Parliamentary Party at Westminster placed the Irish question at the centre of British politics. In 1886, the Liberal party under W.E. Gladstone came to support a limited form of self-government for Ireland.
The prospects of Home Rule galvanised the Unionists in Ireland, who were predominantly Protestant, and were a small majority in the province of Ulster. Along with their allies in England, who feared it would lead to the break-up of the Empire, Unionists campaigned to prevent the granting of Home Rule in Ireland. Nonetheless, a Home Rule Bill was finally enacted in 1914. However with the outbreak of the First World War it was not implemented.
Towards Independence
In 1916 a republic was declared in Dublin and an armed insurrection took place. This rising, which initially did not enjoy significant public support, was suppressed. However, supporters of the Rising, capitalising on public revulsion at the execution of its leaders, and on opposition to the introduction of military conscription to Ireland in the First World War, succeeded in ousting the Irish Parliamentary Party in the General Election of 1918.
Sinn Féin (‘We ourselves’), the election victors, set up the first Dáil (Parliament) and a war of national independence ensued. By the time an Anglo-Irish treaty was concluded in 1921, six counties in north-east Ulster, with a roughly two-thirds Unionist majority, had already been constituted as Northern Ireland. As a result of the Treaty, the remaining twenty-six counties formed the Irish Free State, which had dominion status within the British Empire. The establishment of the Free state was followed by a short civil war between those who accepted the treaty as offering effective self-government and those who held out for a full republic. The civil War was to colour attitudes and determine political allegiances for decades.
The first government of the new state was headed by W.T. Cosgrave of Cumann na nGaedheal, later the Fine Gael party. From the 1930s onwards the Fianna Fáil party, founded by Eamon de Valera in 1926, dominated Irish politics.
In the first two decades after Ireland achieved independence in 1922, the institutions of the state were consolidated and a tradition of political stability was established. The constitution of 1937 and the Republic of Ireland Act 1948 severed Ireland’s last formal links with Britain. Ireland remained neutral during the second World War.
Ireland was admitted to the United Nations (UN) in 1955, and joined what is now the European Union (EU) in 1973. New economic development policies led to substantial and rapid growth.
