Prehistoric Ireland During the
last glacial period, and until about 16,000 BC, much of Ireland was periodically covered in ice. By 14,000 BC this ice bridge existed only between Northern Ireland and Scotland and by 12,000 BC Ireland was completely separated from Great Britain. Later, around 6,100 BC, Great Britain became separated from continental Europe. Until recently, the earliest evidence of human activity in Ireland was dated at 12,500 years ago, demonstrated by a butchered bear bone found in a cave in
County Clare. In 2021, a reindeer bone with chop marks, which had been found in Castlepook Cave near
Doneraile, County Cork in the early twentieth century during
Richard J. Ussher's excavations, was dated to 33,000 years ago by Dr Ruth Carden, a
paleozoologist from the School of Archaeology in
University College Dublin, pushing back the earliest signs of human activity by 20,000 years. By about 8,000 BC, more sustained occupation of the island has been shown, with evidence for
Mesolithic communities around the island. Some time before 4,000 BC,
Neolithic settlers introduced cereal
cultivars, domesticated animals such as cattle and sheep, built large timber buildings, and stone monuments. Field systems were developed in different parts of Ireland, including at the , that has been preserved beneath a blanket of peat in present-day
Tyrawley in northwest Mayo. An extensive
field system, arguably the oldest in the world, consisted of small divisions separated by
dry-stone walls. The fields were farmed for several centuries between 3,500 BC and 3,000 BC.
Wheat and
barley were the principal crops. The
Bronze Age began around 2,500 BC, with technology changing people's everyday lives during this period through innovations such as the wheel, harnessing
oxen,
weaving textiles, brewing
alcohol and
metalworking, According to
John T. Koch and others, Ireland in the Late Bronze Age was part of a maritime trading culture called the
Atlantic Bronze Age that also included Britain, western France and Iberia, and that this is where Celtic languages developed. This contrasts with the traditional view that their origin lies in mainland Europe with the
Hallstatt culture. , a
Neolithic stone circle in
Tuosist, close to Gleninchaquin Park,
County Kerry The long-standing traditional view is that the Celtic language,
Ogham script and culture were brought to Ireland by waves of invading or migrating Celts from mainland Europe. This theory draws on the
Lebor Gabála Érenn, a medieval Christian pseudo-history of Ireland, along with the presence of Celtic culture, language and artefacts found in Ireland such as Celtic bronze spears, shields, torcs and other finely crafted Celtic associated possessions. The theory holds that there were four separate Celtic invasions of Ireland. The
Priteni were said to be the first, followed by the
Belgae from northern
Gaul and Britain. Later,
Laighin tribes from
Armorica were said to have invaded Ireland and Britain more or less simultaneously. Lastly, the
Milesians (
Gaels) were said to have reached Ireland from either northern Iberia or southern Gaul. It was claimed that a second wave named the Euerni, belonging to the Belgae people of northern Gaul, began arriving about the 6th century BC. They were said to have given their name to the island. The theory was advanced in part because of the lack of archaeological evidence for large-scale Celtic immigration, though it is accepted that such movements are notoriously difficult to identify. Historical linguists are skeptical that this method alone could account for the absorption of Celtic language, with some saying that an assumed processual view of Celtic linguistic formation is 'an especially hazardous exercise'. Genetic lineage investigation into the area of Celtic migration to Ireland has led to findings that showed no significant differences in
mitochondrial DNA between Ireland and large areas of continental Europe, in contrast to parts of the Y-chromosome pattern. When taking both into account, a study concluded that modern Celtic speakers in Ireland could be thought of as European "Atlantic Celts" showing a shared ancestry throughout the Atlantic zone from northern Iberia to western Scandinavia rather than substantially central European. In 2012, research showed that the occurrence of genetic markers for the earliest farmers was almost eliminated by Beaker-culture immigrants: they carried what was then a new Y-chromosome R1b marker, believed to have originated in Iberia about 2,500 BC. The prevalence amongst modern Irish men of this mutation is a remarkable 84%, the highest in the world, and closely matched in other populations along the Atlantic fringes down to Spain. A similar genetic replacement happened with lineages in mitochondrial DNA. This conclusion is supported by recent research carried out by the geneticist
David Reich, who says: "British and Irish skeletons from the Bronze Age that followed the Beaker period had at most 10 per cent ancestry from the first farmers of these islands, with other 90 per cent from people like those associated with the Bell Beaker culture in the Netherlands." He suggests that it was Beaker users who introduced an Indo-European language, represented here by Celtic (i.e. a new language and culture introduced directly by migration and genetic replacement). In
his map of Ireland in his later work,
Geography, Ptolemy refers to Ireland as
Iouernia and to Great Britain as
Albion. These names were likely to have been the local names for the islands at the time. The earlier names,
in contrast, were likely to have been coined before direct contact with local peoples was made. The
Romans referred to Ireland by this name too in its
Latinised form,
Hibernia, or
Scotia. Ptolemy records 16 nations inhabiting every part of Ireland in 100 AD. The relationship between the Roman Empire and the kingdoms of ancient Ireland is unclear. However, finds of Roman coins have been made, for example at the Iron Age settlement of Freestone Hill near
Gowran and
Newgrange. Ireland continued as a patchwork of rival kingdoms; however, beginning in the 7th century, a concept of national kingship gradually became articulated through the concept of a
High King of Ireland.
Medieval Irish literature portrays an almost unbroken sequence of high kings stretching back thousands of years, but some modern historians believe the scheme was constructed in the 8th century to justify the status of powerful political groupings by projecting the origins of their rule into the remote past. All of the Irish kingdoms had their own kings but were nominally subject to the high king. The high king was drawn from the ranks of the provincial kings and ruled also the royal
kingdom of Meath, with a ceremonial capital at the
Hill of Tara. The concept did not become a political reality until the
Viking Age and even then was not a consistent one. Ireland did have a culturally unifying rule of law: the early written judicial system, the
Brehon Laws, administered by a professional class of jurists known as the
brehons.
The Chronicle of Ireland records that in 431, Bishop
Palladius arrived in Ireland on a mission from
Pope Celestine I to minister to the Irish "already believing in Christ". The same chronicle records that
Saint Patrick, Ireland's best known
patron saint, arrived the following year. There is continued debate over the missions of Palladius and Patrick, but the consensus is that they both took place and that the older
druid tradition collapsed in the face of Christianity. Irish Christian scholars excelled in the study of Latin and Greek learning and Christian theology. In the monastic culture that followed the Christianisation of Ireland, Latin and Greek learning was preserved in Ireland during the
Early Middle Ages in contrast to elsewhere in Western Europe, where the
Dark Ages followed the
Fall of the Western Roman Empire. showing Christ enthroned The arts of
manuscript illumination, metalworking and sculpture flourished and produced treasures such as the
Book of Kells, ornate jewellery and the many carved stone crosses that still dot the island today. A mission founded in 563 on
Iona by the Irish monk Saint
Columba began
a tradition of Irish missionary work that spread
Celtic Christianity and learning to Scotland, England and the
Frankish Empire on continental Europe after the fall of Rome. These missions continued until the
late Middle Ages, establishing monasteries and centres of learning, producing scholars such as
Sedulius Scottus and
Johannes Eriugena and exerting much influence in Europe. From the 9th century, waves of
Viking raiders plundered Irish monasteries and towns. These raids added to a pattern of raiding and
endemic warfare that was already deep-seated in Ireland. The Vikings were involved in establishing most of the major coastal settlements in Ireland:
Dublin,
Limerick,
Cork,
Wexford,
Waterford, as well as other smaller settlements.
Norman and English invasions in
County Meath, the largest
Norman castle in Ireland On 1 May 1169, an expedition of
Cambro-Norman knights, with an army of about 600 men, landed at
Bannow Strand in present-day
County Wexford. It was led by
Richard de Clare, known as 'Strongbow' owing to his prowess as an archer. The invasion, which coincided with a period of renewed Norman expansion, was at the invitation of
Dermot Mac Murrough,
King of Leinster. In 1166, Mac Murrough had fled to
Anjou, France, following a war involving
Tighearnán Ua Ruairc, of
Breifne, and sought the assistance of the
Angevin King
Henry II, in recapturing his kingdom. In 1171, Henry arrived in Ireland in order to review the general progress of the expedition. He wanted to re-exert royal authority over the invasion which was expanding beyond his control. Henry successfully re-imposed his authority over Strongbow and the Cambro-Norman warlords and persuaded many of the Irish kings to accept him as their overlord, an arrangement confirmed in the 1175
Treaty of Windsor. The invasion was legitimised by reference to provisions of the alleged
Papal Bull Laudabiliter, issued by an Englishman,
Adrian IV, in 1155. The document apparently encouraged Henry to take control in Ireland in order to oversee the financial and administrative reorganisation of the
Irish Church and its integration into the Roman Church system. Some restructuring had already begun at the ecclesiastical level following the
Synod of Kells in 1152. There has been significant controversy regarding the authenticity of
Laudabiliter, and there is no general agreement as to whether the bull was genuine or a forgery. Further, it had no standing in the Irish legal system. In 1172, Pope
Alexander III further encouraged Henry to advance the integration of the Irish Church with Rome. Henry was authorised to impose a tithe of one penny per hearth as an annual contribution. This church levy, called
Peter's Pence, is extant in Ireland as a voluntary donation. In turn, Henry assumed the title of
Lord of Ireland which Henry conferred on his younger son,
John Lackland, in 1185. This defined the Anglo-Norman administration in Ireland as the
Lordship of Ireland. When Henry's successor,
Richard the Lionheart died unexpectedly in 1199,
John inherited the crown of England and retained the Lordship of Ireland. Over the century that followed, Norman feudal law gradually replaced the Gaelic Brehon Law across large areas, so that by the late 13th century the
Norman-Irish had established a feudal system throughout much of Ireland. Norman settlements were characterised by the establishment of baronies, manors, towns and the seeds of the modern county system. A version of
Magna Carta (the
Great Charter of Ireland), substituting
Dublin for
London and the
Irish Church for, the English church at the time, the
Catholic Church, was published in 1216 and the
Parliament of Ireland was founded in 1297.
Gaelicisation From the mid-14th century, after the
Black Death, Norman settlements in Ireland went into a period of decline. The Norman rulers and the Gaelic Irish elites intermarried and the areas under Norman rule became
Gaelicised. In some parts, a hybrid Hiberno-Norman culture emerged. In response, the
Irish parliament passed the
Statutes of Kilkenny in 1367. These were a set of laws designed to prevent the assimilation of the Normans into Irish society by requiring English subjects in Ireland to speak English, follow English customs and abide by English law. By the end of the 15th century, central English authority in Ireland had all but disappeared, and a renewed Irish culture and language, albeit with Norman influences, was again dominant. English Crown control remained relatively unshaken in an amorphous foothold around Dublin known as
The Pale, and under the provisions of
Poynings' Law of 1494, Irish Parliamentary legislation was subject to the approval of the
English Privy Council.
Kingdom of Ireland in the 2nd half of the 16th century. Preserved in the
Ghent University Library. The title of
King of Ireland was re-created in 1542 by
Henry VIII,
King of England, of the
Tudor dynasty. English rule was reinforced and expanded in Ireland during the latter part of the 16th century, leading to the
Tudor conquest of Ireland. A near-complete conquest was achieved by the turn of the 17th century, following the
Nine Years' War and the
Flight of the Earls. This control was consolidated during the wars and conflicts of the 17th century, including the English and Scottish colonisation in the
Plantations of Ireland, the
Wars of the Three Kingdoms and the
Williamite War. During the
Irish Confederate Wars (1641–1653), Ireland experienced a catastrophic demographic collapse. Modern estimates suggest that approximately 20,000–30,000 soldiers died in combat, while an estimated 200,000 to over 300,000 civilians perished from war-related famine, disease, and displacement, with some contemporary estimates, such as those by
Sir William Petty, suggesting even higher mortality figures. A further 50,000 were sent into
indentured servitude in the
West Indies. Petty estimated that 504,000 Catholic Irish and 112,000 Protestant settlers died, and 100,000 people were transported, as a result of the war. If a prewar population of 1.5 million is assumed, this would mean that the population was reduced by almost half. The religious struggles of the 17th century left a deep sectarian division in Ireland. Religious allegiance now determined the perception in law of loyalty to the Irish King and Parliament. After the passing of
the Test Act 1672, and the victory of the forces of the dual monarchy of
William and
Mary over the
Jacobites, Roman Catholics and nonconforming Protestant Dissenters were barred from sitting as members in the Irish Parliament. Under the emerging
Penal Laws, Irish Roman Catholics and Dissenters were increasingly deprived of various civil rights, even the ownership of hereditary property. Additional regressive punitive legislation followed in 1703, 1709 and 1728. This completed a comprehensive systemic effort to materially disadvantage Roman Catholics and Protestant Dissenters while enriching a new ruling class of Anglican conformists. The new Anglo-Irish ruling class became known as the
Protestant Ascendancy. of suspected
United Irishmen The "
Great Frost" struck Ireland and the rest of Europe between December 1739 and September 1741, after a decade of relatively mild winters. The winters destroyed stored crops of potatoes and other staples, and the poor summers severely damaged harvests. This resulted in the
famine of 1740. An estimated 250,000 people (about one in eight of the population) died from the ensuing pestilence and disease. The Irish government halted export of corn and kept the army in quarters but did little more. Local gentry and charitable organisations provided relief but could do little to prevent the ensuing mortality. The passage of the Act in the Irish Parliament was ultimately achieved with substantial majorities, having failed on the first attempt in 1799. According to contemporary documents and historical analysis, this was achieved through a considerable degree of bribery, with funding provided by the British Secret Service Office, and the awarding of peerages, places and honours to secure votes. and partly because of the impact of the sudden union with the structurally superior economy of England, which saw Ireland as a source of agricultural produce and capital. from
Our Boys in Ireland by Henry Willard French (1891) The
Great Famine of 1845–1851 devastated Ireland, as in those years Ireland's population fell by one-third. More than one million people died from starvation and disease, with an additional million people emigrating during the famine, mostly to the United States and Canada. In the century that followed, an economic depression caused by the famine resulted in a further million people emigrating. By the end of the decade, half of all
immigration to the United States was from Ireland. The period of civil unrest that followed until the end of the 19th century is referred to as the
Land War. Mass emigration became deeply entrenched and the population continued to decline until the mid-20th century. Immediately prior to the famine the population was recorded as 8.2 million by the
1841 census. The population has never returned to this level since. The population continued to fall until 1961;
County Leitrim was the final Irish county to record a population increase post-famine, in 2006. The 19th and early 20th centuries saw the rise of modern
Irish nationalism, primarily among the Roman Catholic population. The pre-eminent Irish political figure after the Union was
Daniel O'Connell. He was elected as Member of Parliament for
Ennis in a surprise result and despite being unable to take his seat
as a Roman Catholic. O'Connell spearheaded a vigorous campaign that was taken up by the Prime Minister, the Irish-born soldier and statesman, the
Duke of Wellington. Steering the
Catholic Relief Bill through Parliament, aided by future prime minister
Robert Peel, Wellington prevailed upon a reluctant
George IV to sign the Bill and proclaim it into law.
George's father had opposed the plan of the earlier Prime Minister,
Pitt the Younger, to introduce such a bill following the Union of 1801, fearing
Catholic emancipation to be in conflict with the
Act of Settlement 1701. Daniel O'Connell led a subsequent campaign, for the repeal of the Act of Union, which failed. Later in the century,
Charles Stewart Parnell and others campaigned for autonomy within the Union, or "
Home Rule". Unionists, especially those located in Ulster, were strongly opposed to Home Rule, which they thought would be dominated by Catholic interests. After several attempts to pass a Home Rule bill through parliament, it looked certain that one would finally pass in 1914. To prevent this from happening, the
Ulster Volunteers were formed in 1913 under the leadership of
Edward Carson. Their formation was followed in 1914 by the establishment of the
Irish Volunteers, whose aim was to ensure that the
Home Rule Bill was passed. The Act was passed but with the "temporary" exclusion of the six counties of Ulster, which later became Northern Ireland. Before it could be implemented, however, the Act was suspended for the duration of the
First World War. The Irish Volunteers split into two groups. The majority, approximately 175,000 in number, under
John Redmond, took the name
National Volunteers and supported
Irish involvement in the war. A minority, approximately 13,000, retained the Irish Volunteers' name and opposed Ireland's involvement in the war. The pro-independence republican party,
Sinn Féin, received overwhelming endorsement in the
1918 general election, and in 1919 proclaimed an
Irish Republic, setting up its own parliament () and government. Simultaneously the Volunteers, which became known as the
Irish Republican Army (IRA), launched a
three-year guerrilla war, which ended in a truce in July 1921 (although violence continued until June 1922, mostly in Northern Ireland). Disagreements over these provisions led to a split in the nationalist movement and a subsequent
Irish Civil War between the new government of the
Irish Free State and those opposed to the treaty, led by
Éamon de Valera. The civil war officially ended in May 1923 when de Valera issued a cease-fire order.
Independence that established the
Irish Free State and independence for 26 out of 32
Irish counties During its first decade, the newly formed Irish Free State was governed by the victors of the civil war. When de Valera achieved power, he took advantage of the
Statute of Westminster and
political circumstances to build upon inroads to greater sovereignty made by the previous government. The oath was abolished and in 1937 a new constitution was adopted. volunteers from independent Ireland joined the British forces during the war, four being awarded
Victoria Crosses. The
German intelligence was also active in Ireland. Its operations ended in September 1941 when
police made arrests based on surveillance carried out on the key diplomatic legations in Dublin. To the authorities, counterintelligence was a fundamental line of defence. With a regular army of only slightly over seven thousand men at the start of the war, and with limited supplies of modern weapons, the state would have had great difficulty in defending itself from invasion from either side in the conflict. Large-scale emigration marked most of the post-WWII period (particularly during the 1950s and 1980s), but beginning in 1987 the economy improved, and the 1990s saw the beginning of substantial economic growth. This period of growth became known as the
Celtic Tiger. The Republic's real GDP grew by an average of 9.6% per annum between 1995 and 1999, in which year the Republic joined the
euro. In 2000, it was the sixth-richest country in the world in terms of GDP per capita. Historian
R. F. Foster argues the cause was a combination of a new sense of initiative and the entry of American corporations. He concludes the chief factors were low taxation, pro-business regulatory policies, and a young, tech-savvy workforce. For many multinationals, the decision to do business in Ireland was made easier still by generous incentives from the
Industrial Development Authority. In addition
European Union membership was helpful, giving the country lucrative access to markets that it had previously reached only through the United Kingdom, and pumping huge subsidies and investment capital into the Irish economy. Modernisation brought secularisation in its wake. The traditionally high levels of religiosity have sharply declined. Foster points to three factors: First, Irish feminism, largely imported from America with liberal stances on contraception, abortion and divorce, undermined the authority of bishops and priests. Second, the mishandling of the paedophile scandals humiliated the Church, whose bishops seemed less concerned with the victims and more concerned with covering up for errant priests. Third, prosperity brought hedonism and materialism that undercut the ideals of saintly poverty. The
post-2008 Irish economic downturn dramatically ended this period of boom. GDP fell by 3% in 2008 and by 7.1% in 2009, the worst year since records began (although earnings by foreign-owned businesses continued to grow). The state has since experienced deep recession, with unemployment, which doubled during 2009, remaining above 14% in 2012.
Northern Ireland Northern Ireland resulted from the division of the United Kingdom by the
Government of Ireland Act 1920, and until 1972 was a self-governing jurisdiction within the United Kingdom with its own parliament and prime minister. Northern Ireland, as part of the United Kingdom, was not neutral during the Second World War, and
Belfast suffered four bombing raids in 1941.
Conscription was not extended to Northern Ireland, and roughly an equal number volunteered from Northern Ireland as volunteered from the Republic of Ireland. signing the
Solemn League and Covenant in 1912, declaring opposition to
Home Rule "using all means which may be found necessary" Although Northern Ireland was largely spared the strife of the civil war, in the decades that followed partition there were sporadic episodes of inter-communal violence. Nationalists, mainly Roman Catholic, wanted to unite Ireland as an independent republic, whereas unionists, mainly Protestant, wanted Northern Ireland to remain in the United Kingdom. The Protestant and Catholic communities in Northern Ireland voted largely along
sectarian lines, meaning that the government of Northern Ireland (elected by
"first-past-the-post" from 1929) was controlled by the
Ulster Unionist Party. Over time, the minority Catholic community felt increasingly alienated with further disaffection fuelled by practices such as
gerrymandering and discrimination in housing and employment. In the late 1960s, nationalist grievances were aired publicly in mass civil rights protests, which were often confronted by
loyalist counter-protests. The government's reaction to confrontations was seen to be one-sided and heavy-handed in favour of unionists. Law and order broke down as unrest and inter-communal violence increased. The Northern Ireland government requested the
British Army to aid the police and protect the
Irish Nationalist population. In 1969, the paramilitary
Provisional IRA, which favoured the creation of a
united Ireland, emerged from a split in the
Irish Republican Army and began a campaign against what it called the "British occupation of the six counties". Other groups, both the unionist and nationalist participated in violence, and a period known as "
the Troubles" began. More than 3,600 deaths resulted over the subsequent three decades of conflict. Owing to the civil unrest during the Troubles, the British government suspended home rule in 1972 and imposed
direct rule. There were several unsuccessful attempts to end the Troubles politically, such as the
Sunningdale Agreement of 1973. In 1998, following a ceasefire by the Provisional IRA and multi-party talks, the
Good Friday Agreement was concluded as a treaty between the British and Irish governments, annexing the text agreed in the multi-party talks. The substance of the Agreement (formally referred to as the Belfast Agreement) was later endorsed by referendums in both parts of Ireland. The Agreement restored self-government to Northern Ireland on the basis of power-sharing in a regional
Executive drawn from the major parties in a new
Northern Ireland Assembly, with entrenched protections for the two main communities. The Executive is jointly headed by a
First Minister and deputy First Minister drawn from the unionist and nationalist parties. Violence had decreased greatly after the Provisional IRA and loyalist ceasefires in 1994, and in 2005, the Provisional IRA announced the end of its armed campaign and an
independent commission supervised its disarmament and that of other nationalist and unionist paramilitary organisations. The Assembly and power-sharing Executive were suspended several times but were restored again in 2007. In that year the British government officially ended its military support of the police in Northern Ireland (
Operation Banner) and began withdrawing troops. On 27 June 2012, Northern Ireland's deputy first minister and former IRA commander,
Martin McGuinness, shook hands with Queen Elizabeth II in Belfast, symbolising reconciliation between the two sides. ==Politics==