Pre-colonial period The first inhabitants of the Bismarck Archipelago arrived around 33,000 years ago after sailing from what is now
Papua New Guinea. Later arrivals included the
Lapita people approximately 3,000 years ago. Three distinct cultural practices are characteristic of the native people of New Ireland:
Kabai,
Malagan and
Tubuan.
Colonial period In 1616 the
Dutch sailors
Jacob Le Maire and
Willem Schouten were the first Europeans to set foot on the island, but it was only recognized as part of an island separate from New Guinea by
William Dampier in 1700.
Philip Carteret recognized it as separate from
New Britain (then New Pomerania) in 1767, and
Louis Antoine de Bougainville anchored here eleven months later, on 6 July 1768.
Whaling ships often called at the island in the 19th century, for water, wood and provisions. The first recorded whaler to visit was the
Resource in 1799. Islanders sometimes served as crewmen on these vessels. The last known whaling visitor was the
Belvedere in 1884. In the 1870s and 1880s, the
Marquis de Rays, a
French nobleman, attempted to establish a
French colony on the island called New France. He sent four ill-fated expeditions to the island, the
most famous of which caused the death of 123 settlers. From 1885 to 1914 New Ireland was a part of
German New Guinea and bore the name
Neumecklenburg. Germans managed several highly profitable
copra plantations and built a road to transport the goods. This road is currently in service and is named the
Boluminski Highway after the German administrator of German New Guinea,
Franz Boluminski. After
World War I, Neumecklenburg was renamed New Ireland and was controlled by Australia under a League of Nations mandate. In January 1942, during
World War II, the island was captured by
Japanese forces and was under their control. ==Ecology==