A Wee Bit About Ireland
Official Name: Poblacht na H'Eireann ~ The Republic of Ireland
Capital: Dublin
Area: 27, 136 square miles
Principal River: The River Shannon
Highest Peak: Macgillycuddy's Reeks in the Wicklow Mountains; rises 3,414 feet
Principal Language: English and Gaelic
National Anthem: Soldier's Song
Ireland is a republic in northwestern Europe, occupying most of the island of Ireland. After centuries of subjugation to Great Britain, Ireland achieved self-government in 1922 and became a republic in 1949. A part of the island of Ireland is Northern Ireland, and constitutes a political unit separate from the Republic of Ireland.
Ireland is the second largest of the British Isles, and lies to the west of Great Britain. It is bounded in the west by the Atlantic Ocean and in the east it is separated from Great Britain by the North Channel, the Irish Sea, and St. George's Channel. The republic's only land border is with Northern Ireland, to the northeast. Ireland covers an area of 27,136 square miles, a little larger than the state of West Virginia.
Ireland is a country of rolling landscapes. Because of the vivid green beauty of its meadows, it is often called the Emerald Isle. In the early Middle Ages, Ireland was one of the principal cultural centers of Europe and was noted for its outstanding "saints and scholars." In the 19th and 20th centuries, people of Irish origin made important contributions to the development of the United States.
A Brief History of Ireland
Little is known of the earliest inhabitants of Ireland, but the island has been occupied since about 6000 B.C. In about the 4th century B.C., Celtic tribes, known as Gaels, came to Ireland from somewhere in central Europe. After a period of struggle among rival chieftains, the five kingdoms of Ulster, Leinster, Munster, Connacht, and Meath emerged. By the 4th century A.D. the Meath dynasty had established control over the other kingdoms. A high king, who held his court at Tara, near present-day Dublin, became the nominal overlord of the of the whole island.
In the 5th century A.D. the Irish were converted to Christianity by Saint Patrick, a missionary from Britain who became Ireland's patron saint.
Beginning early in the 9th century A.D., Norsemen from Scandinavia began to raid the island and established kingdoms along the coasts. The Norsemen were defeated by the high king Brian Boru at the Battle of Clontarf in 1014.
The English conquest of Ireland was begun by Richard de Clare, Earl of Pembroke. In 1171 he gained control of the Kingdom of Leinster, and in the same year, Henry II, Norman King of England, landed in Ireland and made the Irish accept him as overlord. However, for much of the Middle Ages, the part of Ireland controlled by English kings was limited to an area around Dublin that was known as the Pale. A parliament and other institutions of Anglo-Saxon origin developed there. Beyond the Pale, Norman lords seized much of the country, but eventually many of them were assimilated and adopted the Irish language and customs.
The English did not gain control over the whole of Ireland until the reign of Henry VIII, in the 16th century. Henry's daughter, Mary I introduced the policy of plantation. Irish lands were taken from their owners and given to English and Scottish settlers. With the Reformation in England and the enactment of harsh anti-Catholic laws by the English Parliament, the conflict betwee the Protestant English rulers and the Roman Catholic Irish was intensified. Revolts occurred for the next 70 years culminating in the major uprising in Ulster in 1641 that continued for ten years and claimed more than 600,000 lives. In 1649, the revolt was brutally crushed by Oliver Cromwell, who in reprisal drove the Catholic Irish out of their lands and transported many of them to Connacht.
Later in the 17th century the forces of James II and William III, rivals for the throne of England, clashed in Ireland. Many of the Irish supported the Catholic James, but Protestant William was victorious at the decisive Battle of the Boyne in 1690. During William's reign the English Parliament passed the Penal Laws, which deprived the Catholics of most of their civil rights. Throughout the 18th century, the Irish suffered from economic exploitation, as well as from religious and political persecution.
The outbreak of the American Revolutionary War provided the Irish Protestants with an excuse to form a voluntary force. The volunteers supported Henry Graatan, who demanded and obtained trade concessions and an independent Irish Parliament in 1782. However, little improvemet in Irish conditions resulted. Soon afterward, the French Revolution inspired the unsuccessful rebellion led by Wolfe Tone in 1798. As a result, the Irish Parliament was abolished in 1800 and Ireland was thereafter represented in the Britiah Parliament. Another abortive rebellion, led by the nationalist hero Robert Emmet, occurred in 1803. The efforts of the Irish leader Daniel O'Connell finally resulted in the admission of Roman Catholics to the British Parliament in 1829.
The mass of Irish people continued to live in abject poverty as tenants on large estates, many of which were owned by landlords resident in England. For food, the peasants depended almost entirely on potatoes because all other crops were sold to pay rent on the land. In the 1840's the potato crop failed for several successive years, resulting in a great famine during which 1,000,000 people died of starvation and disease. From 1847 to 1854, more than 1,500,000 people were forced to leave the country when their land was sold for nonpayment of rent. Many of the emigrants went to the United States, where some of them organized the secret Fenian Movement in order to oppose British rule in Ireland by force of arms.
In the 1870's, Charles Stewart Parnell emerged as the principal leader of those who sought reform by constitutional means. Parnell and his followers demanded Home Rule, or Irish self-government in domestic affairs.
In 1905, a new political organization called the Sinn Fein, meaning "ourselves alone," came into being. The Sinn Fein demanded the complete separation of Ireland from Britain. The Sein Fein supported the Easter Rebellion, which broke out in Dublin on Easter in 1916. An independent Irish republic was proclaimed.
Click the picture for a timeline of important dates in Irish history.
Interesting Facts About Ireland
- Ireland has more than 2,000 miles of coastline.
- The Irish Constitution guarantees freedom of religion, but recognizes the Roman Catholic Church as the "guardian of the Faith professed by the great majority of citizens."
Books for Further Study
The Story of Ireland by Maire O'Brien and Conor Cruise O'Brien. Viking, 1972.
Ireland Since the Famine by F.S.I. Lyons. Scribner, 1971.
Encyclopedia of Ireland by A. Figgis.
Ireland by Terence De Vere White
You can find recommended books for children here.
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