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According to legend, Ireland was inhabited first by various
tribes, including the Tuatha Dé Danann. Each of the four historical provinces of Ireland
appears to have had its own king, who was then subject to the ardri, or monarch, to
whom the central district, called Meath, was allotted. During the reign of Loigare, or
King MacNeill (AD428-463), Saint Patrick attempted to convert the island's
inhabitants to Christianity, and by the 6th century extensive monasteries were founded. In
the late 8th century Scandinavian Vikings established settlements on the coast. They
conducted raids on the interior until 1014, when they were defeated in battle by Irish
king Brian Boru.
In 1155 King
Henry II of England is said to have been authorized by Pope Adrian IV to take possession
of Ireland. In 1172 Henry supported Norman leaders in Ireland in their claim of portions
of the island. An English viceroy was then appointed to govern these Norman territories,
and the Norman legal system was introduced. However, descendants of the Anglo-Norman
settlers in Ireland increasingly adopted native Irish language, habits, and laws, and over
time the authority of the English decreased.
English
control waned until 1494, when Sir Edward Poynings was appointed viceroy by King Henry
VII. Under Poynings legislation was enacted to reduce the power of the Anglo-Irish lords,
and in 1537 King Henry VIII attempted to introduce the Reformation into Ireland, beginning
with the dissolution of monasteries. Under Elizabeth I (1558-1603) and James I
(1603-1625), the power of the Church of England was extended over Ireland, although a
great many of the Irish people remained Roman Catholic. Under James I, English law was
pronounced the law of Ireland, and the independence of the Irish Parliament was destroyed.
The Irish
fought back, and in the 1640s insurgents took control of part of the country. In 1649
English soldier and statesman Oliver Cromwell landed at Dublin with an army that
eventually confiscated the best land of Munster, Leinster, and Ulster. In subsequent
years, English control of the island led to Irish commerce and industry being crushed
through restrictive legislation. This caused the economy to decline and large groups of
Irish to emigrate.
In 1778 the
Irish Parliament passed the Relief Act, removing some of the most oppressive restrictions
on the Irish. Backed by a volunteer military force of 80,000, Irish Protestants demanded
legislative independence from England, and the British Parliament repealed legislation
that had previously reduced the power of the Irish people. Suffrage was not, however,
extended to Roman Catholics. After an unsuccessful peasant rebellion organized by the
Society of United Irishmen in 1798, British prime minister William Pitt, as a remedy
against further rebellion, induced the Irish Parliament to pass the Act of Union. In 1801
the legislative union of Great Britain and Ireland was formally proclaimed, still without
emancipation for Roman Catholics. In 1823 the Catholic Association was founded. This
organization demanded, and finally obtained, complete Roman Catholic emancipation in
Ireland. In 1828 Roman Catholics were permitted to hold local office, and in 1829 they
were allowed to sit in Parliament.
The struggle
for Irish freedom next centered on the tithes, later known as rents, which all Irish,
Roman Catholics included, were compelled to pay for the maintenance of the Anglican church
in Ireland. The so-called Tithe War led to emphatic demands for the repeal of the Act of
Union. From 1845 to 1847 Ireland suffered a disastrous famine resulting from the failure
of the potato crop. Again large numbers of Irish emigrated, especially to the United
States.
In the late
19th century agitation for Home Rule found a champion in Irish nationalist leader Charles
Stewart Parnell. At the same time, many secret societies were working for the
establishment of an Irish republic, while the Irish Agricultural Organization Society,
inaugurated in 1894, and the Gaelic League, founded in 1903, aimed to rehabilitate
Ireland's economic and intellectual life from within. The Sinn Fein, an important
political party and force in achieving ultimate independence, was founded in 1902.
The Easter
Rebellion, an uprising of Irish nationalists in 1916, set the stage for Sinn Fein, a
political party founded in 1902, to call successfully for the Republic of Ireland's
independence from Britain in the early 20th century. In 1919 Sinn Fein members of
Parliament met in Dublin as the Dáil Éireann, proclaimed the independence of Ireland,
and formed a government with Eamon De Valera as president. Subsequent guerrilla attacks by
Irish insurgents, later called the Irish Republican Army (IRA), on British forces still in
Ireland, particularly in the north, ended in 1921 with a treaty forming the Irish Free
State within the Commonwealth of Nations. De Valera opposed the treaty with Britain, which
split Ireland in two and retained Northern Ireland as a part of the United Kingdom. He
resigned as president and with a dissident group, the Republicans, instituted what was in
effect a civil war against the provisional government of the Irish Free State.
In 1922 the
Dáil adopted a constitution providing for a bicameral legislature, and the official
government of the Irish Free State was instituted in late 1922. In 1923 the Republicans
ended their guerrilla campaigns, but they continued to boycott the government. In 1931 the
British Parliament's Statute of Westminster was passed, stating that the British
government would not legislate for the dominions of the Commonwealth of Nations or nullify
acts passed by their own legislatures, thereby allowing those dominions the power to
legislate away their relationships with Britain.
De Valera
reentered Irish politics in the late 1920s and won the 1932 and 1933 elections for head of
the Irish Free State's government. He worked to eliminate British influence in Ireland,
promoting a self-sufficient economy. Finally, in 1937, a new constitution abolished the
Irish Free State, establishing Éire as a "sovereign independent democratic
state." Twelve years later Éire became the Republic of Ireland, independent of
Britain and no longer a member of the Commonwealth of Nations. However, predominantly
Protestant Northern Ireland remained part of the United Kingdom.
The Republic
of Ireland became a member of the United Nations in 1955, and in 1973 it joined the
European Community (now called the European Union). After having had an expanding economy
in the 1950s and 1960s, in the late 1970s and early 1980s the country faced a weak economy
and increased domestic terrorism by extremist Irish nationalists. In frequent elections,
power alternated between two political parties, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. In 1985
Britain gave the Irish Republic a consultative role in governing Northern Ireland. In 1990
Mary Bourke Robinson was elected the first female president of Ireland, and in 1992 a
coalition government was formed between the Fianna Fáil and Labour parties, followed by a
new coalition government in 1994, headed by Prime Minister John Bruton of the Fine Gael
Party.
As a result
of June 1997 elections, Fianna Fáil leader Bertie Ahern became prime minister. In
September of the same year, President Mary Robinson resigned to become the United Nations
High Commissioner for Human Rights. In elections held in October, Robinson was replaced by
Mary McAleese.
In April
1998 peace negotiations between the British government and Irish nationalists in Northern
Ireland culminated in the drafting of a historic power-sharing accord between Northern
Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. In late May, in referendums in both Northern Ireland
and the Republic of Ireland, voters overwhelmingly approved the accord.
Since the Government of
Ireland Act of 1920 formed the political division of the United Kingdom known as Northern
Ireland, the Protestant population of the country has generally wanted to remain allied
with Britain, while most Catholics have wanted reunification with the Republic of Ireland.
After World
War II (1939-1945), in 1949, when Éire became the Republic of Ireland, Britain affirmed
the status of Northern Ireland as part of the United Kingdom. In 1955, however, members of
the IRA began a campaign of terrorism aimed at reunifying the island. In 1962 the Republic
of Ireland condemned violence as a means for reunification. In 1968 Catholics in Northern
Ireland, a disadvantaged minority, organized a civil rights movement, often provoking
violent reactions. Some Protestants recognized the need for reform, but a right-wing
faction of the ruling Ulster Unionist Party opposed any governmental reform. British
troops, sent to Northern Ireland to keep peace in 1969, became a permanent presence and
violence increased, with deep social divisions between Protestants and Roman Catholics. In
1994, after 25 years of violent struggle, the IRA announced a cease-fire. In 1995 British
Prime Minister John Major and Irish Prime Minister John Bruton presented a framework for
peace negotiations, but in early 1996 the IRA announced an end to the cease-fire, and
violence resumed. Peace talks began in June 1996, but they excluded Sinn Fein because the
IRA had not restored its cease-fire. In October the IRA claimed responsibility for two car
bombs that exploded in Lisburn, Northern Ireland.
The IRA
renewed its cease-fire in July 1997, and Sinn Fein joined the negotiations. In April 1998
the talks culminated in an historic agreement - the "Good Friday Agreement",
which included the establishment of a new provincial assembly for Northern Ireland,
replacing the province's direct rule by the British government. In late May voters in both
Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland overwhelmingly approved the agreement. The
Real IRA, a splinter group of the IRA formed after the IRA's 1997 cease-fire, took
responsibility for an August 1998 bombing in Omagh, Northern Ireland—the deadliest
single act of violence to strike the province in nearly three decades of strife. The IRA
condemned the bombing and called on the Real IRA to disband.
Since then, the agreement has
been tested and contested to the limit, with disputes over the formation of the assembly,
and the dis-armament of the paramilitary groups. The peace of Northern Ireland
still seems to hang by a fragile thread - we need to keep
praying...
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