A Brief History Celtic Ireland Ireland has been inhabited since very ancient times, but Irish history really begins with the arrival of the Celts around the 6th century b.c. , Ireland’s first documented invasion. They brought with them iron weapons and chariots and codes of custom and conduct that quickly became dominant in the country. This is the period of myths and legends, later romanticized by Irish writers, that still exercise their power today. The Celts were organized along a family- and clan-based system, and Celtic Ireland became a series of independent kingdoms. Nominally these kingdoms acknowledged an elected High King, with his seat at fabled Tara, as overlord. There were no towns, and the cow was the medium of exchange. Learning was revered, games were played, and the poet was held in awe. Law and religion were important in Celtic culture. The religion was druidic, and the law was an elaborate written code, interpreted by a class of professional lawyers known as brehons. The brehon laws gave women a high status — they could own property, divorce, and even enter the professions. Christianity and a Mission to Europe St. Patrick first came to Ireland as a prisoner, captured in an Irish raid on a Roman settlement in Britain. He eventually escaped and returned to Ireland as a missionary in a.d. 432. By the time of Patrick’s death in a.d. 465, the whole country was effectively Christianized — a peaceful process, without a single martyr, which speaks for Patrick’s natural diplomacy as well as his powers of persuasion. Many legends surround his mission. It was St. Patrick who used the example of the shamrock to explain the Christian Trinity to King Laoghaire and an assembled crowd at Tara. The king was converted and the plant has been a symbol of Ireland ever since. With Christianity and the sophisticated Celtic culture successfully fused, Ireland entered its “Golden Age” (a.d. 500 until around a.d. 800). The Irish monasteries during this time were the major preservers of learning and literacy in the so-called “Dark Ages. ” Ireland became “the light of the known world,” sending its saints and scholars out all over Europe. The importance of this phase of Irish history, for both the Irish themselves and civilization in general, cannot be overrated. However, the Irish church with its Celtic cultural base developed differently from the emerging Christian world in Europe and was eventually superseded by Rome and its centralized administration. The Vikings Arrive Throughout this period, Ireland’s political organization continued much as it had under pagan Celtic rule. There were still no towns; the site of Dublin was only a crossroads, known as Baile Atha Cliath (“City of the Hurdles,” a designation still seen on buses). Communities clustered around monasteries and castles. From a.d. 795, Ireland was subject to repeated Viking raids. The Vikings sacked the great centers of learning for their treasures. In the ninth century they built a fort on the Liffey and founded Ireland’s first town — Dubh Linn or “Black Pool.” The remains of Viking fortifications can be seen today beneath Dublin Castle. The Vikings also introduced coinage and better ship-building techniques. In a.d. 988 the Irish kings finally united under the king of Munster, Brian Ború, and in a great battle drove the Vikings north of the Liffey. Their influence waned, and they began to be absorbed into the general population. The Irish now held Dublin and in 1038 the first Christ Church Cathedral was founded. Ireland Under the Normans In 1169 the Normans landed in Wexford, beginning the struggle between England and Ireland that was to dominate Irish history until independence. Norman incursion began with an internal power struggle. The king of Leinster invited Richard de Clare, known as “Strongbow,” to come to Ireland to help him reclaim his kingdom (Strongbow’s tomb can be seen in Christ Church Cathedral). The Norman invaders brought with them armor, the use of horses in battle, and the feudal system. Successive waves of Norman invaders followed Strongbow. Unlike the Irish, they favored centralized administration, and enforced their rule with the building of fortified castles. In 1171 the English king, Henry II, came to Dublin. He granted Dublin a charter in 1174 that gave the city rights to free trade. By 1204 Dublin Castle was the center of English administrative power in Ireland. The city elected its first mayor in 1229, and a parliament was held for the first time in 1297. Beyond the Pale The Normans, following the pattern of earlier invaders, became rapidly assimilated. The next two centuries were characterized by unrest and repeated attempts by the Irish to rid themselves of their Norman overlords. By the end of the 15th century England held only a small area around Dublin, walled off from the Norman inner city and known as the Pale, with the Irish themselves outside. All this changed under the Tudors. Henry VIII and Elizabeth I were determined to subdue Ireland, and sent in massive military expeditions. Henry VIII’s break with Rome and the dissolution of the monasteries meant that by 1558 Dublin’s two cathedrals, Christ Church and St. Patrick’s, had become Protestant (as they remain today, which sometimes surprises visitors). Elizabeth I left Dublin Trinity College as her legacy — she founded it as a seat of Protestant learning, and it remained just that well into the mid-20th century. The Irish continued to fight, but the semi-independent kingdoms were never able to achieve real cohesion. By 1607, they were left leaderless by the “Flight of the Earls.” The two Ulster earls, O’Neill and O’Donnell went into exile on the Continent, along with many other Irish lords. From Cromwell to the Boyne In 1649, Ireland’s most hated conqueror, Oliver Cromwell, arrived in Dublin. His ruthless campaigns resulted in more than 600,000 Irish dead or deported. There was a massive dispossession of the Irish from their fertile lands in the east, and they were driven west of the Shannon; in Cromwell’s phrase they could go to “Hell or Connaught.” Some Irish still spit when they hear his name. At the end of the century, when Catholic king James II came to the throne, the Irish felt they had no choice but to back him. James was defeated by William of Orange just north of Dublin at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690; the defeated army straggled into Dublin, and James II fled to France. As a result, the English parliament enacted the Penal Laws of 1704, which disenfranchised the Catholic Irish; their purpose was to keep the majority of Irish poor and powerless. The Ascendancy The 18th century was not a good time for the native Irish, but the Protestant Ascendancy flourished. However, like others before them, they had come to identify themselves as Irish, and they were anxious to achieve at least a measure of self-government for Ireland. In 1782 an Irish parliament (Protestant) was formed in Dublin, largely through the energies of Henry Grattan, MP for the city. Grattan succeeded in having most of the penal laws against the Catholics repealed. But the independent parliament was short-lived — against Grattan’s opposition, and through bribery and corruption, it voted to dissolve itself in 1800. In the meantime, the influential ideas of the French Revolution were spreading. The United Irishmen, led by Wolfe Tone, was founded in 1791, a nonsectarian movement that sought the freedom of the Irish people, both Catholic and Protestant. Wolfe Tone secured aid from France, but a storm scattered the ships of the invading force. Tone was captured and either was murdered or committed suicide. He remains a revered figure in the Irish pantheon. The Ascendancy in Dublin enjoyed an elegant lifestyle during this period. Theater and music flourished. Dublin’s importance grew dramatically as the city became the center of social and business life in Ireland. Great public buildings like the Customs House and the Four Courts were constructed, and private mansions like Powerscourt and Leinster House were built. Craftsmen and architects were imported from Europe and England; the Georgian squares like Merrion Square in south Dublin were created at this time. The glory of this lively and cosmopolitan city lasted until 1801, when the Act of Union brought Ireland under direct rule from London. Quite suddenly, everything came to a standstill: The rich and powerful left for England, and the city became a provincial capital in a state of long, slow decline. The Union and O’Connell Under the Act of Union, Irish members of parliament now served in London. In 1803 there was yet another failed rebellion, led by the great Irish hero Robert Emmet. His speech from the dock and his horrendous execution have become the stuff of legend. Daniel O’Connell carried on the struggle. He formed the peaceful but powerful Catholic Association, and in 1829 the Duke of Wellington, in a bid to avoid a civil war, passed the Catholic Emancipation Bill, which allowed Irish Catholics to sit in the parliament at Westminster for the first time. O’Connell was made lord mayor of Dublin in 1841, but failed in his bid to have the Act of Union repealed and an Irish parliament re-established. Famine and Home Rule The Great Famine struck in 1845 with a blight on the staple food of the poor, the potato. It lasted until 1848, and it is estimated that more than one million people died and as many emigrated to escape the ravages of the catastrophe. By the end of the 1800s the population of the country was virtually halved. Ironically, there was plenty of food around — corn, cattle, sheep, and flour — but it was not available to the poor. In America a new organization was formed, the Irish Republican Brotherhood, known as the Fenians. Their rebellion was aborted, but the society remained active and was influential in the efforts of the National Land League, founded in 1879, which sought to change the tenant system. Charles Stewart Parnell, an Irish member of parliament, took up the cause, and the Land Acts, which enabled hard-pressed tenants to buy their land, were passed. Parnell’s other cause was the demand for Home Rule for Ireland. For a time, it looked as if the campaign was going to succeed, but political events, together with the citing of Parnell as co-respondent in a scandalous divorce case led many to withdraw their support. The bill for Home Rule finally became law just as World War I broke out, but with the proviso that it was not to be enacted until hostilities ended. Easter Rising and War Two years into World War I, on Easter Monday, 24 April 1916, the Easter Rising began when the Citizen’s Army, led by trade unionist James Connolly, and the Irish Republican Brotherhood, led by poet Padráig Pearse, took control of a number of key buildings in the capital. Pearse read out a Declaration of Independence from the General Post Office on O’Connell Street. Countess Constance Markievicz led a band of rebels to occupy buildings around St. Stephen’s Green. The Irish people were urged to fight, but to the Dubliners it all seemed rather unreal — in fact, while it was happening it received little public support. More than 500 people were killed and many buildings damaged — you can see the bullet holes on the General Post Office building, and the Royal College of Surgeons — before the Rising was put down. Fifteen of the leaders were executed, including Pearse and the wounded Connolly, who was brought to his execution in an ambulance and shot tied to a chair. Of the leaders, Eamon De Valera was spared, probably because he was an American citizen, and Markievicz, because the British did not want to execute a woman. The British retribution galvanized the Irish — and in the words of Yeats’s poem, “All changed, changed utterly.” In the general election of 1919 an overwhelming number of Sinn Féin republicans were returned to parliament. Instead of going to London, however, the Sinn Féin members set up Dail Éireann in Dublin and sparked the War of Independence. In 1919 the conflict resulted in a partial victory for Ireland, and in 1921 the Partition Act enabled the six counties of Northern Ireland to remain in the union with Britain, while the remaining 26 became independent. In the following year, however, civil war broke out between the supporters of Michael Collins and Arthur Griffith, who had signed the treaty, and Eamon De Valera’s followers. The civil war lasted a year. In 1922 the new Irish Free State was born. Independence and After In 1937 De Valera’s republican constitution took Ireland out of the British Commonwealth, and the new republic elected its first president, Douglas Hyde, in 1938. During World War II, though bombs from German planes fell twice on Dublin, the country remained neutral. In 1948, the Irish republic severed its last ties to Britain. Neglect, conquest, and isolation, however, had taken their toll, and at first independent Ireland was characterized by a parochial and narrow-minded approach to affairs, and Dublin was content to let its Georgian heritage decay. In some cases, modern buildings were erected in their place that are not admired today. However, Ireland has always looked to Europe for friendship and support, and gradually it began to define itself as a European nation. It joined the European Community in 1972. In 1988 the Dublin city millennium was marked by the restoration of many fine buildings and by new statues and monuments created by Irish artists (some of these works more successful than others). A year before the celebrations, Dublin had elected its first woman as mayor, and in 1990 Ireland chose the dynamic Mary Robinson as its first woman president. The ultimate accolade came in 1991, when Dublin was designated a European City of Culture. As capital of Europe’s fastest growing economy today, this new, self-assured Dublin is now very much a European city.