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and was eventually superseded by Rome and its centralized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.
