DISCOVERING+IRELAND

= = = = =media type="youtube" key="URDKotwlV5I" height="315" width="560" align="center" = = = = = =__HISTORY__=

The first known settlement in [|Ireland] began around 8000 BC, when [|hunter-gatherers] arrived from continental [|Europe], probably via a [|land bridge]. [|[1]] Few archaeological traces remain of this group, but their descendants and later [|Neolithic] arrivals, particularly from the [|Iberian Peninsula], were responsible for major [|Neolithic] sites such as [|Newgrange]. [|[2]][|[3]] On the arrival of [|Saint Patrick] and other [|Christian] missionaries in the early to mid-5th century [|AD], [|Christianity] began to subsume the indigenous [|Celtic religion] , a process that was completed by the year 600. From around AD 800, more than a century of [|Viking] invasions brought havoc upon the monastic culture and on the island's various regional dynasties, yet both of these institutions proved strong enough to survive and assimilate the invaders. The coming of [|Cambro-Norman] mercenaries under [|Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke], nicknamed Strongbow, in 1169 marked the beginning of more than 700 years of direct [|English] , and, later, [|British] involvement in Ireland. In 1177, prince [|John Lackland] was made [|Lord of Ireland] by his father [|Henry II of England] at the Council of Oxford. [|[4]] The Crown did not begin an attempt to assert full control of the island until after [|Henry VIII] 's repudiation of [|papal] authority over the Church in England and subsequent [|English Reformation], which failed in Ireland. Questions over the loyalty of Irish [|vassals] provided the initial impetus for a series of Irish military campaigns between 1534 and 1691. This period was also marked by a Crown policy of [|plantation] which led to the arrival of thousands of [|English] and [|Scottish] [|Protestant] settlers, and the consequent displacement of the pre-plantation [|Catholic] landholders. As the military and political defeat of [|Gaelic Ireland] became more pronounced in the early seventeenth century, the role of religion as a new divisive element in Ireland became more pronounced. From this period on, [|sectarian] conflict became a recurrent theme in Irish history. The overthrow, in 1613, of the Catholic majority in the Irish parliament was realised principally through the creation of numerous new boroughs, all of which were dominated by the new settlers. By the end of the seventeenth century, [|recusant] Roman Catholics, as adherents to the old religion were now termed, representing some 85% of Ireland's population, were then banned from the Irish parliament. Political power rested entirely in the hands of an [|Anglican] minority, while Catholics and members of [|dissenting] Protestant denominations suffered severe political and economic privations at the hands of the [|Penal Laws]. The [|Irish Parliament] was abolished in 1801 in the wake of the [|republican] [|United Irishmen Rebellion] and Ireland became an integral part of a new [|United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland] under the [|Act of Union]. Although promised a repeal of the [|Test Act], Catholics were not granted full rights until [|Catholic Emancipation] was attained in throughout the new UK in 1829. This was followed by the first Reform Bill in 1832, a principal condition of which was the removal of the poorer British and Irish freeholders from [|the franchise]. The [|Irish Parliamentary Party] strove from the 1880s to attain [|Home Rule] self-government through the parliamentary constitutional movement eventually winning the [|Home Rule Act 1914], though it was suspended on the outbreak of [|World War I]. The [|Easter Rising] staged by Irish republicans two years later brought [|physical force republicanism] back to the forefront of Irish politics. In 1922, after the [|Irish War of Independence] and the [|Anglo-Irish Treaty], the larger part of Ireland seceded from the United Kingdom to become the independent [|Irish Free State] ; and after the [|1937 constitution] , [|Ireland]. The six north eastern counties, known as [|Northern Ireland], remained within the [|United Kingdom]. The [|Irish Civil War] followed soon after the War of Independence. The [|history of Northern Ireland] has since been dominated by sporadic sectarian conflict between (mainly Catholic) [|Nationalists] and (mainly Protestant) [|Unionists]. This conflict erupted into [|the Troubles] in the late 1960s, until an [|uneasy peace] thirty years later.



> > > > Ireland Currency   Irish Flag   Irish National Anthem > Irish Festivity Irish Dishes Ireland National Sport > Irish Legend > > > > > > > > > > >
 * 