A brief history of Ireland from the origins

A brief history of Ireland from the origins to the end of the 18° century Roberta Grandi Université de la Vallée d’Aoste

The first Irish people • The Mesolithic age: from around 8000 BC until 4500 BC. • Never more than a few thousand people. • They probably came across the sea from Scotland lived as huntergatherers. • Booleying (vertical transumance) was a cutting-edge technique and marks the Stone Age Irish out as agricultural innovators.

The first Irish people • • • Megalithic monuments Newgrange was built about 3200 B. C. https: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=P 6 XAFJ_Fd. OA The supposed burial site of the prehistoric Kings of Tara The home of the Tuatha De Danaan (“the people of the goddess Danu”)

The Celts • The Celts arrived in Ireland about 700 BC. • 4 different sets of Celtic invaders: the Priteni, the Bolgic, the Lagin, and the Goidels, or Gaels. • The final Celtic invasion about 100 BC came from Gaul. They went under the collective name of the Goidelic or Gaelic people. • The Irish (before the Celts arrived) spoke a non-Indo-European language. • The Celtic language spoken by the Irish, instead, was brought in by the Gaels which gave us also Scots Gallic, and Welsh. • Clans: groups united by kinship and descent; septs: subgroups within larger clans; and clusters of clans (tribes or dynasties).

The Druids • The Druids’ system of belief was based on the wonder of nature. • The Druids were the priests of their religion. • They were well educated and used nature to see into the future by reading signs. • https: //www. youtube. co m/watch? v=Ykvo. Kr. CBJ ao

The Romans • The Romans arrived in England in 43 CE • They never invaded Ireland • The Romans undoubtedly traded with the Irish • Roman technology, coinage and metalwork. • Language: the earliest form of the written Irish language—Ogham—is clearly based on the Latin alphabet.

Saint Patrick • St. Patrick was born in Britain to wealthy parents near the end of the fourth century. • At age sixteen, Patrick was taken prisoner by a group of Irish raiders. • He spent six years in captivity. During this time, he worked as a shepherd. Lonely and afraid, he turned to his religion for solace, becoming a devout Christian. • Patrick escaped when a voice—which he believed to be God's—spoke to him in a dream, telling him it was time to leave Ireland. • After escaping, Patrick had a second revelation —an angel in a dream told him to return to Ireland as a missionary. • So he began religious training and, after his ordination as a priest, he was sent to Ireland (in 432) to begin to convert the Irish.

• He incorporated traditional celtic elements into his lessons of Christianity. For instance: St. Brigid • He superimposed a sun, a powerful Irish symbol, onto the Christian cross to create what is now called a Celtic cross. • He knew that the number three held special significance in Celtic tradition so he used the shamrock, to explain the Christian concept of the Holy Trinity.

• The legend of Saint Patrick driving all the snakes of Ireland into the sea where they drowned. • Snakes were sacred to the Druids; their banishment refects St Patrick's success at removing pagan influence from the island. • St. Patrick died on March 17, circa 462. St. Patrick’s Day is the saint’s feast day and has evolved from a religious holiday to a worldwide celebration.

St. Patrick’s Day Parade • The first parade held to honor St. Patrick’s Day took place not in Ireland but in the United States. On March 17, 1762, Irish soldiers serving in the English military marched through New York City. • Why? • Following a potato famine in Ireland during the 18 th century many Irish immigrated to the United States of America • Factories and shops displayed signs reading “NINA” meaning No Irish Need Apply. • The only jobs they could get were the civil service jobs that were dirty, dangerous or both — firefighters and police officers — jobs that no one else wanted.

Christianity in Ireland • • Patrick also introduced monasticism to Ireland. Christianity transformed Ireland: no human sacrifice, slavery, and warfare. No martyrs During the fifth and sixth centuries, instructors in ecclesiastical schools taught Scriptures and Latin grammar to boys. At the same time, pre-Christian learning in Ireland survived. Irish-language poets learned to read and write, and the native language was studied in the church schools. Irish monks, who wrote the lives of the saints in excellent Latin verse, were raised on the old Celtic tales of kings and heroes, and they began to commit them to paper. The Book of Kells https: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=Y 5 RDkty. U 9 GQ

The Vikings • In 795, the Viking raiders arrived on the coast of Ireland from Norway. • The Vikings, although well organised, weren’t an invading force from another nation. • In 837 the Vikings started arriving in large numbers. • The great attraction for the Vikings was the wealth of the Irish Church. With the Vikings causing havoc in Ireland the amount of manuscript illumination undertaken in the monasteries declined sharply. • By the 840 s records talk of Viking buildings and fortifications appearing, and the name Duiblinn begins appearing too. • A second wave of invasion arrived a century later and was brought by Vikings from Denmark. • The Vikings brought a nautical technology and superior weaponry.

The Normans • • In 1166 Rory O’ Connor VS Dermot Mac Murrogh. Mac Murrough asked Henry II for his help. Richard fitz. Gilbert, the Earl of Pembroke, known as Strongbow. In 1170, Strongbow brought with him an army of 1, 000 men and 200 knights and took control of Dublin. • Pope Alexander III proclaimed Henry “lord of Ireland” in 1172. Also the Irish bishops made submission to him. • After the fall of Dublin to Strongbow in 1170 it would take until 1922 before the city would again rule its own affairs and not take its orders from England.

Irish surnames • Hereditary surnames • Patronyms to distinguish a son from his father or a grandson from his grandfather. • “O” derives from “Ua” (pronounced hua), placed before clan names, which English-language clerks rendered as O’ to mean of. • Mac—or Mc—is the Gaelic word for son and was attached to the father’s name or trade. • Often anglicize: Ó Ceallaigh became O’Kelly; Ó Conchúir, O’Connor; Ó Tuathail, O’Toole; Ó Mealaigh, O’Malley; Mac Cárthaigh, Mac. Carthy; and Mac Dómhnaill, Mac. Donnell. • Another common Irish prefix—Fitz—dates from the arrival of the Normans, beginning in the 12 th century. It derives from the French word fils, meaning “son. ”

The Anglo-Irish and the Irish Parliament • • • Inter-marriage. Ireland became bi-lingual Anglo-Irish: the middle nation The first Irish parliament was brought together in 1297 in Dublin. King John: Magna Carta (1215) Law must be enforced by local authorities Laws against those settlers who had adopted Irish habits and customs. Common law must be applied in Ireland. The Statutes of Kilkenny (1367) It forbade the Anglo-Irish from: Speaking Irish, Dressing like the Irish, Riding like the Irish, Marrying anyone who was Irish; Having Irish poets or musicians in their houses; Selling or giving the Irish any weapons or horses, etc. • the Statutes were making the Irish second-class citizens.

Anglicanism • In 1534 Henry VIII abolished the English jurisdiction of the pope, assuming for himself the title of “supreme head on earth of the church of England”. • The Irish parliament dutifully passed an act acknowledging Henry as the sole head of the church of Ireland, and the royal government began efforts to close Irish monasteries. • But in Ireland, the impulse for religious change in Ireland came entirely from outside the country, and its imposition came from above, by royal will alone. • Confronted by the Reformation, many among the Old English hesitated.

The Plantations • https: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=h. WV 23 p. H-In. E • In the 1590 s the reign of Elizabeth I inaugurated a new policy, one called “plantation, ” by which property confiscated from Catholic landowners was transferred to English Protestant settlers. • The city of London was recruited as a collective “Undertaker” for the rebuilding of the ruined city of Derry. • A whole new way of life was created in Ulster. • The so-called New English. • The Old English were distinguished from the New English by their religion. Having remained Catholic, the former no longer controlled government in Ireland, but they still owned one-third of the island’s land.

The Great Rebellion and Cromwell • • • The years between 1641 to 1660 were very difficult both for England Ireland Charles I was defeated in 1649 when the power was gained by Oliver Cromwell. Old English and Gaelic Irish leaders allied to give rise to the Great Rebellion. Cromwell’s reaction: he landed in Ireland in 1649 with 20000 men and massacred thousands of rebels. Men at arms were permitted to emigrate. All priests had to leave Ireland on pain of imprisonment and death. “To Hell or Connacht”: The Catholic who were guilty of involvement in the rebellion lost their estates and their property rights; those who had not participated were sent to Connacht. The Catholic landowning aristocracy ceased to exist. The Roman Catholic faith remained firmly in place.

James II and William of Orange • • • After the death of Cromwell, Charles • II, son of Charles I, was the new king of England. • Charles’s heir was his brother James II. A “real” Catholic. James’s daughter, Mary, was a • Protestant. Her husband, William of Orange (a Dutch aristocrat) was also a committed Protestant. • James brought four regiments of Irish Catholic soldiers to England. In November 1688 William of Orange landed at Newton Abbott, in • Devon The Battle of the Boyne (river) took place on 1 July 1690 in Ireland. James’s soldiers deserted him in huge numbers, and William was able to take Dublin a few days later without a fight. James knew that he was finished and left Ireland for France. In Ireland he was christened Séamus an Chaca. The Catholics of Ireland decided to fight on. It took until October 1691, and the fall of Limerick, before the Williamite forces were in complete control of Ireland. The victory of William is celebrated annually across Northern Ireland on the 12 th of July. Protestants, and members of the Orange Order, parade through towns and villages.

The Penal laws and the Irish famine (1740 -41) • The Irish parliament set about legislating • The most widespread poverty could a complex series of Penal Laws. be found along the Atlantic seacoast and in a corridor from Sligo Bay east • In 1695 “Papist gentlemen” were denied across north Leinster and southern the right to carry arms for self-defense Ulster to the Mourne Mountains of or for hunting. Oaths denying the south Down. fundamental doctrine of the Church of Rome were imposed. • Life proved sustainable through dependence on two elements: the pig • Popery bills in 1703– 04 and 1709 and the potato. forbade Catholics from buying land. In 1729 the right to vote was denied to • Between 1739 and 1741, a famine Catholic freeholders. struck Ireland. • Laws were passed that proscribed Catholic worship.

Jonathan Swift • • • Born on November 30, 1667, in Dublin. Under the care of his uncle, he received a bachelor's degree from Trinity College (in Dublin). He is best remembered for his 1726 book Gulliver's Travels. What became known as the Glorious Revolution of 1688 spurred Swift to move to England. During his decade of work for Temple, Swift returned to Ireland twice. On a trip in 1695, he became an ordained priest in the Anglican tradition. In 1713, he took the post of dean at St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin. On October 19, 1745, Jonathan Swift died. He published his essay anonymously in 1729.

The greatest Irish invention of all times • • • Arthur Guinness opened the brewery in 1756. Three years later he stroke an incredible property deal when he agreed to lease a plot of land for nine thousand years for £ 45 per year. A dark stout drink, also known as porter. It’s made from Irish barley and water. It became a cornerstone of the Dublin economy Guinness is sold across the world, and the company have breweries on all five continents. The Guinness brewery at St James’ Gate is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Ireland today. https: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=6 Qmpt. W PLVK 4