Introduction to Geography of Ireland
Ireland is a country in northwestern Europe; it lies on the island of Ireland in the North Atlantic Ocean.Ireland, a large island in the Atlantic Ocean. It is divided into two parts: the Republic of Ireland, an independent country; and Northern Ireland, which is a part of the United Kingdom.
Ireland lies west of the island of Great Britain, from which it is separated by the North Channel, the Irish Sea, and St. George's Channel. It is the second largest of the British Isles. The total area is 32,587 square miles (84,400 km2). The northeast coast is about 13 miles (21 km) west of Scotland, across the North Channel. St. George's Channel, which separates the southeast coast from Wales, is 50 to 95 miles (80 to 153 km) wide. Ireland's greatest length (north to south) is 235 miles (378 km), its greatest width, about 175 miles (282 km).
History
The Gaelic InvasionLong before the time of Jesus Christ, Ireland was settled by a people of Mediterranean origin. Later, there was migration to northern Ireland apparently from northern Europe. About 350 B.C. the Gaels, a Celtic people from France, settled in Ireland, which they called Erin. A northern group of the Gaels were the Scots; the Romans called the whole island Scotia, after them, or Hibernia.
Ireland was divided into five tribal areas, each ruled by a king. About 200 A.D. the king of Connacht and Meath established himself as a high king, or leader of the Irish kings. The sacred Hill of Tara became the capital of the high kingship. Under high king Niall (380–405), ancestor of the O'Neills, the Gaels occupied Ulster, until then held by earlier settlers. In 470 the Scots of Ireland invaded northern Great Britain and established the kingdom of Argyll (meaning “coast land of the Gael”), or Scottish Dalriada. Scotland took its name from these Gaelic conquerors.
The Celtic ChurchThe religion of the Gaels was Druidism. The Irish were converted to Christianity largely through the efforts of Saint Patrick (380–461?). The Celtic church was soon isolated from Rome by the barbarian Anglo-Saxons in Britain and Franks on the continent. It developed a character and customs of its own, with emphasis on the establishment of monasteries, where Latin culture was preserved and encouraged. An Irish monk, Saint Columba, founded a religious center on the island of Iona, in the Inner Hebrides. From there missionary work was carried on in Scotland and northern England. Ireland had no towns, and monastic centers served as the capitals, market places, and centers of culture.
In 664 representatives of the Celtic and Roman churches met at the Synod of Whitby, and the Irish agreed to conform to Roman practices. However, they did not fully accept papal authority until about 800.
The Norse InvasionsBy 800 the Gaels were supreme throughout Ireland, which consisted of the kingdoms of Connacht, Meath, Leinster, Munster, Aileach, Oriel, and Ulidia (the last three formed from Ulster).
Shortly after 800 the Vikings, or Norsemen, began settling in the British Isles. Soon they established cities along the Irish coast—Dublin, Wexford, Waterford, Cork, and Limerick—and gained control over much of the country. At the battle of Clontarf in 1014 the king of Munster, Brian Boru, led the Irish to a decisive victory over the Vikings. The Norse cities became Christianized and their people gradually adopted Irish speech and customs.
Malachy, the last high king of the O'Neill dynasty, died in 1022, and the other kings fell into fierce rivalry for supreme control of Ireland. The Irish church resumed its Celtic customs, and Rome grew increasingly anxious to have it conform to Roman practices.
English Conquest of IrelandIn 1171 an army led by Henry II of England invaded Ireland. During the six months that Henry was there, he obtained the submission of the Irish bishops to the Roman church and he established fiefdoms under the rule of English nobles. He made his son John lord of Ireland, and when John succeeded to the English throne in 1199 Ireland became a domain of the English crown. In 1315 Edward Bruce, brother of Robert Bruce, king of Scotland, landed an army in Ireland to drive out the English, but was killed in the Battle of Faughart in 1318.
The English were not able to take control of all Ireland. In the north, west, and south, the Gaelic kings and nobles put up effective resistance. During the 1300's and 1400's the territory controlled by England was reduced to a small area (called the Pale) around Dublin as English nobles intermarried with the Irish and England lost the allegiance of their descendants.
In 1541 Henry VII became the first English monarch to assume the title of king of Ireland, and he worked to strengthen English rule in Ireland. Henry's successors during the latter 1500's began confiscating the lands of Irish nobles and established English colonies on the island. The last area to fall under English rule was Ulster, where the O'Neills and O'Donnells led the resistance. The Irish nobles formally surrendered and submitted to English rule in 1603. Most fled the country in 1607, and Ulster was settled with Scottish and English colonists on the vacated estates.
Oppression of the CatholicsThe Irish had resisted all efforts to convert them to the Church of England. As Roman Catholics they were subjected to oppressive laws, and resentment grew until in 1641 a major rebellion broke out. Britain's Great Rebellion, between the Puritans and royalists, began the next year. A Puritan army occupied Dublin in 1647. Two years later Oliver Cromwell came to Ireland and with savage ruthlessness crushed the rebellion.
More than 30,000 Irish soldiers went into exile and thousands of peasants were sold into bondage in the West Indies. The Irish aristocracy was transplanted to the west, and vast areas of confiscated land were turned over to English settlers.
Upon restoration of the Stuarts to the English throne in 1660, some land was returned to the Irish. In 1689 James II, deposed in favor of William of Orange, turned to Ireland for support. Irish forces sprang to his cause, but James was defeated at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690 and left the country. The Irish were forced to surrender in 1691, and most of the surviving aristocracy went into exile. Almost 4,000 Irish estates were confiscated by the English.
By acts of the English parliament, Roman Catholics were barred from serving in the Irish parliament, from bearing arms, and from seeking higher education. Catholics were also excluded from the practice of law, from buying land, from holding office, from serving in the army, and from voting in elections. Roman Catholic bishops and other church officials were banished from Ireland. Everyone had to contribute to the support of the Anglican Church of Ireland. English landlords collected the highest rents possible from the Irish peasants and evicted them on the slightest excuse. Landlords rarely visited Ireland, and their lands were managed by agents who had almost absolute power over the tenants.
The Scottish Presbyterians of Ulster also paid high rents and suffered from religious discrimination. In the early 1800's there began the steady emigration of Scots and Irish to America.
Union With Great BritainThe American Revolutionary War showed Great Britain the dangers of a harsh colonial policy, and many laws discriminating against the Irish were repealed. The French Revolution, however, frightened the British government and put an end to further reforms. A secret revolutionary society was formed in Ireland with the intention of launching a rebellion with French military aid. The aid never materialized, and a general insurrection in 1798, led by Wolfe Tone, was suppressed.
By the Act of Union in 1801 the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was created, and the Kingdom of Ireland, with its separate parliament, ceased to exist. In 1803 an attempt at insurrection, led by Robert Emmet, was quickly put down.
A movement to restore full rights of citizenship to Roman Catholics was led by Daniel O'Connell, and the Catholic Emancipation Act was passed in 1829. In 1845 a blight destroyed potato crops, which had provided the principal food in the Irish diet. This began a period known as the Potato Famine, which was at its most severe 1846–48. The British government provided Ireland with little aid because of its belief that government should not interfere with the economy. As a result of starvation and emigration, the population of Ireland dropped from more than 8,000,000 in 1841 to 6,500,000 in 1848.
Nationalist sentiment, fanned by the Revolution of 1848 on the European continent, received encouragement from the Fenians, an insurrectionary group of Irish emigrants in the United States. In Ireland the Fenian movement centered in the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), which staged an unsuccessful uprising in 1867.
Home RuleThe appointment of William Gladstone as British prime minister in 1868 marked a new era for Ireland. In 1869 Anglicanism ceased being the Irish state religion. In 1870 a land act gave Irish peasants some protection from eviction. In 1873 the Irish Home Rule League was founded. Soon it was led by Charles Stewart Parnell, a member of Parliament. Working closely with Parnell, Gladstone attempted passage of a home rule bill in 1886 and 1893.
Meanwhile, in 1879 Michael Davitt had formed the Land League to combat the landlord system. Parnell and Gladstone brought about passage of land acts in 1881, 1887, and 1891 that reduced rents and permitted purchase of land by Irish peasants.
Agitation for home rule continued. It was opposed, however, by the Orangemen, Ulster Protestants who feared domination by the Catholic majority in Ireland. A new group called Sinn Fein (We Ourselves), dedicated to Irish self-government, was organized by Arthur Griffith about 1905. A home rule bill was passed at last in 1914, but World War I delayed its being put into effect.
Several nationalist groups, including the IRB, instigated the unsuccessful Easter Rising in Dublin in 1916. Britain's stern reprisals united the southern Irish against British rule; membership in the relatively moderate Sinn Fein swelled. Eamon de Valera became its president in 1917, and in 1919 proclaimed the Irish Republic. Great Britain sent in troops, called the Black and Tans (from the black hats and armbands worn with khaki uniforms), to restore order, and set up a separate government for the six northeastern counties of Ulster. After a year of bloody fighting between the Irish Republican Army (the revolutionary force) and the Black and Tans, the British government called an end to the hostilities. In 1922 southern Ireland was given dominion status and became the Irish Free State.