Mesolithic hunters and fishermen were believed to be the first people to come to the island of Ireland. Artifacts from these cultures date from around 6,000 BC. Over 300 Neolithic long or barrow graves (such as the Neolithic barrow near Newgrange in the east of the Republic of Ireland) and many passage graves testify to continuous settlement. Numerous objects made of bronze, copper and gold, which also reached Britain and the continent on the trade route, are evidence of metalworking in the Bronze Age. The first Vikings came to the island in the Iron Age. Ireland’s prehistory and early history are closely linked to the British Isles.
According to educationvv, the name Ireland goes back to Iverio (n), Cymrian Iwerddon or Everio (n), Old Irish Érin, New Irish Éire; in Greek it was rendered as Ierne, in Latin as Ivernia. Gaius Iulius Caesar’s designation of the country as “Hibernia” comes from the Latin hibernus “winterly”.
Ireland before the Vikings
Ireland was settled long before the Celts immigrated. Around 600 BC The first Celts who invaded Britain settled here. Around 250 BC A second wave of immigration began (pottery from the La Tène period). Frequent attacks by the Irish (Gael) on the west coast of Britain are recorded in the 4th and 5th centuries, in Cornwall and Wales, BC. a. but in Scotland (Argyll) and the neighboring islands, led to permanent settlements. The Celtic (Gaelic) penetration of Ireland was complete at the beginning of its Christianization (towards the end of the 1st half of the 5th century).
Before the arrival of the Vikings, Ireland was politically divided into five provincial kingdoms: Ulaid (Ulster), Laigin (Leinster), Mumu (Munster), Connachta (Connacht), Mide (Meath). In the 5th century the five provinces became more subdivided. The Irish tribes initially formed a confederation of nine small states (Airgialla), which later split up into around 150 independent clans with local “kings”. Several kings were subordinate to the 7/8. Century codified “Brehon Laws” (judicial laws) an upper king, the upper kings in turn the king of a province. In the northern half of Ireland the Uí Néill tribe had the hegemony.
Despite its political particularism, Ireland was religiously and culturally a unit. The numerous monasteries founded since the 6th century were foster homes for Latin and “national” education as well as starting points for ecclesiastical and cultural expansion, which later also reached the continent (Irish-Scottish mission).
Vikings and proselytizing
The proselytizing of the Irish is difficult to prove. It is possible that the Catholic Church came to Ireland through trading links with the Romans. Christianization began around 430 with the mission bishop Palladius , who had been sent to Ireland by Pope Cölestin I , and above all with Patrick . ÜLittle is known about him, but legendary transfiguration later ascribed to him the role of the apostle of the Irish. Much of what is reported about him comes from legends and partly from his few surviving writings, especially the “Confessio”. Patrick was then the child of a Roman in Scotland and later a Catholic priest. He began evangelizing Ireland in AD 432 and founded the Church of Armagh in 455. 200 years later he began to be worshiped as a national saint.
The Viking raids began around 800, during which, among other things, monasteries were plundered (e.g. the monastery of Iona). From the 9th to the 11th centuries, the Vikings established military and trading establishments. In this way, in 841, what would later become Dublin arose. Soon the Vikings were drawn into internal Irish dynastic conflicts. With their established feudal and administrative order, they influenced the social structure of the Irish and began to take over political rule. Irish resistance, however, prevented their further territorial and political expansion and brought their partial kingdom in the north of Ireland down. At the Battle of Tara in 980, the Vikings suffered a heavy defeat and lost their power to Irish kings. 1002 was born with Brian Ború (* around 940, † 1014; since 978 King of Munster) recognized for the first (and only) time a High King by all of Ireland. However, this institution was controversial among the most powerful dynasties from the start. Brian Ború and his troops achieved a decisive victory over the Vikings (allied with the regional princes of Leinster) in 1014 at the Battle of Clontarf (now a suburb of Dublin), but he himself was killed in the process. The political change in Ireland was followed by a reform of the Church. In 1152 four archbishoprics were established.
Ireland under English rule
The consequences were unpredictable when in 1166 Dermot MacMurrough (Diarmaid MacMurchada, † 1171), expelled Provincial King of Leinster, asked the King of England Henry II for help. He crossed over to Ireland with his army in 1171 and subjugated the most important provincial kings Munsters and Leinster as well as the archbishops and bishops by 1172. His English vassals received the conquered territories as free-living. Within two generations of their arrival, the English organized a central government under their direct control
King’s. In 1297 the first parliament on Irish territory was convened in Dublin, an assembly of estates to which only Anglo-Irish belonged. At the beginning of the 14th century, a national Irish renewal movement began, which in the 15th century led to a far-reaching loosening of English influence. The attempt of the English to separate the English upper class from the Irish population with the statutes of Kilkenny (1366) failed. Even Richard II. Is not (1394/95) was able to strengthen the royal administration. It was not until a hundred years later under the Tudors that the English crown consolidated its rule over Ireland again: in 1494/95 Henry VII. through Poynings’ Law passed legislation of the Irish Parliament to approval from England and initiated the separation of the English Church from Rome. This intensified the differences between the English royal family and the Catholic Irish nobility.
The real subjugation of Ireland began in 1534 when Henry VIII. the Earl of Kildare, who was the King’s representative in Ireland as “Lord deputy”, and in 1541 forced the Irish Parliament to give him the title of King of Ireland. The Anglo-Irish magnates were replaced by English crown officials for the administration and new barons loyal to the king were equipped with confiscated church property. At the same time, the Irish lords had to take their land from the king as a fief and hold English titles of nobility. Attempts to introduce the Reformation in Ireland failed; even the Anglo-Irish remained Catholic. Numerous uprisings (1559, 1568–83 and 1594–1603, the crushing defeat of the Irish at the Battle of Kinsale in 1601) were an expression of the political, social and religious tensions. Encouraging English and Scottish settlers to be given the rebel confiscated land produced v. a. lasting success in Ulster. The uprising of Irish Catholic nobles, which began in 1642 with the aim of bringing the English administration under their control (Irish Confederation Wars 1641-53), was ended with its suppression Oliver Cromwell and Henry Ireton and led to a complete restructuring of ownership and lordship.
Most of the still predominantly Catholic landowners have been expropriated or relocated to western Ireland. Protestants (including numerous officers and soldiers) took their place. Under Charles II economic measures were taken against Ireland (sale of wool only to England, no cattle export there, exclusion from trade with the colonies). As a Catholic, James II found such strong support in Ireland after his fall that William III. had to recapture the island for the English (1690 victory on the Boyne).
New penalties against Irish Catholics led to their political disenfranchisement, especially their expulsion from parliament. At the beginning of the 18th century, over 85% of the land was owned by English and Anglo-Irish masters.
The Anglo-Irish relationship remained strained in the 18th century, including: because of the British Parliament’s claim to include Ireland within the scope of its laws (Declaration Act of 1719). The budget sovereignty of the Irish Parliament and Ireland’s trade have been curtailed. The patriotic Protestant party, on the other hand, called for political equality for Ireland and its parliament. This was in fact achieved in 1782 (repeal of the Declaration Act, weakening of Poynings’ Law). There was also some economic boom after most of the trade restrictions were lifted in 1779. But the pressing social problems, which were steadily exacerbated by rapid population growth and the scarcity of land, and which resulted in oppressive poverty (famine 1727-29,
