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Ireland, the first colony |
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Page 1 of 3 This section is written in two parts. Firstly an extended summary which gives the reader an overall view of Irish history and secondly a longer, strictly chronological section which includes all the important historical milestones.
| History of Ireland |  |
EXTENDED SUMMARY
England's oldest colony.
This short section looks at the history of the Irish people, who the English never seemed to be able to understand and always came off second best to other more important territories under English rule. (Particularly in France in the Middle Ages and India under Victoria)
1500 years ago and before
The Irish psyche
Ireland was never invaded, ruled and unified by the culturally sophisticated, logical and practical Romans but remained ruled by hundreds of separate regional Celtic war lords with pagan religions. Some pagan religious customs would give any modern child permanent nightmares. The Irish had the alarming habit of always going into battle stark naked. On the other hand music and poetry were a key part of the local kings pleasures and if their ancient poetry is to be believed so were liberated sexual practices. Women were not the second class citizens as in the Roman and then the Christian world and local Irish queens were not uncommon.
The Irish have always been noted for a complete disregard for time, even worse than Italians, Greeks, Spanish and Arabs from the hot, easy living Mediterranean countries. Very different from those coming from further north in Europe were the harsher climate has always required timescales and forward planning. This can be explained from the origins of the Celts in Ireland and the different Celts in Britain for example. The Irish Celts originated from the Iberian peninsular that is a hot and fertile. Ireland was also noted for an abundance of food notably fish in the many rivers and lakes, and honey. The Celts in England came from north of the Rhine and the English were further interbred with Angles and Saxons, Vikings and Normans. All who settled and all emanating from the north of Europe and bringing with them those disciplines which a harsher climate develops.
Freud claimed that the Irish were the only people in the world he was unable to psychoanalyse. An Elizabethan Jesuit wrote the Irish were, "religious, frank, amorous, hot tempered, hypochondriacs, sorcerers, great horsemen and very generous." And this was after they were civilised by St Patrick.
1500 to 1000 years ago
The influence of St Patrick (400AD) and his version of Christianity.
Patricus was the son of a Roman/British priest who, lived in the west of England but was captured by one of the regular and frightening, Irish slave raiding parties and taken back to Ireland. Following a vision he escaped slavery and returned to his parents in England en-route to southern France where he studied and was ordained near Nice. He would have been a contemporary, and influenced by, but did not meet the most influential Western Roman Empire based Christian philosopher, St Augustine of Hippo (near Carthage in modern day Tunisia). On his return to Ireland he effectively converted the whole of Ireland to his version of Christianity, very much a mixture of Philosophy, Roman Christian theology and Celtic pagan ways. For example the rights of women were maintained and marriage and divorce remained a state function. The puritanical sexual views of St Paul were not part of his sermons. St Patrick's evangelical followers supported by bibles studiously copied in the new Irish monasteries allowed Christianity to be reintroduced throughout the Western Roman Empire which had been razed by the pagan Germanic tribes from north of the Rhine.
The Viking invasion.(800 AD)
As in England and northern France, Ireland suffered the ruthless Vikings, searching for land less affected by the mini Ice Age of the time. In Ireland however the Vikings were more interested with agricultural trade with their home land than permanent land acquisition and created Ireland's first towns for the purpose, including Dublin. (Almost 1000 years after towns were created in England)
1000 to 500 years ago
The Anglo Norman Invasion. 1000 years after the Romans had unified and modernized England, the Irish Kings (better war lords) were still fighting each other for the position of "High King" and one (in 1169) made the drastic mistake of asking the current Anglo Norman king to intervene on his side. The King in question was none other than England's Henry 2nd who is well known as a great contributor to law and order but also was militarily the most powerful King and the largest land owner in the whole of Europe. Quite naturally Henry decided to annex Ireland to his already huge empire. The Irish were now stuck with ruthless English rule for almost 1000 years and worse as was customary at the time, Henry rewarded his conquering Anglo Norman Barons with large tracts of prime Irish land. The Irish occupation by the culturally very different English had commenced, along with principle of land grabbing by favourites of the English ruling family of the time.
Unfortunately for Ireland, during this period the English rulers at home were much more interested in their possessions in sunny and fertile France than the permanently hostile and warlike environment of Ireland which suffered under the powerful English barons accordingly.
500 years ago
The English split with the Pope in Rome under Henry 8th and later adopted a semi Protestant Lutheran version of Christianity which retained many Catholic elements, (Anglo Catholic or Anglican) worked out by the English Queen, Elizabeth the 1st as head of the Church of England in relatively amicable discussions with her Catholic Bishops.
At the same time the Scottish adopted the extreme Protestant Calvinistic Christian faith called Presbyterianism.
The Irish now ruled by a Protestant England, stoically reject any forms of the new progressive Protestant form of Christianity.
From this moment on the English viewed the Irish as potential enemies who might side with England's traditional and powerful enemies and puppets of the Pope, Catholic France and Spain. The English fear was well founded when Ireland called on Spain to rid them of the Protestant English. The now powerful English made short work of annihilating the combined Spanish and Irish armies in the south of Ireland. In England, worship of the Catholic faith was banned which of course they tried to do in Ireland. This was reinforced by taking away all the rights any Catholic had to property and public service.
500 years ago to 100 years ago.
A 400 year period of continuous religious persecution by both sides resulting in a lasting and permanent hatred by extremists on both sides.
The English renewed the Anglo Norman policy of rewarding loyal supporters with large tracts of Irish land. But the loyal supporters were now of course Protestant, who had a suspicion of all Catholics and vice versa, plus in the case of Ulster, Scottish Protestant extremists, called Presbyterians. The stage was set for religious jihads which have lasted until today. Most notable of these were:
Oliver Cromwell, a fundamentalist Calvinist Puritan, took over the leadership of England from one of the worst kings, Charles the 1st. Charles had infuriated the Irish by imposing taxes to fund his religious aim to make all of his Empire, including Ireland, Anglican. No wonder the Irish rebelled particularly as no taxes could be raised in England at this time as Charle's religious evangelism made him feel he had the divine right to rule England without Parliament. Cromwell created a formidable, religiously motivated, army which beat Charles supporters in the English Civil War and Charles was beheaded in 1649. Cromwell's next task was to put down the rebellion in Ireland which had turned nasty with Protestants in the north of Ireland together with their churches being razed by the angry Catholics. Cromwell, a religious fundamentalist, was also a formidable general and had honed his "Model Army" to be the best fighting force in the whole of Europe with every man fighting in God's name. Once in Ireland this Crusading force systematically marched from the North to the South massacring any Catholic in its path. By 1655 not a single Catholic land owner remained on the fertile land, east of the river Shannon. The Catholic Irish have not forgotten Oliver Cromwell.
William of Orange.
Some 20 years later, the then King of England Charles 2nd died and was succeeded by his Catholic brother to be called James 2nd who had spent many years in Catholic France close to the legendary French "Sun King" Louis 14th. To Protestant England this was a disaster but to Catholic Ireland, hope of a Catholic revival was on the horizon. The English Parliament, looking for a solution, asked the Dutch Protestant husband of James the 2nd daughter, Mary, namely Holland's William of Orange to fight his way into England and become king. This he accepted readily as he was already in religious skirmishes with the mighty Catholic, Louis 14th and wanted England's military might on his side in the conflict which was to end up as the largest European religious war of all time. William responded rapidly, and James fled to his natural Catholic power base Ireland where he quickly sought to massacre as many Protestants as he could. In the north many of these Protestants took refuge in the walled city of Derry to which James? forces lay siege. Protestant fundamentalists don?t give up easily and the "Siege of Derry" lasted 105 days with those trapped keeping alive by eating rats, eventually to be rescued by a small advanced landing party of William's forces. (1689).
James sought and gained reinforcements from France but King Louis needed his top generals in Europe. William landed in the north of Ireland in June 1690 and swept south to the Boyne River some 50 miles north of Dublin were he was confronted by James? Franco-Irish forces. The bloody battle of the Boyne eventually won by William's Protestant forces is thought to be Irelands most important battle, neither Spain nor France wishing to come in strength to the aid of the Catholic Irish again. It is interesting to note that much of James? army were descendants from the original Anglo- Norman occupiers of Ireland who were called The Old English and who had remained Catholic and were allowed to flee to France in the mopping up operation by William's general. (Called the flight of the Wild Geese).
The route to Independence. 200 years ago onwards.
Independence from oppressive foreign rule was fuelled all over the world by the 1776 American war of independence, the 1789 French revolution and the liberating of some of the Mediterranean countries from Ottoman rule by the English, notably Greece. In 1798 this gave the Irish, again supported by a French militia, the encouragement to campaign for freedom from the British. These Franco Irish forces were quickly "eliminated" by the powerful English. They were reluctant to give any inkling of a willingness to submit to an agenda of independence as they didn?t want to give the 500 million or so inhabitants of the Indian sub-continent or "Jewel in the Crown" any similar feelings. However the steady progress towards Irish independence went ahead step by bloody step. The key was when the English persuaded the Irish Parliament to vote for its own dissolution and under the Act of Union, Ireland became a wholly integrated part of the UK. Thence Irishmen, be they only the Protestant ruling classes (Catholics were not eligible), had seats in the British Houses of Parliament at Westminster.
Daniel O?Connell. The father of modern Irish nationalism.
The Irish had waited for someone to lead them out of hell for centuries and finally in 1775, the man was born. O?Connell was an early beneficiary of the Catholic relief act (1793) which permitted Catholics to be trained for the London Bar (Barristers or Advocates). He returned to Dublin to practice Law. He dreamt of a peasants revolution but avoiding the bloodshed of the French version of which he had had direct experience during his school days in France. In 1823 he formed the "Catholic Association", a peoples movement with a low enough monthly contribution (1 penny) to enable everyone to join. His collectors were the Catholic Church. Using this power base he got himself elected as the MP for County Clare in 1823 but of course no Catholic could sit in the London Westminster, House of Commons. Following this incredible victory the British Government were forced to bow to a potential popular uprising in Ireland and lifted some of the restrictions on Irish Catholics. O?Connell was permitted to take his seat opening up a Catholic parliamentary route to any seat in Ireland. Eventually and inevitably it would be the Irish Catholics with about 60 seats, who had the balance of power in the two party (Whig and Tory) system at Westminster and independence was a given. (The process however dragged on for another 70 years because the Republic of Ireland was not formed until 1949 following much further acrimony and bloodshed )
Victorian times.
The English were then the most powerful nation in the world but had no special place in their hearts for their oldest colony even though they were white, mainly because they were Catholic and apparently economically without hope. While the Dickensian English Empire builders robbed the inhabitants of India and shot the Aboriginal Australian Natives plus 10 million North American Buffalo for sport, they let a million Catholics in the potato fed west of Ireland starve to death in the four year Potato Famine of 1845-49. In the meantime Presbyterian fundamentalists in the north or Ireland, fuelled by their religious work ethic, and owning all the fertile land, remained well fed and went economically from strength to strength as they joined in the English Industrial Revolution. (At this time only 10% of Ireland's land was owned by Catholics and this was the barren West Coast, a mixture of rock and bogs.)
The Irish today.
Catholic Ireland finally gained independence from their Protestant English rulers but the Presbyterian Irish majority in the north voted to remain within the British Empire. Ireland is therefore split just like the other British colonies of India, Cyprus and Iraq, with a bigoted religious minority trapped in a hostile country. Religious leaders unfortunately seem to do all in their power to maintain the hatred of the other sects by, for example, insisting on religiously segregated schools.
Today the Catholic South now the Republic of Ireland has joined the European Community and prosper with the aide of development grants and an Italian style, apparent disregard for the difficult parts of Catholic faith. The Catholic minority in the north which is still part of the UK keep up a steady pressure, some of it violent, for a united Ireland. For the Irish Presbyterian fundamentalists it would be over their dead bodies.
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; "History of Ireland")