History of Ireland

The History of Ireland is the topic of this stub; for Ireland in the 21st century see Ireland (state) and Northern Ireland. Template:TOC-right

History

• Kingdom of Oriel - an ancient kingdom situated in southern and central Ulster.

Early Christian Ireland

Monasteries founded in Ireland in this era

This period has often been characterised as Ireland's golden age. With the coming of Christianity under Saint Patrick Ireland built many monasteries, made many documents (Such as the Book of Kells) and generally saw a period of peace and relative prosperity, in comparison to its European counterparts.

Middle Ages

Ireland in 1171 showing traditional provinces

In 1167 the deposed King of Leinster, Dermott Mc Murrough traveled to England to hire mercenaries in order to retake his Kingdom. With the consent of Henry II, Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke (popularly known as Strongbow) arrived with a small army of Norman knights who proved vastly superior to their Irish counterparts. With their help, Mc Murrough regained his lands. De Clare married Mc Mourrough's daughter, and later laid claim to the crown of Leinster. Henry II, fearful of the possibility of a rival Norman state on his doorstep, arrived in Ireland in 1171 and secured nominal control of the island in 1175. This sequence of events ensured a foothold on the island for successive Anglo-Norman and British rulers, which eventually culminated in the plantations of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

The most successful of these plantations was the Ulster Plantation. This colonisation effort was spearheaded by English and Scottish Protestants who took control of the lands confiscated by Irish Lords following the Flight of the Earls in 1607. These original Protestant colonists formed the basis of the Ulster-Scots culture which would find itself at odds with the Catholic Gaelic-Irish culture on the island.

1798-1900

see also Irish Famine

• Irish Land League
• Home Rule party

The failed rebellion of 1798 created an atmosphere of sectarian distrust, which the union and the long delay in granting emancipation only reinforced. Daniel O'Connell's repeal agitation in the 1840s encouraged a fresh political polarization, as the coalition of O'Connellite Catholics, Belfast liberals, and British Whigs, which had been formed during the campaign for emancipation and remained active into the 1830s, could not be sustained when Catholics mobilized for a severance of the union.

The [[Irish Famine|great famine of the 1840s], accompanied by accusations of genocide, left its own bitter legacy, while the immediate post-Famine decades were dominated not by a "League of North and South," united on the issue of tenant right, but by the recrudescence of the revolutionary tradition in the form of Fenianism. Similarly, the essentially conservative home rule movement, which sought to provide security for Irish Protestants and guarantees for British strategic interests, ultimately failed in the face of Unionist and Republican intransigence.

1900-1923

• Easter Rising
• Irish War of Independence
• Irish Civil War
• Ulster Unionism
• Northern Ireland
• Michael Collins
• Éamon de Valera

1923-68

see Éamon de Valera

• Irish Free State
• Northern Ireland

The result of sectarian hatreds was a partition of Ireland, which reflected--imperfectly--the ethno-religious division within the island. Even as the Irish Free State and Republic adopted rhetoric of unification, the social, economic, cultural/linguistic, and foreign policies of the South between 1923 and 1968 introduced serious obstacles to a rapprochement with Northern Ireland, while the attitude of Northern Ireland's political leadership became harsher and less accommodating to the large Catholic minority.

1958-98

see Irish Troubles

• Northern Ireland

After decades of endemic low-level violence and ill will, the "Good Friday agreement" of 10 April 1998, brokered by the U.S., produced a cease-fire that continues in operation. It was endorsed by most, but not all, political parties in Northern Ireland, and endorsed in referenda by majorities of voters in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. It created a new national Assembly with promises of equal treatment. Ireland renounced its historic claims to control the entire island.

Celtic Tiger: 1990 to 2008

After 1987 the nation began neoliberal economic policies that were agreed to by government, business, farmers' groups, trade unions and the community and voluntary sectors, in a programme known as "Social Partnership". Explosive economic growth followed, taking the nation past Britain and Germany by 2000, to the top of the EU in terms of prosperity. Dubbed in 1994 the "Celtic Tiger," the country with a population of 4.4 million became a magnet for immigrants from the EU and beyond.

In the decade after 1995, Ireland's economic indicators all soared. Total output (GDP) went up by 350%, personal disposable income doubled, exports increased fivefold, trade surpluses mounted into the billions, employment skyrocketed. In 1995 Irish consumers spent £23 billion on goods and services, in 1999, £34 billion, and in 2000, £40 billion. However, since 2004 growth has slowed, because of rising wages and inflation, poor infrastructure (such as poor road and rail systems) and the addition of new lower-wage countries to the European Union.

Prosperity brought a surge of immigration. In 1990 fewer than 50 immigrants applied for asylum in Ireland; by 2001 the number had reached 11,000. By 2001, immigrants from Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Philippines, and Romania were pouring into the country and 36,000 work permits were issued.

Foster (2008) argues the cause was a combination of a new sense of initiative and the entry of American corporations such as Intel. He concludes the chief factors were low taxation, pro-business regulatory policies, and a young, tech-savvy workforce. For many multinationals the decision to do business in Ireland was made easier still by generous incentives from the Industrial Development Authority. EU membership was also helpful, giving the country lucrative access to markets that it had previously researched only through the United Kingdom, and pumping huge subsidies and investment capital into the Irish economy.

Modernisation brought secularisation in its wake. The traditionally high levels of religiosity have sharply declined. Foster (2008) points to three factors: Irish feminism, largely imported from America with liberal stances on contraception, abortion, and divorce undermined the authority of bishops and priests. Second, the mishandling of the pedophile scandals humiliated the Church, whose bishops seemed less concerned with the victims and more concerned with covering up for errant priests. Third, prosperity brought hedonism and materialism that undercut the ideals of saintly poverty.

The worldwide economic downturn brought the Celtic Tiger era to an end in 2008.

Bibliography

Reference and surveys

• Bartlett, Thomas and Jeffery, Keith. A Military History of Ireland (1996) excerpt and online search from Amazon.com
• Beckett, J.C. The making of Modern Ireland 1603-1923(1971)
• Bew, Paul. Ireland: The Politics of Enmity 1789-2006. (2007). 627 pp. ISBN

978-0-19-820555-5

• Bottigheimer, Karl S. Ireland and the Irish: A Short History. (1982). 301 pp.
• Canny, Nicholas. From Reformation to Restoration: Ireland, 1534-1660 (Dublin, 1987)
• Charles-Edwards, T. M.Early Christian Ireland (2008) ISBN-13:9780521363952
• Connolly, S. J. ed. The Oxford Companion to Irish History (1998) online edition also online at OUP
• Cosgrove, Art. ed., A New History of Ireland, ii: Medieval Ireland, 1169-1534 Oxford U. Press 1987. 982 pp.
• Cronin, Mike. A History of Ireland. Palgrave. 2001. online edition
• Cullen, L. M. The Emergence of Modern Ireland, 1600-1900 (Dublin, 1981)
• Ellis, Steven G. Ireland in the Age of the Tudors 1447-1603. English Expansion and the End of Gaelic Rule (1998)
• Foster, R. F. Modern Ireland, 1600-1972 (1988), standard scholarly survey excerpts and online search from Amazon.com
• Foster, R. F., ed. The Oxford Illustrated History of Ireland. (1989). 382 pp.
• Fry, Peter and Fry, Fiona Somerset. A History of Ireland. Routledge, 1989. 366 pp.
• Hachey, Thomas E., Joseph M. Hernon Jr., Lawrence J. McCaffrey; The Irish Experience: A Concise History M. E. Sharpe, 1996 online edition
• Hickey, D. J. and Doherty, J. E. A Dictionary of Irish History since 1800. Barnes & Noble, 1980. 615 pp.
• Hoppen, K. Theodore. Ireland since 1800: Conflict and Conformity (1999)
• Jackson, Alvin. Ireland, 1798-1998: Politics and War (1999)
• Jackson, Alvin. Home Rule: An Irish History, (2003).
• Johnson, Paul. Ireland: Land of Troubles: A History from the Twelfth Century to the Present Day. Holmes & Meier, 1982. 224 pp.
• Lee, J. J. Ireland 1912-1985 (1989)
• Lecky, W. E. H. A History of Ireland in the Eighteenth Century, 5 vols. (1892) vol 3 online
• FSL Lyons, Ireland Since the Famine
• Moody, T. W. and Vaughan, W. E., eds. A New History of Ireland. Vol. 4: Eighteenth-Century Ireland, 1691-1800. Oxford U. Press, 1986. 849 pp.
• Moody, T. W.; Martin, F. X.; and Byrne, F. J., eds. A New History of Ireland. Vol. 8: A Chronology of Irish History to 1976: A Companion to Irish History, Part 1. Oxford U. Press, 1982. 591 pp
• Moody, T. W.; Martin, F. X.; and Byrne, F. J., eds. A New History of Ireland. Vol. 9: Maps, Genealogies, Lists. A Companion to Irish History, Part 2. Oxford U. Press, 1984.
• Newman, Peter R. Companion to Irish History, 1603-1921: From the Submission of Tyrone to Partition. Facts on File, 1991. 256 pp
• Ranelagh, John O'Beirne. A Short History of Ireland. Cambridge U. Press, 1983. 272 pp.
• Ranelagh, John. Ireland: An Illustrated History. Oxford U. Press, 1981. 267 pp.
• Vaughan, W. E., ed. A New History of Ireland. Vol. 5: Ireland under the Union, I, 1801-70. Oxford U. Press, 1990. 839 pp.
• Vaughan, W. E., ed. A New History of Ireland. Vol. 6: Ireland under the Union. Part 2: 1870-1921. Oxford U. Press, 1996. 957 pp.

Atlases and reference

• Cunliffe, Barry et al., ed. The Penguin Atlas of British and Irish History. 320 pp.
• Donnelly, James S., ed. Encyclopedia of Irish History and Culture. Macmillan Reference USA, 2004. 1084 pp.
• Duffy, Sean. Atlas of Irish History (2nd ed 1997)
• Edwards, Ruth Dudley. An Atlas of Irish History. 2d ed. Methuen, 1981. 286 pp.
• Fleming, N. C. and O'Day, Alan. The Longman Handbook of Modern Irish History since 1800. 2005. 808 pp.
• Graham, B. J. and L. J. Proudfoot, eds. An Historical Geography of Ireland(1993)

Specialized studies

• Bartlett, Thomas and Keith Jeffrey, eds. A Military History of Ireland (1996)
• de Paor, Liam. The Peoples of Ireland. From Pre-History to Modern Times (London, 1986)
• Donnelly, J. S.. Jr., and Kerby A. Miller, eds. Irish Popular Culture (Dublin, 1999)
• Foster, John Wilson and Chesney, Helena C. G., eds. Nature in Ireland: A Scientific and Cultural History. Dublin: Lilliput, 1998. 658 pp
• Hayes, Alan and Urquhart, Diane, eds. Irish Women's History. Dublin: Irish Acadamy Press, 2004. 240 pp.
• Hill, Jacqueline R. "Popery and Protestantism, Civil and Religious Liberty: The Disputed Lessons of Irish History 1690-1812", Past and Present, 118 (1988), 96-129 fulltext in JSTOR
• Kreilkamp, Vera, ed. Eire/Land (2003), environmental history
• ÓGráda, Cormac. Ireland: A New Economic History, 1780-1939. Oxford U. Press, 1994. 536 pp.
• Ward, Alan J. The Irish Constitutional Tradition: Responsible Government and Modern Ireland 1782–1992 (Irish Academic Press, 1994) (ISBN 0-7165-2528-3)

Culture

• Brown, Terence. Ireland: A Social and Cultural History, 1922 to the Present. Cornell U. Press, 1985. 310 pp.
• Cahalan, James M. The Irish Novel: A Critical History. Twayne, 1988. 365 pp.
• Cleary, Joe and Connolly, Claire, eds. The Cambridge Guide to Modern Irish Culture. Cambridge U. Press, 2005. 363 pp.
• Deane, Seamus. A Short History of Irish Literature. U. of Notre Dame Press, 1986. 282 pp.
• Duddy, Thomas. A History of Irish Thought Routledge, 2002 online edition
• Flynn, Arthur. The Story of Irish Film. Blackrock, Ireland: Currach, 2006. 328 pp.
• Gonzalez, Alexander G. Modern Irish Writers: A Bio-Critical Sourcebook Greenwood Press, 1997 online edition
• Kiberd, Declan. The Irish Writer and the World. Cambridge U. Press, 2005. 331 pp.
• McHugh, Roger and Harmon, Maurice. Short History of Anglo-Irish Literature from Its Origins to the Present Day. Barnes & Noble, 1982. 377 pp.
• Mercier, Vivian, and Eilís Dillon. Modern Irish Literature: Sources and Founders Clarendon Press, 1994 online edition
• Morash, Christopher. A History of Irish Theatre, 1601-2000. Cambridge U. Press, 2002. 322 pp.
• Murphy, James H. Ireland: A Social, Cultural and Literary History, 1791-1891. Blackrock, Ireland: Four Courts Pr., 2003. 224 pp.
• ÓhÓgáin, Dáithí. The Lore of Ireland: An Encyclopedia of Myth, Legend, and Romance. Rochester, N.Y.: Boydell, 2006. 531 pp.
• Pierce, David. Light, Freedom, and Song: A Cultural History of Modern Irish Writing. Yale U. Press, 2006. 350 pp.
• Yeats, W. B. A Book of Irish Verse Routledge, 2002 online edition

Famine era

• Kinealy, Christine. The Great Calamity: The Irish Famine, 1845-52 (Dublin, 1994) excerpt and online search from Amazon.com
• Mokyr, Joel. Why Ireland Starved: A Quantitative and Analytical History of the Irish Economy, 1800-1850. Allen & Unwin, 1983. 330 pp. online edition
• ÓGráda, Cormac. Ireland: A New Economic History, 1780-1939. Oxford U. Press, 1994. 536 pp.
• ÓGráda, Cormac. Black '47 and Beyond: The Great Irish Famine in History, Economy, and Memory. Princeton U. Press, 1999. 272 pp. excerpt and online search from Amazon.com
• Vaughan, W. E., ed. A New History of Ireland. Vol. 5: Ireland under the Union, I, 1801-70. Oxford U. Press, 1990. 839 pp.
• Woodham-Smith, Cecil Blanche Fitzgerald. The Great Hunger: Ireland: 1845-1849 (1992) excerpt and online search from Amazon.com

Since 1916

• Bell, J. Bowyer. The Secret Army: The IRA, 1916-1979. 2nd ed (1980). 481 pp.
• Brown, Terence. Ireland: A Social and Cultural History 1922-2001 (2nd ed. 2004) 514pp
• Coogan, Tim Pat. The Man Who Made Ireland: The Life and Death of Michael Collins. Roberts Rinehart, 1992. 510 pp.
• Coogan, Tim Pat. De Valera: Long Fellow, Long Shadow (London, 1993).
• Costello, Francis Joseph. "The Anglo-Irish War, 1919-1921: A Reappraisal." PhD dissertation Boston Coll. 1992. 425 pp. DAI 1993 53(9): 3338-A. DA9301731 Online at Proquest
• Ferriter, Diarmaid. The Transformation of Ireland 1900-2000 (2nd ed. 2005) 896pp; excerpt and text search
• Foster, R. F. Luck and the Irish: A Brief History of Change from 1970 (2008), 227pp
• Geraghty, Tony. The Irish War: The Hidden Conflict between the IRA and British Intelligence. Johns Hopkins U. Press, 2000. 444 pp.
• Hart, Peter M. The I.R.A. and Its Enemies: Violence and Community in Cork, 1916-1923 Clarendon Press, 1999 350pp online edition
• Hart, Peter M. "The Social Structure of the Irish Republican Army, 1916-1923." Historical Journal 1999 42(1): 207-231. Fulltext: in Jstor
• Hart, Peter. The I.R.A. at War, 1916-1923. Oxford U. Press, 2004. 280 pp.
• Hart, Peter. "The Geography of Revolution in Ireland 1917-1923," Past and Present, No. 155 (May, 1997), pp. 142-176 online at JSTOR
• Kautt, William H. The Anglo-Irish War, 1916-1921: A People's War Praeger Publishers, 1999 online edition
• Powell, Benjamin. "Economic Freedom and Growth: The Case of the Celtic Tiger," The Cato Journal, Vol. 22, 2003 online edition
• Townsend, Charles. "The Irish Republican Army and the Development of Guerrilla Warfare, 1916-1921." English Historical Review 1979 94(371): 318-345. Issn: 0013-8266 Fulltext: in Jstor
• Walsh, Oonagh. Ireland's Independence, 1880-1923 Routledge, 2002 online edition

Ulster

see also Northern Ireland

• Adamson, Ian. The Identity of Ulster, 2nd edition (Belfast, 1987)
• Arthur, Paul. Government and Politics of Northern Ireland
• Bardon, Jonathan. A History of Ulster (Belfast, 1992)
• Bew, Paul, Peter Gibbon and Henry Patterson, Northern Ireland 1921-1994: Political Forces and Social Classes (1995)
• Bew, Paul. Ideology and the Irish Question: Ulster Unionism and Irish Nationalism 1912-1916 (1998) excerpt and online search from Amazon.com
• Brady, Claran, Mary O'Dowd and Brian Walker, eds. Ulster: An Illustrated History (1989)
• Elliott, Marianne. The Catholics of Ulster: A History. (2001). online edition
• Farrell, Michael. Northern Ireland: The Orange State, 2nd edition (1980)
• Henessy, Thomas. A History of Northern Ireland, 1920-1996. (1998). 365 pp.
• Mitchel, Patrick. Evangelicalism and National Identity in Ulster, 1921-1998 (2003) excerpt and online search from Amazon.com
• Hostettler, John. Sir Edward Carson: A Dream Too Far (1997)

Historiography and memory

• Boyce, D. George and Alan O’Day, eds. The Making of Modern Irish History: Revisionism and the Revisionist Controversy 1996 online edition excerpt and online search from Amazon.com
• Bradshaw, Brendan. "Nationalism and historical scholarship in modern Ireland", Irish Historical Studies, 26 (1989), pp. 329–51 at pp. 340–1.
• Brady, Ciaran, ed. Interpreting Irish history: the debate on historical revisionism, 1938–1994 (Dublin, 1994)
• Cairns, David, and Shaun Richards. Writing Ireland: Colonialism, Nationalism and Culture (1988)
• Canny, Nicholas. "Writing Early Modern History: Ireland, Britain, and the Wider World," The Historical Journal 46 (2003): 723–47
• Cleary, Joe. "Amongst Empires: A Short History of Ireland and Empire Studies in International Context," Éire-Ireland Volume 42:1&2, Spring/Summer 2007, pp. 11-57 in Project Muse
• Cosgrove, Art. "The Writing of Irish Medieval History", I.H.S., xxvii (1990), 97-111
• Curtis, L. P. "The greening of Irish history", Eire/Ireland, 29 (1994), pp. 7–28.
• Daly, Mary E. "The Irish Free State/ Éire/ Republic of Ireland/ Ireland: 'A Country by Any Other Name'?" Journal of British Studies 2007 46(1): 72-90. Issn: 0021-9371 Fulltext: Ebsco
• Deane, Seamus. Strange Country: Modernity and Nationhood in Irish Writing Since 1790 (1997).
• Foster, Roy, ed. The Irish story: telling tales and making it up in Ireland (2001)
• Foster, Roy. "Something to hate: intimate enmities in Irish history", Irish Review, 30 (2003), pp. 1–12.
• Graham, Colin, and Glenn Hooper, eds. Irish and Postcolonial Writing: History, Theory, Practice (2002).
• Harkness, David. "Ireland" in Robin W. Winks, ed., Historiography, Vol. 5, in Louis, ed., The Oxford History of the British Empire (2003), 114–33;
• Kiberd, Declan. Inventing Ireland: The Literature of the Modern Nation (1995)
• Lee, Joseph. "Irish History," in N. Buttimer, C. Rynne, and H. Guerin, eds., The Heritage of Ireland (Cork: Collins, 2000), 114–36.
• Regan, John M. "Southern Irish Nationalism as a Historical Problem," The Historical Journal (2007), 50: 197-223 online at CJO
• Townshend, Charles. "Historiography: the telling of the Irish revolution", in Joost Augusteign, ed., The Irish revolution, 1913–1923 (Basingstoke, 2002)

Primary sources

• Edwards, R. W. Dudley, and Mary O'Dowd, eds. Sources for Modern Irish History 1534-1641 (2003)
• Luddy, Maria. Women in Ireland, 1800-1918: A Documentary History. Cork U. Press, 1995. 356 pp.