A Wee Bit o' Irish History

Ireland's Beginnings

I left here July 11 2017 totally ignorant of the place where I was going and the history of its peoples. Back here now, not much has changed except a whetted curiosity.

Ice Age and Pre-history

All but the southernmost part of the island was under ice with a land/ice bridge connecting Ireland with the adjacent land that would become England.

There is clear evidence of habitation from about 8000 BCE with hunter-gatherer communities continuing til about 4000 BCE when agriculture began and Neolithic culture started. There are many structures of stone that date from this time. I visited the great cairn near Sligo hiking the 1.6 km to the top with a rise of over 200 meters. Doesn't sound like much of a climb, but I felt the fact that I am 73, 20+ pounds overweight and out of training. The cairn is about 10 meters high and consists of stone brought from near and far to Knocknarea and what is fancifully called Queen Maeve's (Mab's) Grave.

Queen Mazeve's Cairn

People were evidently buries in the ground at that time. Cremation was a later practice of the Middle Bronze Age. Near Knocknarea are the great stone structures of Carrowmore. This is also a cemetery of megalithic structures.

Carrowmore Grave

Iron Age. 600 BCE.

Between the start of the Iron Age and the historic period the archeologic record shows the arrival of Celtic Peoples with Celtic crafts and designs around 300 BCE. This and most other invasions or infiltrations seemed to start in the north of the Island. Ptolemy mapped Ireland's geography and tribes in 100 CE but Ireland was never part of the Roman Empire.

Historical Age begins in the 5^th Century.

By tradition, St. Patrick (Pádraig ) arrived in Ireland in 432. He was Welsh and a Romano-British

missionary. He had been captured by Irish pirates and was a slave in Ireland for six years until escaping and returning to his family. After he took orders, he returned to northern and western Ireland. Since he was sent by the Pope it is inferred that there were already Christian communities in Ireland. Pádraigh/Patricius is credited with organizing Irish law, introducing the Roman alphabet.

It is of course impossible to identify anything about the “real” Pádraigh since his mythology began in the 7^th Century.

It is clear that learning, scholarship and book illumination flourished from the fifth to the ninth centuries. The Book of Kells originates during this time, went through an arduous journey of kidnap, theft, burial and rediscovery, ending finally in the Trinity College Library in Dublin.

The Viking Era saw raids that continued for 300 years. The Normans found an Ireland divided into petty kingdoms ruled by minor kings. When King Dairmait was exiled, he appealed to Henry II to recruit Norman knights to regain his lands. That was fine until “Strongbow” Richard deClare was heir to Dairmait's kingdom and married his daughter. Pope Adrian IV permitted Henry to invade Ireland because Henry feared a rival Norman state in Ireland. Henry named his son John the Lord of Ireland. When John became king of England (1199) Ireland came under the English crown.

The Norman influence waned in the 13^th Century. When the Black Death arrived in the mid-14^th Century, the English and Norman occupiers of cities and towns were harder hit than the rural native Irish. As the plague passed there was resurgence of Irish language and customs. The War of the Roses diverted attention even further from Ireland. Gaelic and Gaelicized lords expanded their power and domain in the end of the 15^th Century.

Irish or Gaelic? Seamus O'Shea, our bus's tour guide, said it did not matter what we called it. “We are speaking Irish here” though a dwindling proportion of the population actually speak the language on a daily basis.