1170-1966
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1170 1366 1507 1558 1603 1641 1649 1685 1688 1778 1791 1795 1798 1801 1823 1843 1845-9 1867 1879 1886 1893 1910 1912 1913 1916 1918 1919 – 1921 1937 1964 1966 |
Normans arrive in Ireland. In response to a request from King Dairmait MacMurchada for help in dealing with a rebellion against him, a small number of knights land at Bannow Bay near Waterford, soon followed by a larger group under Richard de Clare, Earl of Pembroke, known as Strongbow. Strongbow quickly recovered Leinster for Dairmait, then married his daughter and made himself heir, then king. Strongbow had set himself up as a virtually independent king, much to the displeasure of Henry II who decided to put Strongbow in his place. He travelled to Ireland himself and took homage from the Norman knights and most of the Irish kings, the first time a king of England had declared himself to be lord of Ireland. Statute of Kilkenny. Lords of Norman origin had, for generations, intermarried with the Irish, adopted Gaelic speech and customs and ruled vast tracts of land as warlords, virtually independent from royal authority. The statute was intended to stop the practice of assimilation, but had little impact. Henry VII becomes king of England. Although initially content to follow the old policy of ruling through the Irish lords, Henry became the first English king to lay serious claim to the whole Island, erasing the partition between the English ‘pale’ and the rest of the island. His new policy was known as Surrender and Regrant, whereby Irish lords were to give up their traditional Gaelic titles in return for English titles held under the authority of the king. Henry’s break with the Roman Church caused few immediate problems in Ireland. The main targets of the Henrician Reformation, Papal authority and the monasteries, attracted little loyalty in Ireland where the Pope’s rule was generally ignored and the monasteries had long since ceased to provide education and hospitality. Elizabeth I becomes queen of England. By now, religion was becoming a cause of strife across Europe. The protestant Elizabeth set about Reforming the English church, but did not have the resources to do the same in Ireland. As the threat to her rule from the great Catholic power of Spain became greater, Elizabeth became painfully aware of those parts of her realm that remained loyal to Rome, seeing them as a potential bridgehead for her enemies. This dilemma was to dominate British attitudes to Roman Catholicism in Britain and Ireland for generations. It was this consideration that led the Elizabethan government to abandon the centuries old policy of ruling through the traditional authority of the Gaelic lords and instead seek to establish effective royal authority. This move was resisted by the Gaelic lords leading to the Elizabethan Wars. James VI of Scotland becomes king James I of England. James began the ‘Plantation’ of Ulster. This was an idea that had been tried on a small scale by the Tudors in other parts of Ireland an involved settling loyal English and Scottish people on land that had been confiscated from Irish lords. In this way, James hoped to create a loyal, Protestant community in the strongly Gaelic northern province of Ulster who would stop Ireland from being a bridgehead for a potential invasion of England. Rebellion. The Protestants of Scotland and England looked on Charles I’s religious beliefs with great suspicion. His policies provoked rebellion in Scotland and the resentful Gaelic lords of Ireland sought to take advantage. They rose in rebellion against the Protestant settlers of Ulster in an attempt to regain their lost lands. As Charles’s hold on power continued to collapse, a Scottish Presbyterian army arrived to rescue the Plantation, which had very nearly been swept away. Cromwell arrives in Ireland. Having gained control of England and Scotland for Parliament, Cromwell sought to deal with the last Royalist outposts in Ireland. His army massacred English Royalist forces at Drogheda in one of the most notorious, if misunderstood, acts in Irish history. Cromwell conquered Ireland and exiled the great Catholic landholders to Connaught. James II becomes King. The Catholic James became king of a Protestant country that viewed him nervously. He quickly lost their confidence, leading to his becoming the second king to be deposed in half a century. The Glorious Revolution and the Williamite Wars. James was replaced on the throne by his daughter, Mary, and her husband, the Dutch hero of European Protestantism, William of Orange. William was engaged in a general European war with absolutist France, numbering the Pope among his allies as well as Catholics from the Low Countries and Germany as well as the main Protestant powers. The deposed James found an ally in France and, supported by a French army, landed in Ireland to begin to regain his throne. The Catholic Irish flocked to his banner (fighting to put an English King on the English throne from where he would rule Ireland), and the Plantation was once again attacked and very nearly wiped out, surviving only in an enclave around Enniskillen and behind the walls of Londonderry. The siege of Derry was ended in 1689 and William defeated James at the Boyne in 1690. English rule was re-established, and the Penal laws were introduced, discriminating against Catholics and also Dissenting Protestants. This was in line with the policies of other European countries, all of which enacted laws against religious minorities, but unsurprisingly caused serious resentment nonetheless. Volunteer Movement. A the garrisons of Ireland were stripped to provide troops to protest the American colonies in the 1760’s, Ireland had seen the formation of companies of Volunteers to protect themselves from French attacks. By 1778, this practice became a movement. The Volunteers became a platform for radical politics as men asked themselves why Ireland had fewer political rights than England or Scotland. These questions crystallized into demands for the reform of the Irish Parliament, making it more representative and freeing it from English control. Their demands were partially met. United Irishmen formed. Dissatisfied with the pace of reform, some went in a more radical direction. They saw the king as part of the problem rather than part of the solution and began to agitate for an independent republic. To this end, they sought to create an alliance between ‘Protestant Catholic and Dissenter’, but never had majority Protestant, or even Dissenter, support. Loyal Orange Institution formed. In response to the increasingly radical atmosphere, the Orange Order was formed to campaign on behalf of the Protestant interest and resist independence. United Irish Rebellion. Quickly defeated by British troops. Act of Union. Most of the concerns of the Protestant radicals of the 1770s and 80s were answered when Ireland was brought under the rule of the British Parliament. Catholic Association formed. Led by Daniel O’Connell, the Catholic Association was formed to campaign for Catholic emancipation. The Association was banned, along with the Orange Order in 1825, but the Catholic Emancipation Act was passed nonetheless in 1829. O’Connell held meetings to campaign for the Act of Union to be repealed. The Great Famine. The failure of the potato crop in successive years led to great need and cost an enormous number of lives. The condition of the Irish was worsened by the inadequacies of British policy, which abandoned Ireland to the free market. This policy was arrived at through good intentions – Victorian Britain genuinely believed that market forces were the best way to solve the problem, failing to understand the inadequacies of the market in what was a subsistence economy where the one source of food and income had failed – rather than being the conspiracy against the Irish people that has sometime been alleged. Fenian Uprising. Irish National Land League formed. Land Wars First Home Rule Bill was defeated. Eight Catholics
died in rioting which followed Protestant celebrations. Further rioting in
the north of Ireland followed Orange Order parades. Official death toll
reached 31 by the middle of September. Second Home Rule Bill Two General Elections in which Irish Party held balance of
power. Third Home Rule Bill. January 1913 Ulster Volunteer Force formed and
began drilling. April 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin, which began
on Easter Monday (24 April 1916), lasted for a week before being put down. 3-12
May 1916 Executions of leaders of Easter Rising. November 1918 End of World War I.
Bunreacht na hÉireann (the
Irish Constitution) was approved by a referendum. The Constitution (articles
2 and 3) claimed sovereignty over the whole of the island of Ireland. Campaign for Social Justice
(CSJ) was formed. The CSJ was the forerunner of the civil rights movement and
it began a programme of publicising what it saw as widespread discrimination,
in a number of areas of life, against Catholics in Northern Ireland. Rioting broke out in Belfast
as Loyalists held counter demonstrations to oppose commemorations of the
Easter Rising in 1916. Early 1966 (?) The modern version of the Ulster Volunteer
Force (UVF) was formed. The UVF issued a statement in May 1966 (?)
The UVF exploded a bomb at Silent Valley Resevoir, County Down. |