Ireland – from Celtic kingdoms and monasteries to an independent republic
Ireland was settled by early farmers who left remarkable monuments such as the passage tomb of Newgrange, which is older than the pyramids of Giza. Over the first millennium BC a Celtic language and culture took hold, and the island was divided among many small kingdoms. Christianity arrived in the fifth century, traditionally linked to Saint Patrick, and Irish monasteries became famous centres of learning, producing treasures such as the Book of Kells. From the late eighth century Vikings raided the coast and founded towns including Dublin.
The Anglo-Norman invasion of 1169 began centuries of English involvement. Under the Tudors and Stuarts, English control was extended through conquest and the plantations, in which land was granted to Protestant settlers, most lastingly in Ulster. Penal laws discriminated against the Catholic majority. The Act of Union of 1801 joined Ireland to the United Kingdom, and the Great Famine of the 1840s caused around a million deaths and mass emigration, shaping Irish communities worldwide.
Demands for Home Rule and independence grew stronger. After the Easter Rising of 1916 and the War of Independence, the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 created the Irish Free State, while Northern Ireland remained in the United Kingdom; a civil war followed. Ireland became a republic and left the Commonwealth in 1949 and joined the European Economic Community in 1973. The Good Friday Agreement of 1998 created a framework for peace in Northern Ireland after decades of conflict.
Today Ireland is shaped by its literary and musical traditions, its worldwide diaspora and its open, European-oriented economy.
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