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Geschichte / Historik

BG/BRG Knittelfeld

2002

Julia D. ©
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The History of Ireland &
The Conflict in Northern Ireland

Contents

1.   First invaders – Republic of Ireland  1

2.   IRA  4

3.   December the 6th 1921:5

4.   Important sights in Ireland (Ireland Trip )6

5.   Irish Literature – short overview  6


1.           First invaders – Republic of Ireland

~ 6000 BC: The first people, who arrived at the island, came from the European mainland

-                      400 BC: Celtic tribes controlled Ireland – they suppressed and assimilated[1] the inhabitants and established a Gaelic civilization.

-                      -5th century: St. Patrick brought the Christianity, the Roman alphabet and Latin literature to Ireland

-                      By the beginning of the Christian Era, Ireland was divided into five kingdoms- Ulster, Munster, Connacht, Leinster, Meath.

-                      Vikings arrived in 795 and established Ireland’s first towns (cork, Limerick, Dublin, Waterford)

-                      Vikings plundered Ireland à the Irish people defeated the Vikings at the Battle of Clortarf (1014)

-                      Then the Normans captured Ireland with the help oh Henry II, the Norman king of England (“Lord of Ireland”)

-                      1534 Henry VIII forced the Irish Parliament to declare him king

AB HIER: DIE WURZELN DES KONFLIKTS IN NORDIRLAND

-                      In the 15th century England took over the sovereignty of Ireland and Henry VIII (Tudor) became the head of the church.

The reason for that was a conflict with the pope (wanted to get divorced). Within the population three tendencies arose: the Old English, who pledge loyalty to the English king; the independent, Irish Catholics and last, but not least the Protestants.

-                      In the 16th centuryElisabeth I. (Tudor) wanted to spread Protestantism and for that reason the Irish culture, religion and language was oppressed.

à Because of that the provinces of Ulster and Munster rose into three Irish
rebellions: The first and the second one (under Desmond of Munster) were defeated and the confiscated countries were divided among the English colonies.

The third rebellion (under Hugh O’Neil) in Ulster caused a nine years war (1594-1603) In the end there was a conquest of Ireland by the Tudors and afterwards Irish counts had to emigrate to the European mainland in 1607 (Exodus of the counts)

-                      Later on half a million morgen[2] land was confiscated.

With these so-called Plantations (Elisabeth I. and her successor James I [Stuart]) the English tried to take away the control of the land of the Catholics. As a result Scottish and English Protestants (1610) came from England and received this land. The Irish population, particularly in Ulster, was therefore really discontent and the split between Catholics and Protestants was irreversible.

-                      In 1641 an Irish rebellion against the new settlers took place, where thousands of Protestants were killed.

In 1649 Oliver Cromwell ( Stuart, Land Protector) and 12.000 men of the New Model Army arrived and slaughtered the inhabitants of Drogheda and Wexlord – After two years a fourth of the catholic population was killed.

-          In the Act of Settlement in 1652 loads of Irish goods were confiscated and the population was banned to West Ireland. During this exodus thousands of people had to die.

-          In 1665 Charles II. (Stuart)w became the viceroy[3] of Ireland and annuled the Act of Settlement.

(Afterwards Wilhelm the Orange[4] (Wilhelm III. 1650-1702) became the new king and Wilhelm II. went into the Irish exile and formed an army.)

-          There was a defeat of the Catholics at the Battle of Boyne in 1690

-          In the 18th century Protestants adopted a criminal code[5] and oppressed the Catholics: they were not allowed to vote, to go to the army or the navy, to educate their children in the catholic set of beliefs, to buy or to sell land; and the Protestants  interdicted the language, music, and The Holy Mass.

They wanted to destroy the Irish culture, and because of that Irish people did everything secretly (e.g.: Hedge schools[6])

-          In April 1829 king George IV.(House of Hannover) adopted the decree[7] of the equality of treatment of the catholics and so some catholic Irishmen got the electoral law.

-          The 19th Century was shaped by the Famine in Ireland: The Population nourished on potatoes and because of a disease in the potato crop, which caused bad harvestings of potatoes between 1845 and 1851 millions of Irish people had to die. Another big part of the population emigrated to America.

-          The Catholics wanted a “Home Rule” in Ireland, which meant that they wanted Ireland to become an independent state. The Protestants saw this Home Rule as Rome Rule (Dominion of the catholics)

àBecause of that the Unionist of Ulster (Party) (founded in 1885) tried to do anything against this Home Rule and formed under the guidance of Sir Edward Carson (Party leader), a protestant advocate of Dublin, the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). (Northern Ireland loyalist paramilitary group)

-          During the 20th century, the people of Ireland struggled constantly to assert their right to govern themselves or be governed by Britain, depending on their affiliation[10].

-          The conflict the Catholics argued that a united Ireland would be the best solution. The Protestants of the North (feared they will be annihilated by the Catholics should Britain withdraw from Ulster, and) wanted to stay within the UK.

-          Both sides used private armies, the IRA (Michael Collins, Irish Republican Army) and the UDA (Ulster Defence Association) were the main opposing groups of terrorists (or freedom fighters; depending on which side you ask)

2.   IRA

The Irish Republican Army (IRA) has its roots in this struggle for independence. It is important to differentiate between the 'Old IRA' (declared by Dáil Éireann [today: lower house of the Parliament, revolutionary parliament of the self-proclaimed Irish Republic] in 1919), the Provisional IRA (PIRA, Provos), a splinter-group which formed in the late 1960s, which is responsible for anti-Catholic discrimination, riots and murders (mainly in Belfast and Derry),  the 'Official IRA' , a remainder of the IRA (after PIRA seceded in1969), which is now inactive in the military sense,  the 'Real' IRA, a 1990s breakaway from the PIRA and the Continuity IRA, another 1990s breakaway from the PIRA


The 6 shires in Northern Ireland (Derry, Antrim, Fermanagh, Down, Tyrone and Armagh) had the alternative to be declared as independent, but for all that the Irish Delegates had to swear on the English Crown and the 26 shires in the south would never become a republic, but an independent nation within the British Commonwealth, called Irish Free State.

Since that day the conflict between Catholics and Protestants mainly in Northern Ireland hasn’t come to an end. A lot of blood was spilled. On a Sunday in 1972, , 13 unarmed people were shot by British paratroopers after a civil rights march in the Bogside area of the city of Derry, Northern Ireland, in an incident since known as Bloody Sunday.

It is regularly said that this event led in to 30 years of IRA violence. Before Bloody Sunday, the IRA was a much smaller and weaker organization. Memory of Bloody Sunday overshadows Bloody Friday, a day when the IRA detonated 22 bombs, across the city of Belfast, killing 9 and injuring 130 people. 27 bombs were planned to go off but five of them failed.

- Dublin Castle

- Book of Kells (College Library)

- Guinness Storehouse

- Dublina

- First Christ Church Cathedral

- Powerscourt Gardens

- Glendalough

- Melahide Castle

- Cliffs of Moher

- Burren

- Bunratty Castle

- Conemara Parc

- Kylemore Abbey

- Galway

- Clonmacnoise Monastry

5.   Irish Literature – short overview

- Jonathan Swift – Gulliver’s Travels

- Oscar Wilde – lived in Dublin

- James Joyce

- Samuel Beckett

- William Butler Yeats

- Important: The Irish literature is full of humour!



[1] Angleichen, intergrieren

[2] Unit of measurement comprising between 2,500 and 3,400 square metres

[3] Vizekönig

[4] Willhelm von Oranien

[5] Strafgesetzbuch

[6] Heckenschulen

[7] Verordnung, Beschluss

[8] ersticken

[9] Bestrebungen

[10] Mitgliedschaft

[11] Anerkennung


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