Irish History... kinda...

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You've got to do your own growing, no matter how tall your grandfather was. 
- Irish Proverb


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It's Irish History lesson time! 

Every great adventure should start with understanding the people and the very land you are going to explore. So, I have taken it upon myself to dig deep into Ireland's history in order to produce a proper insight into how Ireland came to be the Emerald Isle as we know it!

But here's the problem, Irish history is kind of... well... convoluted, and long...very long. I mean, 8000BC long. Now, it's still important to look into their history, and try to get a grasp on their 'past', but since I'm not an historian, and don't want to bare the weight of teaching of all you the ins and outs of Irish History... here's my version, with guidance from my lovely Irish fella. I've tried to include the important stuff! If anything is wrong, I blame the internet, and him. shh.

Irish History

as researched by me...

It all starts between 8000BC-4500BC when the first people arrived in Ireland. The first settlers were from Scotland, and arrived on the North East coast of Ireland via a land bridge. 

Now, before we proceed, lets try to envision Ireland the way it may have looked during that time...are you imagining rolling hills and green grass? 

Well, you'd be wrong. Ireland was actually covered in dense forest at this time (deforestation started around the 17th century). Throughout this early period in Irish history, hunter gatherers roamed the island, and around 5,000 years ago, during the Neolithic Period (a.k.a New Stone Age), the Neolithic people started a farming community in the Boyne Valley where they built a mound known as Newgrange. It's important to note that Newgrange is actually older than the Stone Henge in Britain and the Pyramids in Egypt. Newgrange is quite an interesting place, along with the coinciding mounds, Knowth and Dowth. All three mounds are considered to be Ancient Temples and passage tombs. If you'd like to know more about Newgrange please click here! There you will find a lot more information than I can provide!! 

A view inside Knowth! Crazy place. I highly recommend visiting this museum! 

Moving on... 

So years and years and years go by, guess who pops into Ireland?! None other than Mr. Ireland himself, Saint Patrick! Well, he actually wasn't Irish. In and around the mid 5th century, he was kidnapped and brought to Ireland as a slave from Wales. Sounds terrible no? Anywho, he brought all this 'celtic religious' stuff to Ireland. He also apparently 'banished' snakes from the island, and we now celebrate dear St.Pat's death in every March 17th with beer, beer and more beer. How that all came about I'm not to sure... but hey, who's complaining?! 

St. Patrick's grave site! 

Now lets skip to 795AD when the Vikings arrived, took over and destroyed the monastic culture that existed in Ireland prior to them tearing the roof off this poor wee island for more than a century. But don't feel bad.. many of these religious groups were still able to withhold the Vikings' mean grip. 

Let's now skip ahead again to 1169 and jump into the coming of the Combro-Norman mercenaries under Richard de Clare, nickname Strongbow. This event marked the beginning of 700 years of direct English and British involvement in Ireland. 

Not cool... not cool at all.

THEN if things weren't already bad for Ireland, they went through a few famines... but lets just focus on one, The Great Famine.  Between 1845-1852, Ireland went through something the history books call "The Irish Potato Famine". The probable cause of 1 million deaths and 1 million Irish citizens to emigrate, was a potato disease called potato blight. Now, the potato blight isn't the sole reason for the "cause" of the famine. But that's a whole lot of British politics that I'd rather not get into. That's what wikipedia is for!

Oh, and did I mention Irish emigration starting booming starting around the 1700s. About 9 to 10 million had emigrated after 1700s, which is more than the peak of the Irish population in the 1830s of 8.5 million. No wonder everyone is "Irish" on St. Patrick's day, they may actually be Irish! But, lets not get into that at the moment... Many emigrants left for the United States, populating New York City, Philadelphia, and Boston. Canada was also a popular destination, landing in New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Quebec and Ontario. For exact figures I'd recommend doing some googling, but it's safe to say, Ireland's population began to plummet due to starvation, unemployment, politics, etc. 

Now, we probably all see where this history lesson is headed now right? 

Well, in 1937 Ireland separated to become the Republic but 6 north eastern counties stayed with the UK creating Northern Ireland. 

Then, the 1960s showed up, and the Troubles began.... and lets not go into that. We all know what happened... 

But, have faith friends! In 1998 the Good Friday Agreement was signed, and the road to peace began... 

PHEW

Man, oh man!!

I hope you all take that Irish History lesson for what it's worth, just a simple break down by you're ol' pal. If you have any disagreements with what I have written, please let me know! 

Hopefully we can now move onto the fun stuff about Ireland... 

cool? 

till next time folks, 

M. 

References: The Internet. Blame the internet if any of the above information is incorrect.