Important dates in Irish History

• 7000 B.C. Irish history began after the last ice age ended. Wandering bands of hunters and gathers (Mesolithic ie... Middle Stone Age peoples) moved to Ireland by way of Northern Britian. This way of life lasted a long time, and the culture has close affinities with those of British and Continental forest and coastal dwellers.
• 4000-2000 B.C. Gradually, groups of Neolithic immigrants arrived. They came from the general direction of France and Spain. They erected the monuments of Newgrange and Knowth in Co. Meath and Carrowkeel and Creevykeel in Co. Sligo. The Mesolithic people seem to have survived and mingled with the newcomers.
• 300 B.C. Celtic tribes arrive on Irish soil. The Celts came to Ireland from Gaul (France). They were great warriors and they took over the island.
• 300 Development of ogham alphabet, inscribed on stone.
• 432 St. Patrick brings Christianity to Ireland.
• 461 Death of St. Patrick.
• 500 St. Brigid founds Kildare.
• 557 St. Columcille leaves Ireland for the Isle of Iona.
• 597 Death of St. Columcille.
• 500-800 The Golden Age of Ireland, a period of great artisic and literary creativity that made Irish scholars the most revered in Europe. Monasteries are established and monastic arts flourish.
• 635 St. Aidan founds Lindisfarne.
• 693 First Viking attack on Lindisfarne.
• 795 The Vikings invade Ireland and subsequently found the first towns, including the city of Dublin in 988.
• 800 'Book of Kells' created.
• 1002 Brian, of the kingdom of Dal Cais in west Munster, unites Ireland for the first time under one leader. He, Brian Boru, becomes High King of Ireland.
• 1014 Viking command of east coast broken at Battle of Clontarf, led by Brian Boru and the Vikings are defeated. Boru is killed in the battle.
• 1152 Dervorgilla, wife of Tiernan O'Rourke (Prince of Breifne) is abducted by Dermot MacMurrough (King of Leinster).
• 1166 Dermot MacMurrough is driven out of Ireland and seeks help in England. He recruits Norman knights.
• 1169 First Anglo-Normans arrive in Ireland, marking start of Norman invasion of Ireland. MacMurrough is given back kingship of Leinster.
• 1170 The Anglo-Norman leader Richard FitzGilbert de Clare, also known as 'Strongbow', lands in Waterford. He marries MacMurrough's daughter, storms and captures Dublin, and invades Meath.
• 1171 MacMurrough dies. The Normans, under Henry II, conquer Ireland, beginning 750 years of British domination.
• 1366 Statutes of Kilkenny prohibit integration of Anglo-Normans and the Irish.
• 1588 Ships from Spanish Armada wrecked off Irish coasts.
• 1609 Protestantism takes root in Northern Ireland after British Protestant forces defeat native Irish Catholics in a bloody nine-year war.
• 1641 Insurrection spreads throughout Ireland. Rebels form the Confederate Catholics of Ireland, and set up their seat in Kilkenny.
• 1642-1652 Civil War.
• 1649 Cromwell lands in Ireland; massacre of Drogheda and sack of Wexford.
• 1650 Catholic land owners exiled to Connaught.
• 1653 Cromwell's subjugation of Ireland complete. Irish landowners evicted and land handed over to Protestant settlers.
• 1656 More than 60,000 Irish Catholics had been sent as slaves to Barbados, and other islands of the Caribbean.
• 1672 Over 6,000 Irish boys and women sold as slaves since England gained control of Jamaica.
• 1690 Battle of Boyne: the Catholic (and Stuart) cause is decisively lost to the victorious William of Orange. The flight of the Earls, the Irish nobility, begins soon after.
• 1692 Catholics are excluded from office for the first time.
• 1695-7 Catholic clergy banished and penal laws instituted (depriving Catholics of civil rights).
• 1740 The forgotten famine.
• 1778 Irish Volunteer Movement founded; Catholic Relief Bill passed, giving Roman Catholics leasehold and inheritance rights
• 1793 Catholics permitted to vote.
• 1798 Rebellion in Ulster and Leinster. Much fighting around the country, with the last battles of the United Irishmen fought at Ballynahinch, Down and in Co. Wexford marking the final defeat of the rebels.
• 1801 Ireland is made part of the United Kingdom.
• 1829 Catholic Emancipation Act passed, allowing Catholics to sit in parliament.
• 1845-1850 A million and a half Irish starve to death during the Great Potato Famine, and a million more emigrate to avoid a similar fate.
• 1848-49 The worst years of the famine.
• 1893 Formation of the Gaelic League to revive Irish culture.
• 1906 Foundation of Sinn Fein.
• 1916 The Irish Republican Brotherhood and the Irish Citizen Army stages the Easter Rebellion to protest British conscription (drafting for military service) of Irishmen for their military forces in WWI. The rebellion is crushed, and its leaders are martyred.
• 1919 The Irish Republican Army (IRA) was formed to fight for Ireland's independance from Britian. The British government formed the Black and Tans, a special police force to oppose the IRA.
• 1919-1921 Irish War of Independence.
• 1922 Ireland becomes a Free State within the British Commonwealth, except for the six Ulster counties of Northern Ireland, which remain part of the United Kingdom.
• 1949 The twenty-six counties of Ireland become a independent republic.
• 1951-62 IRA campaign in North.
• 1955 Ireland joins the United Nations.
• 1967 Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association founded.
• 1968 August: First Civil Rights March.
  October: Derry Civil Rights March, banned by William Craig, Minister of home Affairs, held but broken up by brutality by police.
• 1969 January: People's Democracy Belfast to Derry Civil Rights March.
  January 4: Marchers attacked at Burntollet Bridge.
  April: O'Neill resigns. Chichester Clark Prime Minister.
  August 14: British troops sent to Derry.
  October: Protestant riot in Belfast.
• 1970 Dublin Arms Trial.
• 1971 First British soldier killed by IRA in Belfast.
  Chichester Clark resigns, Faulkner Prime Minister.
  Unionist government of NI introduces internment without trial for suspected Republicans.
• 1972 Ireland joins the European Economic Community.
• 1972 January 30: Bloody Sunday in Derry. British paratroopers shoot 13 civilians during civil-rights march.
• 1973 Sunningdale Agreement.
• 1974 Ulster Workers Strike brings down Faulkner and Assembly. Direct Rule re-imposed.
  Loyalists bomb Dublin and Monaghan, killing 30 people.
• 1981-82 Ten Republicans die on hunger strike in Maze Prison, NI - Dying hunger-striker Bobby Sands elected to British Parliament.
• 1993 Downing Street Declaration; British Government accepts the right of the people of Ireland to self-determinination.
• 1994 IRA declares cease-fire
• 1996 Cease-fire breaks down after Britain's Conservative government refuses to allow Sinn Fein to join all-party talks on NI.
• 1997 - IRA cease-fire resumes; talks begin in Belfast between government of Irish Republic, Britain's Labor government, and representatives of all NI's political parties.
• 1998 Initial peace-plan accepted by all parties.

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