I.

Introduction

Ireland, island in the North Atlantic Ocean, separated from Great Britain by St George's Channel on the south-east, the Irish Sea on the east, and the North Channel on the north-east. Politically, the island is divided into Northern Ireland, a constituent part of the United Kingdom, and the Republic of Ireland. The island is divided into four historical provinces—Connaught (Connacht), Leinster, Munster, and Ulster—and 32 administrative units called counties. The Republic of Ireland consists of Connaught, Leinster, and Munster provinces, totalling 23 counties, and 3 counties in the province of Ulster. Northern Ireland consists of 6 counties divided into 26 districts, the remainder of Ulster. The area of the island is 83,765 sq km (32,342 sq mi) of which the Republic of Ireland is 70,282 sq km (27,136 sq mi) in extent, and Northern Ireland 13,483 sq km (5,206 sq mi). The population of the island (1991) is 5,103,555, of which that of the Republic of Ireland is 3,525,719 and that of Northern Ireland is 1,577,836.

North to south, the maximum length of Ireland is 486 km (302 mi); its extreme width is 280 km (174 mi). Malin Head, at latitude 55°27' north, and Mizen Head, at latitude 51°27' north, are, respectively, the northernmost and southernmost points on the island; easternmost and westernmost points are demarcated by longitude 5°25' west and longitude 10°30' west.

II.

The Land

The eastern coast of Ireland is comparatively regular and has few deep indentations; the western coast is fringed by drowned or submerged valleys, steep cliffs, and hundreds of small islands separated from the mainland by the powerful forces of the Atlantic. Topographically, the surface of the island may be described as basin-shaped. The chief physiographic features are a region of lowlands, occupying the central and east central sections, and a complex system of low mountain ranges, lying between the lowlands and the periphery of the island. Among the principal ranges are the Mourne Mountains in the north-east, rising 852 m (2,796 ft) above sea level; the mountains of Donegal in the north-west, containing Mount Errigal, 752 m (2,467 ft); the Sperrin Mountains in the north, containing Sawel Mountain, 683 m (2,240 ft); the Maumturk Mountains in the west, containing Mount Twelve Pins, 730 m (2,395 ft); the Caha Mountains in the south-west, containing Mount Knockboy, 707 m (2,321 ft); the Boggeragh Mountains in the south, rising to more than 640 m (2,100 ft); and the Wicklow Mountains in the east, rising more than 915 m (3,000 ft). Carrantuohill (1,041 m/3,414 ft above sea level), located in the south-western section of the island, is the highest point in Ireland. The central plain, or lowlands region, has maximum dimensions of about 160 km (100 mi) from east to west and about 80 km (50 mi) from north to south. Numerous bogs and lakes are found in the plain. The principal rivers of Ireland are the Erne and the Shannon, which are in reality chains of lakes joined by stretches of river. The northern portion of the central plain is drained by the Erne, and the centre of the plain is drained by the Shannon, which empties into the Atlantic Ocean through a wide, lengthy estuary. Nearly half of the Shannon, above the estuary, is made up of loughs Allen, Ree, and Derg. All the principal rivers of Ireland flow from the plain, and an interior canal system facilitates communications.

The climate of Ireland is typically insular. Because of the moderating influence of the prevailing warm, moist winds from the Atlantic Ocean, the mean winter temperature ranges from 4.4° to 7.2° C (40° to 45° F), approximately 14° C (25° F) higher than that of other places in the same latitude in the interior of Europe or on the eastern coast of North America. The oceanic influence is also very pronounced in summer, the mean summer temperature of Ireland, 15° to 16.7° C (59° to 62° F), being approximately 4° C (7° F) lower than that of other places in the same latitudes. The rainfall averages 1,016 mm (40 in) a year.

Most of the flora of Ireland comes via Britain from the western European mainland. Sedges, rushes, ferns, and grass are the principal flora. The Irish fauna does not differ markedly from that of Britain or France. The great Irish deer and the great auk, or garefowl, were exterminated in prehistoric times; and, subsequently, the island has lost its bear, wolf, wildcat, beaver, and native cattle. Remaining are the indigenous small rodents and birds of the woods, fields, and shoreline. The only reptile is the common lizard.

III.

History

This section covers the history of Ireland from earliest times to the partition of the island under the Government of Ireland Act in 1920. For the subsequent history, see Ireland, Republic of: History; Northern Ireland: History. See also Celtic Languages; Gaelic Literature; Church of Ireland; Irish Literature; Irish Nationalism.

A.

Early Ireland

According to early legends, Ireland was first inhabited by successive waves of invaders, the most important of which were the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, and Tuatha Dé Danann. These peoples are said to have been eventually subdued by Milesians (Gaels). The legends may have historical resonance in the arrival of Celts from continental Europe in the second half of the first millennium bc. Ireland is mentioned under the name of Ierne in a Greek poem of the 5th century bc and by the names of Hibernia and Juverna by various classical writers. Little, however, is known with certainty of its inhabitants before the 4th century ad (Ireland was never part of the Roman Empire). At that time Irish peoples called the Scoti harried the Roman province of Britain. These expeditions were continued and extended to the coast of Gaul until the time of the Loigare, or King MacNeill (reigned 428-463), during whose reign St Patrick attempted to convert the natives. Although Christianity had been previously introduced in some parts of Ireland, Patrick encountered great obstacles, and the new faith was not fully established in the island until a century after his death in about 461.

Medieval Ireland was a carefully stratified society, in which each individual had a social value measured in terms of honour. Kings, clerics, and poets had the greatest honour, with special status being given to craftsmen, musicians, and other skilled workers. From early times each minor kingdom, or tuath, had its own king; these kings were subject to the ardrí, or high king, who usually resided at Tara, a hill in present-day County Meath. The laws were dispensed by professional jurists called brehons, who were endowed with lands and who were allowed important privileges.

In the 6th century extensive monasteries were founded in Ireland, in which religion and learning were zealously cultivated during the early Middle Ages of Europe. From these establishments numerous missionaries, such as saints Columba, Columban, and Brendan, went forth during the succeeding centuries, while many students of distinction from Britain and the Continent visited Ireland to further their education. Seeking solitude, Irish hermits were also the first known visitors to the Faroe Islands, Iceland, and Greenland. Irish monasteries were responsible for producing many great works of art, including high crosses; fine metalwork, such as the Tara Brooch and Ardagh Chalice; and illuminated manuscripts, such as the Book of Kells and the Book of Durrow.

Irish civilization was heavily impacted by the incursions of the Scandinavians, which began towards the close of the 8th century and continued for more than two centuries. From 795 the Vikings began raiding Irish monasteries for plunder and slaves. In the 840s they established raiding camps at Dublin, Cork, and elsewhere, which developed into permanent settlements and, later, trading centres. After a number of reverses at the hands of Gaelic chiefs, in the early 10th century a new wave of Scandinavians arrived from northern France, re-establishing old settlements and founding Limerick and Wexford. The Vikings played a central role in Irish political and economic life until their signal overthrow at the Battle of Clontarf, near Dublin, in 1014, by the Irish king Brian Boru.

B.

The Anglo-Norman Period

The first step towards an Anglo-Norman conquest of Ireland was made by Henry II of England, who is said to have obtained in 1155 a bull (official document) from Pope Adrian IV authorizing him to take possession of the island, on condition of paying to the papal treasury a stipulated annual revenue. This bull is thought to have been a forgery. In any event, nothing was done until Dermot MacMurrough, the deposed king of Leinster, sought refuge at Henry's court and obtained permission to enlist the services of English subjects for a recovery of his kingdom. Dermot returned to Ireland in 1169 with foreign mercenaries and numerous Irish allies, and succeeded in recovering part of his former territories as well as capturing Dublin and other towns on the east coast. After his death the succession to the kingdom of Leinster was claimed by his son-in-law Richard Strongbow, 2nd Earl of Pembroke.

In 1171 Henry, with a large army, visited Ireland, received homage from the principal Norman leaders and from the Irish High King, Rory O’Connor, and granted charters to the Normans authorizing them, as his subjects, to take possession of portions of the island. The chief Anglo-Norman adventurers, however, encountered formidable opposition before they succeeded in establishing themselves on the lands that they claimed. The government was entrusted to a viceroy, and the Norman legal system was introduced into such parts of the island as were reduced to obedience to England. The young Prince John, later King John of England, was sent by Henry into Ireland in 1185, but the injudicious conduct of his council provoked disturbances, and he was soon recalled to England. John made a second expedition to Ireland in 1210 to curb the refractory spirit of his Norman barons, who had become strong through alliances with the Irish.

During the 13th century various Anglo-Norman adventurers succeeded in firmly establishing themselves in Ireland, either by assisting or suppressing native clans. The Fitzgerald clan acquired power in Kildare and East Munster; the Le Botiller, or Butler, in West Munster; and the de Burgh in Connaught. After the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314, Edward Bruce, the younger brother of Robert Bruce, King of Scotland, invaded Ireland and attempted unsuccessfully to overthrow the English there. The pope, at the instigation of England, excommunicated Bruce and his Irish allies. Although Bruce's enterprise failed, his invasion highlighted the decline of English power in Ireland.

The descendants of the most powerful Anglo-Norman settlers in Ireland gradually became identified with the native Irish, whose language, habits, and laws they adopted to an increasing extent. To counteract this, the Anglo-Irish Parliament passed, in 1366-1367, the Statutes of Kilkenny, decreeing excommunication and heavy penalties against all those who followed the custom of, or allied themselves with, the native Irish. This statute, however, remained inoperative; and although Richard II later in the 14th century made expeditions into Ireland with large forces, he failed to achieve any practical result. The power and influence of the natives increased so much at the time of the Wars of the Roses that the authority of the English Crown became limited to the area known as the English Pale, a small coastal district around Dublin and the port of Drogheda. In the Wars of the Roses, the struggle in England between the houses of York and Lancaster, Ireland supported the ultimate loser—the House of York.

C.

Ireland under the Tudors and Stuarts

C.1.

Early Tudor Period

The participation of the Anglo-Norman nobility from the coastal Pale in the Wars of the Roses greatly impaired English strength in Ireland. When Henry VII became king of England, he left Gerald Fitzgerald, 8th Earl of Kildare, as viceroy of Ireland, although Kildare belonged to the Yorkist party. The assistance rendered by Kildare to the Yorkist pretenders Lambert Simnel and Perkin Warbeck, however, finally compelled the king to replace him in 1494 with the English soldier and diplomat Sir Edward Poynings. Poynings represented the purely English interest, as distinct from the Anglo-Norman interest, which up to that time had prevailed in Ireland. He at once summoned the Parliament of Drogheda, which enacted legislation providing for the defence of the Pale and the reduction of the power of the Anglo-Irish lords. The nobility was forbidden to oppress the inferior baronage, to make exactions upon the tenantry, or to assemble their armed retainers; and the Statutes of Kilkenny, which compelled the English and Irish to live apart and prohibited Irish law and customs in the Pale, were confirmed. All state offices, including the judgeships, were filled by the English king instead of by the viceroys, and the entire body of English law was declared to hold for the Pale. Most important of all was the so-called Poynings Law, which made the Irish Parliament dependent on the English king by providing that all proposed legislation should first be announced to the king and meet with his approval, after which he would issue the licence to hold Parliament.

In 1494 Henry VII eventually re-established Kildare, the most powerful of the Irish nobles, as viceroy, and under Kildare's rule the Pale grew and prospered. After Kildare’s death in 1513, the power of the Geraldine family steadily declined, as his successor, his son Gerald Fitzgerald (known as Garret Óg), spent much of his time under careful scrutiny at the court of Henry VIII. Rumours of the earl’s death in 1534 precipitated a revolt by his son Thomas Fitzgerald, known as Silken Thomas. The rebellion was soon quashed and Thomas’s execution in 1537 marked the end of the Kildare ascendancy.

C.2.

The Reformation

When Henry VIII attempted to introduce the Reformation into Ireland in 1537, the dissolution of the monasteries was begun. Somewhat later, relics and images were destroyed and the dissolution was completed. The native chieftains were conciliated by a share of the spoils and received English titles, their lands being re-granted under English tenure. It was Henry's policy thus to conciliate the Irish and to leave them under their own laws. An English commission held courts throughout the island, but Irish right was respected, and the country remained peaceful. In the Parliament of 1541, attended for the first time by native chieftains as well as by the lords of the Pale, Henry's title of Lord of Ireland, which had been conferred by the papacy, was changed to King of Ireland.

The religious changes under Edward VI and Mary I had little effect on Ireland. Although Mary was herself a Roman Catholic, she was the first to begin the colonization of Ireland by English settlers. The Irish people of King's County and Queen's County (present-day Offaly and Laois, respectively) were driven out and their lands given to English colonists. Elizabeth I at first followed her father's policy of conciliating the Irish chieftains, but the rebellion of the Ulster chieftain Shane O'Neill caused her policy to become more severe; an act was passed dividing all Ireland into counties, and the commissioners of justice were invested with military powers, which they used in arbitrary fashion.

C.3.

Fitzgerald and O’Neill Wars

The religious wars of Elizabeth were attended by rebellions of the Irish Roman Catholics. James Fitzmaurice Fitzgerald, a member of the great House of Geraldine that ruled over the larger part of Munster, landed at Dingle Bay in 1579 with a papal army poised to restore Roman Catholicism in Ireland. When he was killed soon after, leadership of the revolt passed to his cousin Gerald Fitzgerald, 14th Earl of Desmond, who was finally defeated in 1580 after a bloody struggle. The defeat of the Desmond rebellion paved the way for a plantation scheme in Munster, as much of their lands were confiscated and allocated to private English settlers. In spite of the colony’s temporary overturn during the O’Neill wars of the late 1590s, the plantation established a wealthy and influential Protestant minority in Munster.

From 1594 to 1603 Ireland was engulfed in the Nine Years’ War, also known as Tyrone’s Rebellion, which originated in Ulster but gained the support of Gaelic lords throughout the country. Hugh Roe O’Donnell first rose in open revolt in Donegal in 1594, and was joined by his father-in-law Hugh O'Neill, 3rd Baron of Dungannon and 2nd Earl of Tyrone. In 1598 O’Neill annihilated an English army at Yellow Ford on the River Blackwater in Armagh and fended off Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, whom Elizabeth had sent against him, thereby directly or indirectly gaining control of most of the country. In 1601 O’Neill was defeated at the Battle of Kinsale by Charles Blount, Lord Mountjoy, and two years later he was compelled to submit by the Treaty of Mellifont. During the war the greatest cruelty and treachery were practised on both sides. In order to destroy Irish resistance, the English devastated villages, crops, and cattle, putting many people to death. The greater part of Munster and Ulster was laid desolate, and more inhabitants died from hunger than from war.

C.4.

Early Stuart Kings

Under Elizabeth and James I the power of the Anglican state Church was extended over Ireland. The Church of England obtained all that belonged to the Church of the Pale and was invested with the establishment belonging to the Celtic Church as well. An ancient feud existed between these two Irish Churches, and they were intensely hostile to each other. The Church of the Pale was affected by the Reformation, but the Celtic Church had become increasingly Roman Catholic. Nearly the entire Celtic population of Ireland and the majority of the inhabitants of the Pale remained Roman Catholic, and the Anglican Church served as a political instrument for the English rulers in Dublin Castle.

During the reign of James I English law was pronounced the sole law of the land. No longer able to act independently, the Earl of Tyrone and Rory O'Donnell, 1st Earl of Tyrconnel, with some 100 other chieftains, fled in 1607 to Rome. After the so-called “Flight of the Earls”, the land in six counties of northern Ulster was confiscated and became the basis for the subsequent Ulster Plantation. The last vestiges of the independence of the Irish parliament were destroyed by the creation of 40 boroughs out of small hamlets, a political manoeuvre that secured a permanent majority to the English Crown.

The stern but vigorous rule of Sir Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford, viceroy of Charles I, produced order and prosperity in Ireland. By balancing the number of Roman Catholics and Protestants in Parliament and holding out to the former the promise of toleration, he succeeded in obtaining liberal funds for the king in his conflict with the English parliament. The native Irish, who had been dispossessed in Ulster and elsewhere, made use of the English situation to regain their possessions.

Under the leadership of the Irish chieftain Rory O'More, a conspiracy was formed in 1641 to seize Dublin and expel the English. The Irish succeeded in driving the English settlers out of Ulster and committed many outrages. English writers have estimated that at least 30,000 were put to death by the Irish, but this number is thought to be exaggerated; the Scottish in Ulster were, as a rule, spared. The insurgents were soon joined by the Roman Catholic lords of the Pale, and together they chose a supreme council to govern Ireland. Charles I sent Edward Somerset, Earl of Glamorgan, to treat with them, and the earl went so far as to promise them the predominancy of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland as the reward for their assistance to Charles. In 1647 the alliance between the lords of the Pale, who desired nothing beyond toleration for their religion, and the native Irish, who hoped for the restoration of the ancient land system, came to an end. In 1648 the Irish statesman and soldier James Butler, 12th Earl of Ormonde, returned as the viceroy of Charles I and made an alliance with the Roman Catholic lords, thereby securing Ireland to the Royalist party.

D.

Cromwellian Settlement

In 1649 the English soldier and statesman Oliver Cromwell landed at Dublin, which the Roman Catholic lords had been unable to take. Seeing themselves as Protestant avengers of the 1641 uprising as well as Parliamentarians fighting against the Royalists, the 10,000-strong force of the New Model Army stormed Drogheda and put its garrison of 2,000 men to the sword (see Drogheda, Siege of). The attack on Wexford led to a similar outcome. Cromwell's successors, the English soldiers and regicides Henry Ireton and Edmund Ludlow, successfully concluded the war, and a great part of the best land of Munster, Leinster, and Ulster was confiscated and divided among the soldiers of the Parliamentary army. The Roman Catholics and Royalist landowners were banished to Connaught. A portion of the land confiscated at this time was later restored under Charles II, but at least two thirds of the land in Ireland remained in the hands of the Protestants. The viceroyalty of Ormonde, while maintaining the Protestant ascendancy, did much to restore order and promote industry.

E.

Williamite War and the Protestant Ascendancy

James II, however, reversed the policy of Charles II. Under James's viceroy in Ireland, Richard Talbot, Earl of Tyrconnel, Roman Catholics were advanced to positions of state and placed in control of the militia, which Ormonde had previously organized. Consequently, the entire Roman Catholic population sided with James II in the so-called Glorious Revolution of 1688. Thus, in 1689, when James landed at Dublin with his French officers, Talbot had an Irish army ready to assist him. The Protestant settlers were driven from their homes and found refuge in the towns of Enniskillen and Londonderry, which James attempted to capture. He was hampered by his lack of artillery, however, and the latter was relieved by sea. His parliament of 1689 restored all lands confiscated since 1641 and passed an act of attainder against the partisans of William III. In the following year William landed in Ireland and, in July 1690, in the Battle of the Boyne, he defeated the Irish forces. He failed, however, to capture the town of Limerick, which was bravely defended. A brilliant tactic of the Irish patriot Patrick Sarsfield destroyed William's heavy artillery, and he was forced to retire. The next year, William's generals defeated the Irish army at the town of Aughrim, and Limerick was forced to capitulate. By the terms of the Treaty of Limerick (1691), Roman Catholics were permitted a certain amount of religious freedom, and the lands that Roman Catholics had possessed under Charles II were to be restored to them.

The parliament of England subsequently forced William to break the concession of the Treaty of Limerick regarding the restoration of the land, and the parliament of Ireland violated the terms granting religious toleration by enacting Penal Laws (or Popery Laws) directed against the Roman Catholics. Irish commerce and industries were deliberately crushed by the English. By enactments in 1665 and 1680 the Irish export trade to England in cattle, milk, butter, and cheese had been forbidden. The trade in woollens, which had grown up among the Irish Protestants, was likewise crushed by an enactment of 1699, which prohibited the export of woollen goods from Ireland to any country whatever. Small amends for these injuries were made by leaving the linen trade undisturbed. The result of these measures was gradual economic decline. Many Irish emigrated from the country—the Roman Catholics largely to Spain and France, the Protestants to America.

F.

Revolutionary Influences

The American War of Independence awakened much sympathy in Ulster, especially among the Presbyterians, who, being disqualified from holding office, desired a general emancipation including that of the Roman Catholics. In 1778 the Irish parliament, under the influence of the reformist leader Henry Grattan, passed the Relief Act, removing some of the most oppressive disabilities. Meanwhile Irish Protestants, under the pretext of defending the country from the French, who had entered into an alliance with the Americans, had formed military associations of volunteers, with 80,000 members. Backed by this force they demanded legislative independence for Ireland, and as a result of Grattan’s tireless campaigning the British parliament repealed Poynings’ Law and much of the anti-Catholic legislation. Although suffrage was restored to Roman Catholics in 1793, the Irish parliament remained composed entirely of the Protestants of the established Church.

The principles of the French Revolution found their most powerful expression in Ireland in the Society of United Irishmen, led by Wolfe Tone, Napper Tandy, and Lord Edward Fitzgerald, which instigated the rebellion of 1798. The peasantry rose in Wexford and, although insufficiently armed, made a brave fight. At one time Dublin was in danger, but the insurgents were defeated by the regular forces at Vinegar Hill. A French force of 1,100 landed in Killala Bay in Mayo but was too late to render effective assistance. The British prime minister, William Pitt, the Younger, thought that the legislative union of Great Britain and Ireland together with Roman Catholic emancipation was the only remedy for Roman Catholic rebellion and Protestant tyranny in Ireland. By a lavish use of money and distribution of patronage, he induced the Irish parliament to pass the Act of Union, and on January 1, 1801, the union was formally proclaimed. Owing to the opposition of George III, however, Pitt was unable to make good his promise of emancipation for Roman Catholics.

G.

The Union

The history of Ireland after the union was principally concerned with the struggle for Irish civic and religious freedom and for separation from Great Britain. Hardly had the union been established when dissatisfaction in Ireland gave rise to the armed outbreak of July 23, 1803, under the Irish patriot Robert Emmet. The uprising was easily suppressed, and for some time no further armed revolts occurred. In 1823 the barrister Daniel O’Connell founded the Catholic Association, which he organized into a politically powerful mass movement. The association demanded, and finally obtained, the restoration of Catholic rights. In 1828 Roman Catholics were permitted to hold local office, and after the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829 they were allowed to sit in Parliament.

The struggle then turned upon the tithes, which all Irish, Roman Catholics included, were compelled to pay for the maintenance of the Anglican Church in Ireland. Great cruelties were perpetrated on both sides during the so-called Tithe War, which was coupled with a renewed emphatic demand for the repeal of the Act of Union. Various societies were formed to carry on the agitation, and considerable lawlessness occurred, fostered by the so-called Ribbon Society. The reform of the British parliament in 1832 increased the number of Irish members from 100 to 105. More important, it gave the middle class more power, weakening the pro-English aristocracy. In 1838 a bill was passed converting the tithes into rent charges, to be paid by the landlords; as a result, agitation in connection with the Anglican Church ceased to be acute for a time.

From 1845 to 1849 rent-racked Ireland suffered a disastrous famine resulting from the failure of the potato crop. The government, influenced by laissez-faire ideology, failed to provide adequate relief, and widespread tenant evictions compounded the problem. It has been estimated that 1 million died, mostly as a result of diseases caused by severe malnutrition; the west of the country was worst affected. Concurrently, over 1 million people emigrated, especially to America and Canada (see Irish Famine).

H.

Fenianism and Home Rule

In the aftermath of the famine a number of O’Connell’s supporters became increasingly impatient with his cautious, constitutional approach to reform, and advocated more revolutionary methods. The Young Ireland movement, which found expression in the writings of Charles Gavin Duffy and Thomas Davis, was behind an armed rebellion in Tipperary in July 1848 that was quickly suppressed. Most of the leaders were arrested and imprisoned or deported. In 1858 James Stephens, a Young Irelander who had evaded prison, founded what became the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) with the agenda of creating an independent republic in Ireland. A parallel organization founded by John O’Mahony among Irish expatriates in the United States, the Fenian Brotherhood, gave both movements their popular name. The Fenians were behind a failed insurrection in 1867. Subsequent Fenian bombings in England caused great outrage there, while the executions of Fenians—such as the so-called “Manchester Martyrs” who were hanged for killing a policeman during an attempted jail-break—rallied nationalist sentiment in Ireland. Such events were directly responsible for highlighting the urgency of the “Irish question” to the prime minister, William Gladstone.

In the last 35 years of the 19th century many ecclesiastical and agrarian reforms were effected in the country. The Land League, founded by Michael Davitt in 1879, through demonstrations and methods such as the boycott secured the enactment of a Land Act in 1881 that addressed the problems of tenant farmers. At the same time, the government responded to the increasing lawlessness by passing a Coercion Act, suspending habeas corpus and giving the Lord Lieutenant power to arrest any person on mere suspicion of treason or intimidation.

From the 1870s the goal of Home Rule assumed a leading place in Irish politics. The cause found a champion of great ability in the Irish nationalist leader Charles Stewart Parnell. At that time, many secret societies were also working for the establishment of an Irish republic. As early as 1867 the more extreme members of these societies, calling themselves the Invincibles, had started an abortive rebellion in counties Dublin and Kerry. In 1882 the same revolutionaries were responsible for the Phoenix Park Murders, when the British chief secretary for Ireland, Lord Frederick Charles Cavendish, and the under-secretary, Thomas Henry Burke, were killed. The Crimes Act, which was passed soon after the double murder, made the provisions of the Coercion Act more stringent. In England, Gladstone attempted to resolve the Irish question with a Home Rule Bill, which he formally introduced in 1886. The bill would have given the Irish parliament the right to appoint the executive of Ireland, although the taxing power was still supposed to be retained by the British parliament. Parnell accepted the bill, but it was greatly opposed in Ulster and in England and, after the ruling Liberal Party split over the issue, it did not pass the House of Commons. Gladstone introduced another Home Rule Bill in 1893, but it failed to pass the House of Lords.

Following the defeat of Gladstone’s second bill, the impetus for Home Rule faded as the House of Lords maintained its veto while a split in the Irish National League over Parnell’s involvement in the O’Shea divorce case weakened the parliamentary party. Under the more docile leadership (1900-1918) of John Redmond, the League followed a policy of cooperation with successive Conservative and Liberal administrations, notably securing the establishment of the National University of Ireland in 1908. Throughout the 1890s and 1900s a new cultural nationalism emerged, spearheaded by organizations such as the Gaelic Athletic Association (founded 1884) and the Gaelic League (1893), and manifest in the Irish Literary Revival represented by writers such as W. B. Yeats, Lady Augusta Gregory, and J. M. Synge (see Irish Literature: Irish Literary Revival).

In 1902 the Irish political leader and journalist Arthur Griffith formed the nucleus of Sinn Féin, which became a political party in 1905. Griffith’s original aspiration was for Ireland to become an equal partner with Britain in a dual monarchy, with emphasis on the importance of economic and cultural self-reliance (the name translating from Irish roughly as “ourselves alone”). By 1918, however, Sinn Féin had absorbed a more radical set of nationalist republicans, and had eclipsed the Irish Parliamentary Party as the most important nationalist party in the country.

I.

Home Rule Crisis and World War I

In 1911 a Parliament Act was passed that limited the power of the Lords’ veto to temporary obstruction, allowing the Liberal government under Herbert Henry Asquith, dependent on the support of the Irish Parliamentary Party, to introduce a third Home Rule Bill in 1912. The bill was met with fierce opposition from Unionists in Ulster, almost half a million of whom in 1913 signed a Solemn League and Covenant to resist it. Around this time the possibility of a temporary or permanent exclusion of Ulster from its jurisdiction began to be debated. The Unionist leader Edward Carson made preparations to set up a separate provisional government in Ulster, and the Ulster Volunteer Force, a militia organized in 1913 and armed with rifles imported from Germany, was mobilized to enforce such an action. In response, Nationalists formed the Irish Volunteers to defend Home Rule. In May 1914, on the eve of World War I, the bill was passed into law. It was decided, however, with Nationalist and Unionist agreement, to suspend the operation of the Home Rule Act until after the war.

Soon after the outbreak of war, the Irish Volunteers were split after Redmond persuaded the majority to enlist in the British Army, in the hope of securing future political concessions from the government. The remaining Volunteers, a small minority of between perhaps 2,000 and 3,000 members, together with the trade-unionist Irish Citizen Army, were directed by the IRB in the Easter Rising that took place in Dublin in 1916. The rising, severely hampered by uncoordinated leadership and the interception of weapons smuggled by Roger Casement from Germany, lasted five days and caused over 200 civilian deaths and enormous destruction of property. Although it was unpopular at the time, the execution of 15 of its leaders, including Patrick Pearse and Sean MacDermott, afterwards engendered widespread sympathy and evoked strong nationalist feeling throughout the country. In the general election of November 1918 Sinn Féin, although it had not been directly involved, was popularly associated with the rising and largely as a result won 73 out of 80 nationalist seats, effectively marking the demise of Redmond’s Parliamentary Party.

J.

Partition

In January 1919 the newly elected Sinn Féin deputies abstained from the British parliament, instead convening in Dublin to form their own assembly, Dáil Éireann. In April they elected as their president the only surviving commandant of the 1916 Rising, Eamon De Valera. Throughout the year efforts by the British administration to reinforce its authority on the island were met with a sustained campaign of guerrilla activity by the Volunteers, which, under the able leadership of Michael Collins, increasingly became known as the Irish Republican Army. The Anglo-Irish War, or War of Independence, carried on until July 1921, when a ceasefire was called. After some preliminary negotiations between De Valera and Lloyd George, Collins and Griffith headed a delegation to London to discuss the terms of an Anglo-Irish Treaty, marking the culmination of the Irish Revolution.

In December 1920, the British coalition government under the premiership of David Lloyd George passed the Government of Ireland Act, which established two Home Rule parliaments: one for six of the nine counties of Ulster—which became a separate political division of the United Kingdom—and the other for the remainder of the island. The new parliament of Northern Ireland was opened by King George V in June 1921, confirming in effect the partition of Ireland. In the south, the continuing hostilities delayed the official implementation of the Act until December 1922.

For the subsequent history of the Irish Free State (1922-1937), Éire (1937-1949), and the Republic of Ireland (1949- ), see Ireland, Republic of: History.