History

Irish history can be summed up: Ireland was far from Europe, close to England, and now it's torn between the two. Until about 9 500 years ago Ireland was uninhabited. The first people who may have crossed by a land bridge from Scotland, were hunter-gatherers. They left few traces of permanent settlement. This society was replaced by more settled farmers and metal workers. These folks erected huge stone edifices like the burial mound at Newgrange long before the pyramids, or even Stonehenge, were built. The pattern of society set at that time remains largely unchanged in the countryside - scattered farms with a central place of worship tieing the community together.

	The burial mound at Newgrange, Meath county

Christian missionaries such as Saint Patrick converted the local kings, and monastic settlements served as administrative centers of power for several hundred years.

The Vikings devastated these church centred communities in the ninth century. A fter the initial plundering spree, many of the Norsemen settled in Ireland and founded the trade centres which eventually grew into large cities like Dublin and Waterford.

The 1100's brought the English, or more accurately, the Normans. Their castles began to dot the countryside, and this soon grew into a conflict between the clans and the conquerors. But under Elizabeth the Great, new English armies gradually conquered all. Ireland remained Catholic while England turned to Protestantism.

Irish hopes were raised when The Catholic King James II beacame king of England, but he was replaced by William of Orange, a protestant who was married to James' daughter. The Catholic churches were forbidden, schooling was forbidden for the Catholics and they were denied the right to buy land by William of Orange. The protestants built grand country houses and furnished them luxuriously.

The history of 19th-century Ireland is dominated by the Great Famine of 1845-8, which was caused by a failure of the potato crop. This had disastrous consequenses for the people of  Ireland, many of whom relied on this staple crop. More than a million died of starvation and  disease, and by 1856 over two and a half million had been forced to emigrate. Most of them went to North America

Food was a plenty But there was famine The land stank of rotten potatoes And none could flee The landlords wanted rent But there was no money

In 1916 an unofficial Irish Parliament was established and a war began against the "occupying" British forces. The Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 divided the island in two. The Irish state was now independent, while Northern Ireland remained in the United Kingdom.

In 1973 Ireland joined the European Economic Community, which is now the European Union.
The result has been dramatic. The economy has grown rapidly and Ireland is transformed into the "Celtic Tiger," the most rapidly growing economy in Europe. The island on the "outskirt" of Europe has become the second largest exporter of software in the world. Ahead of Japan, Britain, France, Germany!

Religion

More than 90% of the population is Roman Catholic. The Catholic church has played an important role in Ireland's cultural and political history, but its influence is decreasing.
However, attendance at weekly mass, although falling gently, remains at the unusually high level of 82 per cent.

Catholicism plays a large part in most public schools where the kids normally start each class with a prayer and whole schools celebrate mass occasionally. However, religious dicrimination is practically non-existant in the Republic of Ireland. Recently, a rural Irish constituency elected a Muslim representative to the Dail or Parliament.