History of Ireland: People, Politics & Power

This course examines the social and cultural development of Ireland from its first human habitation nearly 10,000 years ago through the present. We begin in deep prehistory with the Mesolithic peoples who brought their hunter-gatherer technologies and lifeways to Ireland once the final ice sheets had receded at the end of the Pleistocene. We will proceed through the Neolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age, exploring the many agricultural and cultural changes which occurred during these dynamic periods. In the 5th century AD, Ireland, unlike the rest of Europe, remained untouched by the Romans. But, the coming of Christianity in the mid-5th century was to change life here in uncountable ways. We will examine the real St Patrick, his life and his writings.
The Vikings arrived in the late 8th century, initially to raid and rob, but gradually began to establish settled centers; they founded Dublin (Dubh Linn), Waterford, Wexford, Cork, and Limerick and helped establish Ireland as an important trading center.

The Anglo-Normans invaded Ireland in the late 12th century, beginning over 800 years of British occupation on our island. By the 16th century, Henry VIII and his system of Reformation set off yet more unrest in Ireland as the Irish resisted attempts to convert to Protestantism. A long era of conflict then ensued, beginning with the Battle of Kinsale in 1602, the Flight of The Earls in 1607, the Plantation of Ulster in 1610, the Cromwellian invasions in the 1640s, sending Ireland and the Irish into an extended period of economic and social poverty. The time of the great out-migration of the Irish had begun. The Potato Famine - An Gorta Mór - in the mid-19th century wiped out 50% of the Irish population between starvation and emigration. The horrors of this, coupled with a rising radicalism and political awareness, brought about the Easter Rising of 1916, which eventually led to the formation of the Irish Free State in 1920, the Irish Civil War, and Ireland's final political separation from Britain in 1949. It also led to The Troubles, the 30+ long period of civil strife which, even today after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, continues to vex Irish lives north and south.

We are a very old land but a very young country and we are undergoing enormous economic and cultural changes on the world stage. You are in Ireland during an important and historically significant period of our development as a country and culture. This course will give you the tools and background to observe history unfold before you.