Historic Irish Politics
A short political history of Ireland.
Location: Ireland
Politics of the Túath
The politics of early Ireland played out within the halls of around 150 small kingdoms. Each kingdom, or túath, was home to about 3,000 people. Most of the community worked as farmers and laborers. They supported a ruling clan and its royal court, including poets, historians, doctors, craftsmen, and religious figures.[1] In this society, a rigid class system determined a person's legal rights and dire, or honor-price. Everyone, from the lowest slave to the highest king, knew his or her position, as described in the brehon laws.[2]
Tuatha were controlled by a ruling family, who elected heirs among themselves in a system known as tanistry. A new chieftain established his reputation by raiding the cattle of nearby kingdoms a quick way to build wealth and status. The most famous ancient Irish legend, the Táin Bó Cúailnge, tells the story of one such cattle raid.[3][4]
Power Struggles in Medieval and Tudor Ireland
The Gaelic Irish lords and their courts survived into the 17th century. From the 10th century on, however, they faced increasing foreign intrusion that led to their eventual downfall. The first to arrive were the Hiberno-Norse, founders of Ireland's first large cities along the coasts. Next came the Anglo-Normans, who conquered but never fully controlled the island.[5]
This changed in 1541, when King Henry VIII of England declared himself King of Ireland. Through a series of laws and military campaigns, he and his daughter Elizabeth I ended the rule of the Gaelic lords. When Britain broke from the Catholic Church, political alienation in Ireland only grew worse. The Irish faced persecution for their Catholic beliefs, and their island became a battleground in the larger religious wars of the continent.[6][7]
Irish Nationalism and Independence
Centuries of resentment, rebellion, and exploitation followed. English monarchs struggled to contain periodic violence without creating more revolutionaries. In response, Irish nationalism surged in the late 19th and early 20th century. A renewed interest in the Irish language and folklore soon turned into the more controversial demand for self-governance. In 1919, the Sinn Féin party declared itself a separate government in Dublin, and a bloody revolution began.
After several years of warfare, the British conceded. In 1921, the island was divided into Northern Ireland, a member of the United Kingdom, and the independent Republic of Ireland. A civil war then broke out among the former revolutionaries over the conditions of peace. The Irish Civil War lasted ten months and shaped the course of Irish politics to the present day. Ireland now operates as a parliamentary republic. It maintains close political, economic, and cultural ties to the United Kingdom, and especially to Northern Ireland.[8]
Bibliography
John T. Koch, ed., Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2006), 1692.
Patrick W. Joyce, A Smaller Social History of Ancient Ireland (London, NY, and Bombay: Longmans, Green, & Co., 1906), 5-22.
Joseph Dunn, The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Táin bó Cúalnge (Gloucester: Dodo Press, 2007).
Fergus Kelly, "Cattle in Ancient Ireland: Early Irish Legal Aspects" in Cattle in Ancient and Modern Ireland: Farming Practices, Environment and Economy, ed. Michael O'Connell, Fergus Kelly, and James H. McAdam (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2016) 44-50.
Edel Bhreathnach and Raghnall Ó Floinn, "Ireland: Culture and Society," in A Companion to Britain in the Later Middle Ages, S. H. Rigby, ed. (Chichester, U.K.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), 561-572.
Steven G. Ellis, Ireland in the age of the Tudors, 1447-1603: English expansion and the end of Gaelic rule (London: Routledge, 2014).
Henry Duff Traill, Social England: From the Accession of Henry VIII to the Death of Elizabeth (New York, NY: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1897), 298-302.
Peter Cottrell, The Anglo-Irish War: The Troubles of 1913-1922 (Oxford: Osprey, 2006).
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