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The
History of Ireland is a Hand-crafted range of Jewellery that portrays the history
of Ireland in a series of historical panels evocative of the panels on the Celtic
High Crosses which were such a distinctive expression of Irish Christian Art
up to medieval times. |
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The
Unknown past, Symbolised by the question mark |
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St Patrick,
Irelands patron saint, changed the course of history early in the 5th century
when he began his |
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of converting Ireland to Christian religion. St Patrick has a special importance
too as the author of the first document known to have been written in Ireland,
he thus makes the transition from oral to a written literature. |
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From
the 6th century onwards, as the Irish people embraced Christianity, great monastic
centres were established all over the country. Each site centred around a Round
tower. Probably originally intended as bell towers, they were soon needed for
the storage food and as places of refuge in times of invasion and persecution. |
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From the 9th to the 11th century the Vikings made repeated attacks around the
coast od Ireland. An attempt to gain control of the whole country was defeated
by Brian Boru at the battle of Clontarf in 1014 however the Norsemen retained
the towns they had established, notably Dublin, Wexford, Waterford Cork and
Limerick.
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In the 12th
Century the invaders were Norman, Flemish and Norman-Welsh, and their language
and customs were French.
Their "over-lord" was the French speaking Henry Angevin, who had,
among his many titles, the important one of Henry II of England. This never
became a 'Norman Conquest' but was used later as an excuse by the tudor monarchs
of England in their attempts at conquest. |
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| Beautiful
Silver Brooch Click here For more |
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The first Dublin Castle was built on the order of King ("for the custody
of our treasure ... for the administration of justice and if need be the defence
of the city") between 1204 and 1224. It became the centre of Anglo Norman,
and later, English power, and a symbol that increasingly provoked hostility
of the native Irish. Nowadays it is the scene of important state and international
functions. |
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Protestant King William defeated his father in law, Catholic James II at the
Battle of the Boyne in 1690. In Europe this was seen as an important setback
to French King Louis XIV and in England it meant the end of the Stuart Monarchy.
In Ireland the victory assured a Protestant ascendancy which would last for
more than two centuries and is the cornerstone of the Irish problem today. |
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[[[{
In 1800 the
Irish Parliament was abolished and direct rule from London began. All Ireland
had benefited from a modest prosperoty under Grattan's Paliament and nobody
wanted union. It was forced through by bribery on a grand scale, because England
feared French Invasion through Ireland. The cross of St. Patrick was added to
the Union Jack. |
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[{
The Potato
crops failed repeatedly during the the 1840's causing widespread famine. The
London government failed to alleviate the suffering, resulting in great bitterness
towards the English nation and the ruling landlord classes. The famine was a
watershed for the Irish nation, cahnging forever it's outlook and dispersing
a large proporiton of the popultion around the world. |
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{
Before the
Famine the Irish had been reluctant to emigrate, in the decades after the famine
Irish emigration figures rose dramatically . Most went to the USA, some to Canada,
and the bitterness felt by the Irish in America as well as those left at home
had much to do with the subsequent hostile relations between England and Ireland. |
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Republic of Ireland was proclaimed from the General Post Office at the start
of the Easter Rising, in 1916. The building was almost destroyed by fire and
the rising was militarily a failure. The subsequent execution of the leaders
of the Rising provoked great anger, the Easter Rising thus triggered the War
of Independence which eventually brought about the setting up of the modern
Irish State. |
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the treaty of 1921, which ended the war of Independence, six of the counties
of Ulster were separated from the rest of Ireland and became a province of the
UK under the title 'Northern Ireland'. The 26 counties became 'the Irish Free
State' and in 1948 the Irish Free State became the 'Republic of Ireland'. |
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Ireland
quo vadis?...
The question mark symbolises the unknown future. |
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here to return to the History of Ireland Collection. |
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