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A Catholic History of Ireland

By Joseph A. Crisp II

Very little is known about the pre-Christian history of Ireland, known to the Romans as Hibernia. The Irish pagan beliefs forbid the use of written script, meaning that what little information modern scholars possess comes mostly from foreign accounts, few of which are first hand. The Romans had some contact with the Celtic peoples of Ireland but the island itself was never part of the Roman Empire. The country, which had been dominated by isolated Celtic tribes, began to slowly and loosely organize and consolidate in the 700's with much of the island falling under the rule of the O'Neill dynasty. The Irish sailed to the shores of Britain, sometimes to trade, sometimes to plunder and even established new kingdoms for themselves in places such as Wales and Cornwall. Through these emigrants, traders and Irish serving in the Roman legions as well as a few missionaries; Ireland and the Catholic Church found each other and the history of Catholic Ireland began.

Although he was not the very first, the credit for the conversion of Ireland has always gone to Saint Patrick. Born in Britain, St Patrick had been kidnapped, taken to Ireland as a slave, escaped and then became determined to return and spread the Gospel among them. In 431 the Pope sent St Patrick to Ireland for this purpose and he arrived the following year. Many stories and legends grew up around St Patrick and his confrontations with pagan chieftains, miracles and sound teaching which converted the Irish to Christianity. These include stories like teaching the doctrine of the Holy Trinity by using a shamrock, ensuring it became the most enduring symbol of Ireland, or of St Patrick miraculously driving all the snakes out of Ireland, symbolic of the destruction of paganism by Christianity. He laid the foundations for the Church in Ireland, though it would take many more saints to see it all completed. St Patrick also, in a very Catholic way, appreciated the Celtic culture of Ireland and ensured that their uniqueness was preserved. He believed in folding in, not stamping out and the result was the rapid death of the Druid religion and the birth of Catholic Ireland.

Saint Patrick, Patron of Ireland

One of those who came after St Patrick was St Bridget, the beautiful daughter of an Irish chief and a Christian slave. Her father saw her as a great commodity, but Bridget wanted to devote her life fully to God. When he arranged a marriage for her with a powerful lord, St Bridget prayed to God for help and lost her beauty. The husband-to-be immediately rejected her and she was able to enter consecrated life. Living with other women devoted to God, St Bridget helped care for others and was in every way a model of Christian sanctity. Her holiness became so well known that she was nicknamed Mary of the Gael. Another of the great Irish saints was St Columba, a descendant of one of the original disciples of St Patrick and the son of the King of Tirconnail. He once stole a copy of the Gospels which prompted a war between his clan and the High King of Ireland Diarmuid. The Tirconnail won, but Saint Columba was so bothered in his conscience that he repented, renounced all earthly glory and vowed to devote his life to winning souls for Christ. He developed the idea of white martyrdom and made missionary journeys to England and Scotland where he crowned the first Scottish Christian king, King Aidan, who united Scotland and founded a dynasty that lasted until the end of the Stuart reign.

Meanwhile, on the continent, Rome had fallen and Europe had descended into the era known as the Dark Ages, during which time the only lights were the monasteries who kept civilization alive inside their high, thick walls and remote outposts. The Benedictine monks are the most remembered for this, and it is for that reason that St Benedict is the patron of Europe today, however, aside from the Benedictines the other great monastic tradition of the period was the Irish. As well as protecting their own deposit of faith, Irish missionary monks also traveled across Europe, preaching the gospel and restoring the faith where barbarian invasions had threatened to snuff it out. St Columbanus was probably the most famous of these. He was a handsome young man who all the girls were totally in love with, but his calling was the service of God. He traveled to France to teach and preach but ran afoul of Queen Brunehilde and King Theodoric who tried to banish him for spreading opposition to their immoral lifestyle. St Columbanus did not leave, however, as God would not allow it and he traveled across France, Germany, Switzerland and Italy, preaching, converting people and building schools and monasteries. It was in these monasteries that the learning and culture of Christianity and the ancient world was preserved for future generations and which were the first step in rolling back the darkness and restoring Christendom to Europe.

One of the major parts of the barbarian invasions was the raids by the Vikings. Striking down from Scandinavia, they ravaged the coasts and deep into the interior of Europe where rivers reached. They plundered towns and villages and churches were an especially favorite target since they often contained great wealth and had virtually no defense. The Vikings also invaded Ireland and set off a series of wars that would last for the next two hundred years, establishing themselves in Limerick, Waterford, Wexford and Dublin. Viking control in Ireland was not broken until the ascendancy of Brian Boru. He was the son of the Thomond king, Kennedy, from the region of Munster. When the King was killed by the Vikings, the throne passed to his eldest son Mahon who made peace with his enemies. His brother Brian, however, refused to accept this and launched a guerilla war against the Vikings which eventually drew his brother back in as well as the Desmond line, the old rivals of the Thomond.

High King Brian Boru of Ireland

In the ensuing conflict, Brian took Cashel and then turned on Ivar of Limerick and his allies the Munster Danes. In 968 at the battle of Sulcoit, Brian defeated Ivar, captured Limerick and ultimately secured all of Munster. Though Leinster had first paid homage to Brian, they later turned against him and allied with the Vikings of Dublin. At Glenmama in 1000 Brian crushed their forces in a brilliantly fought battle and in 1002 was crowned High King of Ireland. Afterwards, Connaught and Ulster gave Brian their allegiance, making him the first ruler of a truly united Ireland. Secure on his throne, Brian Boru brought about a new rebirth in Ireland, building roads, bridges, harbors, fortresses, schools, monasteries, colleges and churches. The land became so secure that it was said that a young girl wearing fine jewels and the best clothes could walk across the whole island in complete safety.

However, the fighting was not yet over and the Vikings soon tried to rise again and enlisted the help of their countrymen from Norway, Denmark and England. Brian Boru gathered an army of 20,000 Irishmen from across the whole country and moved to confront the massive Viking fleet assembling in Dublin Bay. The Vikings chose Good Friday, April 23, 1014 as the day for their attack and moved their troops to Clontarf where the 73-year-old Irish High King met them. Persuaded to let his son lead the attack, Brian mounted his horse and saw his troops off with a sword in one hand and a crucifix in the other before returning to his tent to pray while the battle raged on. The Vikings were defeated and began to brake, so King Brian allowed his own guards to join in the pursuit and then returned to his prayers to thank God for their deliverance. As he knelt there, he heard noise behind him but assumed it was only his priest. It was actually the Viking chieftain Brodir who attacked the unarmed king and brutally killed him. Brian Boru had died, but his spirit and memory lived on as well as the determination to fight the Vikings and preserve a strong and united Catholic Ireland.

Eventually, the Vikings ceased to be a threat to Europe and were themselves Christianized and ultimately united into the Scandinavian countries we know today. However, the next great challenge Ireland faced came from across the Irish Sea in England. In 1066 William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy, had invaded England, defeated the Anglo-Saxons and became King. At this time the Normans were a major force across Europe, from France and England to southern Italy. Angevin England began to ascend as the preeminent power in Western Europe. During the reign of King Henry II, the Angevin Empire stretched across most of western France and England with influence also stretching over Wales, Scotland and finally Ireland. In the intervening years Ireland had been in decline. Factions feuded with each other and the Church began to deteriorate. When the High King of Ireland deposed Diarmuid MacMorrough, the King of Leinster, he fled to Aquitaine, part of the Angevin Empire, and asked for King Henry II of England to help restore him to the throne. Many Norman knights, with the promise of special privileges, joined Diarmuid?s cause and invaded Ireland along with Welsh and Belgian troops in 1169. Leinster was taken, followed by Waterford and Dublin.

King Henry II began to worry that a powerful rival state was being developed. In Rome, the English Pope Hadrian IV, concerned with the fratricidal wars and increasing corruption in the Church in Ireland, issued a papal bull, sometimes called the Donation of Hadrian, authorizing Henry II to become the feudal overlord of Ireland. In 1171 King Henry II landed in Ireland at Waterford and named his son John the Lord of Ireland. The relationship was formalized after the reign of the famous King Richard I when John became King of England as well as Lord of Ireland, making the position hereditary under the English Crown. Over time the Normans consolidated their control of Ireland, bringing stability with a heavy hand. The condition of the Church began to improve, but the common people suffered and were suppressed rather than helped. In the Church, for example, no Irishman could attain high rank but had to submit to the domination of the Normans. There was a short recovery though when King Edward Bruce of Scotland invaded Ireland in 1315. The Gaelic Irish joined with him in fighting the English and Norman Irish and managed to take back some of the lands that had been taken from them in the previous conquest. The Black Death also caused a severe setback for the English and Normans who were harder hit in the cities than the Gaelic Irish who were mostly scattered among the countryside and on remote corners of the island. With so many deaths among the elites of society, a form of Gaelic revival was able to take place.

The original conquerors of Ireland had mixed with the Irish and the Gaelic revival only further consolidated this. The English in the Pale (the Dublin region) tried to combat this with laws against any English people adopting Irish culture or speaking Gaelic but their influence had become so limited these laws had little effect. England had been drained fighting the Hundred Years War and by the time England fell into the turmoil of the Wars of the Roses, English rule in Ireland had effectively ceased to exist during which time the Earl of Kildare, the Lord Deputy of Ireland, dominated the country through force and collaboration with local Irish leaders. As the Wars of the Roses ended and the new Tudor dynasty was consolidated under King Henry VIII, the isolation of Ireland ended once again. Since the Earl of Kildare had allied with a Yorkist claimant to the English throne during the Wars of the Roses, there was also a feeling of an old score needing to be settled by the Tudors. Things worsened when King Henry VIII divorced his wife, Queen Catherine, and broke with the Rome, making himself Supreme Head of the new Church of England. Queen Catherine was the aunt of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, ruler of Spain and Germany and the most powerful man in Europe. The fact that Kildare had also corresponded with the Emperor further worried and angered Henry.

In 1534 Henry VIII summoned Gerald Fitzgerald, 9th Earl of Kildare, to London. His son thought he was executed and launched a rebellion against the English in Ireland. In 1536 King Henry cracked down hard on Ireland. He had Thomas Fitzgerald, leader of the rebellion, executed the following year and suppressed all opposition to English rule. In 1541 the Irish parliament obediently made Henry VIII the King of Ireland. Henry VIII gleefully set about exploiting his new kingdom, just as he did his own people in England. He confiscated the property of all who opposed him, closed the monasteries and appropriated their wealth and distributed this stolen property to lords who would renounce their allegiance to the Pope and submit to him. The Irish people, however, remained staunchly Catholic and the fact that the instrument King Henry was using for their oppression was allegiance to his new Protestant church certainly gained him no favors among the common Irish.

Radical Protestantism replaced the moderate style during the reign of his son Edward. Following the brief restoration of Catholicism during the reign of Queen Mary, Protestant oppression came back in full force under Queen Elizabeth I. Celebrated as one of the greatest English monarchs of all time, the Irish certainly would not agree with such acclaim. She persecuted Catholics in England, but the persecution in Ireland was even more severe. Resistance to Elizabethan rule was led by the O'Neill and O'Donnell clans. Red Hugh, heir to the O'Donnell clan, had been imprisoned by the English in Dublin, but escaped and made the alliance with the O'Neill clan which launched the Nine Years War against Protestant English rule. Red Hugh and Hugh O'Neill rallied the people and sent the English forces reeling, their greatest victory being the battle of Yellow Ford on August 14, 1598. They restored property that had been confiscated and emboldened the downtrodden people that resistance was possible and could be successful. Yellow Ford was the greatest defeat of Elizabethan forces during her reign and in the aftermath Red Hugh and Hugh O'Neill restored all of Ireland to Irish control except for Dublin and a few other walled cities which they lacked the weapons to penetrate.

In 1599 Queen Elizabeth struck back, dispatching one of her favorites, the Earl of Essex with a great deal of money and 20,000 English troops which had been in Holland aiding the Dutch republicans in their rebellion against King Philip II of Spain. He met Red Hugh in battle at Ballaghboy on the Feast of the Assumption, August 15, 1599. Red Hugh told his troops, "By the help of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, we will this day utterly destroy the heretical enemy whom we have always hereto worsted. We fasted yesterday in honor of the Virgin, and today we celebrate her feast. Therefore in her name let us fight stoutly and bravely the enemies of the Virgin and we shall gain victory." His confidence was not unfounded and the Irish troops inflicted a devastating defeat on the English, inflicting ten times as many casualties as they suffered themselves. The cowardly Essex tried to arrange a deal but failed and fled to England where he was imprisoned for disgracing the Queen.

Elizabeth was still determined to see Ireland conquered and pulled even more men and money toward the endeavor. The Irish also enlisted the help of King Philip II of Spain, the Catholic champion of Europe, who dispatched 3,500 soldiers to Kinsale in 1601. O'Neill and O'Donnell rushed to join them and crush the English, who were besieging the Spanish at Kinsale, between them. However, the Spanish did not attack at the appropriate time and despite great heroism the Irish were defeated. Red Hugh took a ship for Spain to seek further help, but was murdered with poison by a spy in collusion with George Carew and Robert Cecil, the chief advisor to Queen Elizabeth. Hugh O'Neill continued to fight but was reduced to fighting a guerilla war with neither side gaining a clear advantage. The war dragged on until Queen Elizabeth died and was succeeded by King James VI of Scotland who then became King James I of England. He wanted to make peace with the Irish and promised that in return for their loyalty he would restore all lands to their rightful owners, grant amnesty to Hugh O'Neill and the other Irish leaders and to grant religious freedom to the Catholics.

It seemed like an opportunity for peace to finally be restored. However, the radical Protestants in England were outraged by the terms King James offered. He was viciously attacked for being too generous with the Irish and accused of having Catholic sympathies for offering them freedom of religion. King James buckled under to this pressure and broke the treaty with the Irish and the Protestant persecution returned. Irish Catholic leaders were marked men and had to flee their country in what became known as the Flight of the Earls. O'Neill and O'Donnell lands were confiscated, which consisted of most of Ulster and English Protestants were brought in to occupy the land in what was called the Ulster Plantation. These lands were granted on the conditions that the English would never sell land to the Irish, adopt no Irish customs, support the English army and never intermarry with the Irish. As a result, the Ulster Irish were driven into the wild parts of the country where many starved. Despite some glorious successes, the Nine Years War had ended in defeat and oppression for the Irish Catholics. However, it is also true that the sacrifice of Ireland was the salvation of Belgium. Since the English had to withdraw forces to fight the Irish, Catholic troops were able to contain the Protestant rebellion in Holland and kept Belgium secure and Catholic. Additionally, the suffering of the Irish made them more zealous in their faith and more united in their desire to have a free and independent Catholic Ireland.

The conflict killed 100,000 Irish, some from battle and some from starvation after being driven from their lands. About 30,000 English troops died and England was almost bankrupted by the extreme cost of funding the war and the transplanting of Protestants. Efforts to enforce Protestantism on the country also failed, especially among the common people, and heavy handed measures only increased Irish resentment and strengthened the determination to one day restore total independence. The Penal Laws which were enacted discriminated against anyone who was not Church of England which enraged not only the Irish Catholic majority but many of the Presbyterians in Ulster as well. Conditions grew worse and coincided with increased tensions between the Crown and Parliament in England. Parliament became dominated by Puritan radicals and the Irish began to fear that a new crackdown on Ireland was imminent.

Things came to a head when rebellion broke out in 1641. Irish Catholics allied themselves with the Crown since King Charles I had married a Catholic and had stopped enforcing the unfair laws against the Catholic Church. Sir Phelim O'Neill led the rebel forces, demanding land reform and legal equality for Catholics. It began as little more than an attempted coup, but the English Protestant elites, perhaps made paranoid by guilty consciences, overreacted. They believed their own propaganda and were convinced that the long oppressed Irish Catholics were now rising up to slaughter every Protestant in Ireland. As a result, English troops went fanning out across the countryside and began assaulting Catholics. This was the point when things got out of hand and such cruelty, after Ireland had already been forced to endure so much, caused many of the Catholics to snap. They struck back at the Protestants and struck hard, releasing their fury and returning violence with violence. The Irish leaders tried to restrain them, but it proved impossible and butchery was returned with more butchery by both sides.

King Charles I of Britain and Ireland

Results of the rebellion were mixed. The deaths of so many Protestants, already paranoid about Catholics enough, caused them to believe that King Charles I had made a secret alliance with the Irish Catholics to help him wipe out his Presbyterian enemies; a fear which took England one long step closer to civil war. Body counts of Protestants were greatly exaggerated and the enemies of the Crown were certain that Charles and his Catholic Queen were behind it all. In Ireland, however, independence was restored under the Catholic Confederation. Pope Innocent X supported them and sent a papal nuncio with money and weapons from Rome to support the Confederates. King Charles made peace with them, though contrary to Protestant conspiracy theories more to release troops he needed to fight his own enemies in England rather than out of some secret alliance. Nevertheless, the peace between Confederate Ireland and the King meant that Catholic Ireland was seen as a royalist stronghold and would pay dearly at the end of the English Civil Wars when Oliver Cromwell defeated the king and was free to exact vengeance on Ireland.

It was a terrible fate Ireland was to face. King Charles I was beheaded by the Puritan dominated Parliament and by 1649 Oliver Cromwell was lord lieutenant of Ireland. When the Irish rose in favor of the heir to the throne, King Charles II, Cromwell came to the country to destroy the royalist presence and as he saw it, to execute the wrath of God on the Catholic population. He captured Drogheda and Wexford where he carried out brutal massacres. Drogheda was pillaged for three days and out of 3,000 defenders only 30 survived and women and children were killed in countless numbers along with the soldiers. At Wexford, 2,000 people were massacred, including the slaughter of 300 women gathered at the market around the Celtic high cross. Many of those killed were not only Irish Catholics, but Protestant English royalists. Cromwell and his professional, highly skilled army swept through the country, killing so many that the campaign has been considered by many to be nearly genocidal. Ireland was subdued in eight months and the division of the spoils began.

Cromwell seized all land and made it illegal for any Irishman to own property in his own country. Everything east of the Shannon River was given to the conquering parliamentarian troops and no Irishman was allowed to set foot across the river on pain of death. The Irish were forcefully moved into Connaught, the least productive part of the country for living off the land where many starved to death. Irishmen who were of military age were forced to choose between execution and exile and so about 34,000 fled, mostly to Europe, in what was known as the Flight of the Wild Geese. Irish exiles enlisted in the armies of Europe until there were Irish brigades in the French, Spanish, Swedish, Austrian and Russian armies. These troops often played a very important role, the best example being at the battle of Fontenoy in 1745 when they defeated the Duke of Cumberland and snatched victory from the jaws of defeat for the French. Many Irish children were orphaned from these massacres and thousands were sold into slavery to the plantations in the West Indies. Throughout these conflicts and the brutal retaliation that followed, Ireland was devastated with some estimates placing the number of deaths at roughly half of the total population of Ireland.

The suffering continued throughout the dictatorial rule of Oliver Cromwell until after his death the monarchy was restored under King Charles II. Like his father, Charles II was married to a devout Catholic, the charming and loyal Portuguese princess Catherine of Braganza. He was much more compromising than his father and to do whatever needed to be done to maintain his throne. Never a man of rigid principles, he led an extremely debauched life, however he was determined that no outside force should interfere with the succession to the throne of the Stuart family. This led to problems with the radical Protestants in Parliament because Charles II had no legitimate children and so his only heir was his younger brother James, Duke of York, who was an open convert to the Catholic Church. When Parliament tried to remove James from the succession, Charles II dissolved the body and became the last monarch to rule in his own right. He converted to Catholicism on his deathbed and asked forgiveness from his wife for his innumerable infidelities. Upon his death his brother became King James VII of Scotland and II of England, the last Catholic monarch to reign in Great Britain.

King James II tried to allow religious freedom in the three kingdoms and to remove the restrictions against Catholics. However, the radical Protestants would not go along with this and in 1688 welcomed Prince William of Orange, the son-in-law of James II, and an invading Dutch army. In what became known as the Glorious Revolution, the Prince of Orange deposed King James II in 1689 and he and his wife were declared King William III and Queen Mary II by Parliament. James fled to France, but soon returned and landed in Ireland on March 19, 1689. The Irish parliament declared the independence of Ireland and hailed James II as their true and lawful king. Irish Catholics rallied to his side in the hope that the Penal Laws, land confiscation and other cruelties could be reversed with their victory. Naturally, William of Orange quickly invaded Ireland to stop him with a large army of British, Dutch and other mercenary troops. James II and his followers, known as Jacobites, were outmatched in every way though he did have the support of General Patrick Sarsfield, a brilliant Irish commander. However, James II did not make full use of this one advantage and the Jacobites suffered a setback by William of Orange at the battle of the Boyne on July 12, 1690 near Dublin. The Irish had fought well, holding off superior forces and effecting an orderly withdrawal. In fact, they had not been totally defeated at all, but the will and confidence of James II was broken and he returned to France.

However, even in the absence of the King, the war went on led by General Sarsfield with his small, ragged, poorly trained but tough and determined Irish Catholic army. One of the most intense battles was fought at Limerick. The Orange forces demanded the city surrender, but the Irish refused and General Sarsfield with a small raiding party slipped around and destroyed the enemy ammunition stores and captured their supply train. However, the attack on Limerick was renewed with 10,000 English and Dutch soldiers who slowly pushed back the Irish in three hours of heavy fighting until they entered the city. Even the Irish women picked up weapons to defend the city and savage hand-to-hand fighting erupted in the streets. Then, at the crucial moment, the Irish cavalry rode around and came charging at the English from behind, breaking their attack and forcing them to retreat. The city of Limerick was saved, but the war went on and there were numerous Irish defeats. William of Orange returned to England and left the campaign to General Churchill. By October of 1691 Sarsfield could see that there was no hope for success. He could harass the English, but he could not destroy them and although the English could not suppress all Irish opposition they could maintain their hold on power. He decided to continue would be to waste lives needlessly and so he agreed to a peace treaty with William of Orange.

General Patrick Sarsfield, Jacobite commander

The result was the Treaty of Limerick which seemed surprisingly fair and acceptable to the Irish. Signed on a rock called the Treaty Stone, it called for religious freedom for Irish Catholics, full citizenship and the protection of the law in return for their loyalty to William of Orange. Today the Treaty Stone sits in the middle of Limerick, but what might have been a symbol of reconciliation is instead a monument to English deception and cruelty. As soon as the treaty was signed the English Parliament reenacted the Penal Laws which went totally against everything the treaty had promised. Catholicism was banned, Irish Catholics were barred from being educated, participating in politics, becoming businessmen, buying land, inheriting land or to even renting any land of a value greater than 30 shillings a year or to profit from it. In short, it was a complete betrayal and aimed at nothing less than the absolute annihilation of Catholic Ireland. The Irish, of course, were outraged but determined all the more to resist and wait for another day to come. They went to mass in secret, taught their children in disguised schools and clung to their faith all the more fiercely in the face of such oppression.

After all this turmoil, Ireland really did not have the strength to attempt any opposition to English rule, though some die hard Jacobites did remain. Bad feelings remained and grew worse thanks to the greed of the landlords who controlled Ireland. They exported food from Irish lands while the Irish people themselves went hungry, which along with other factors led to the Great Irish Famine in 1740 which cost the lives of 400,000 people. Unfair taxes were imposed on Irish goods entering England, but none for English goods to be sold in Ireland. Protestant rule was also further strengthened and a local ruling elite developed that began to desire greater autonomy from England. This had no effect on the Catholic majority though, it was simply the Protestant elites in Ireland deciding they wanted less interference from the Protestant elites in London. Henry Grattan was a member of the Protestant Irish elite who advocated the Kingdom of Ireland becoming more politically autonomous and even talked about Catholic emancipation, though the Protestant monarch would always have veto power in his system. The efforts accomplished little and soon Great Britain and the world were fixated on the American Revolution, followed by the even bloodier French Revolution.

The massacre of so many innocents, including nobles, priests, religious and common people as well as the innocent and simple King Louis XVI ad his lovely wife Queen Marie Antoinette along with the death by starvation of their young son horrified Great Britain and all the civilized world. Britain also feared that Ireland would follow the French example. In an effort to head-off such a crisis, some minor concessions were made to Irish government, but these only strengthened the hands of the Anglican elite. This meant revolutionary groups soon formed anyway such as the United Irishmen. Leaders of this movement included the Protestant Henry McCracken, the Protestant Theobald Wolfe Tone, Thomas Russell and Samuel Neilson -all Protestants. They also were or soon became republican revolutionaries. They sought and eventually received French aid for a rebellion, but bad weather turned back the French ships and the fact that the United Irish did not have the degree of support among the Catholic majority they claimed to have meant that only a small French expedition was sent.

This was the rebellion of 1798, or the Rising of 98 as it was sometimes called. One of the most dramatic episodes of it was in Wexford County where an army was organized by Father John Murphy. He had originally been an advocate of peace but when British retaliation came down on innocent people he picked up the sword and boldly declared, "It is better to die bravely in the field than be butchered in your homes". On May 26 Father Murphy and his army defeated the garrison at Wexford and then marched to Enniscorthy where they assaulted the city in the face of extreme British resistance and finally captured it after fierce fighting. Even many of the British were amazed at how well the poorly armed Irish peasants were able to fight. However, the British backlash to these events was swift and brutal. The Irish were suppressed by July 23 and it was only after that, in August, that a French force arrived under General Joseph Humbert. However, he was acting on his own authority and not with the official backing of the French government and though he routed 3,500 British troops in Connaught at a battle mockingly called the Races of Castlebar, he was eventually defeated.

Flag carried by Irish troops under Father Murphy

There were some sporadic uprisings among the populace, but on the whole, the British forces had little difficulty in thwarting them. The French army was too small, many of the Catholic majority was unenthusiastic about the rebellion, which was too liberal and too Protestant for them to support it wholeheartedly, and the United Irishmen themselves were far from being united and disagreed over their actions as well as their long-term goals. Russell was hanged for involvement in a later uprising, Tone committed suicide while awaiting execution and most of the other leaders met a similar fate. The Protestant radicals in Ireland also reacted to the United Irishmen and the rebellion by forming the Orange Order, named in honor of the Prince of Orange who defeated the Catholic Jacobites under King James II. Even some of the British authorities noted at the time that the formation of the Orange Order was intending simply for the intimidation of the Irish Catholics, an agenda that would continue and strengthen with time. In any event, the background of the United Irishmen rebellion, and the fact that it was done in league with the revolutionary French, greatly alarmed the British and set back any hope of Irish autonomy. On the contrary, the Irish government was abolished with the passage of the Act of Union on January 1, 1801.

Another bit of political progress which was thrown into turmoil by the French Revolution and its effects was the so-called Grattan Parliament. Established in 1782 through the efforts of the Irish politician Henry Grattan, Westminster granted what they termed as legislative independence to the parliament in Dublin. Not quite everyone was certain how much faith to place in this innovation though. Grattan himself was a conservative Protestants, and though he favored giving rights to Catholics, he still desired a Protestant monarch to have veto power over what Catholic representatives might pass. Nonetheless, even many Irish nationalists saw this as a great event and for a time Ireland began to see stability and prosperity again. Some, admittedly mostly the Protestant elites, saw this as proof positive that Ireland and Britain could work side by side, as equals, under the Crown and put past differences behind them. Others, though, loathed the idea of ceding any power to Ireland and some could not believe that Britain was being sincere in granting power to an Irish parliament. The Rebellion of 1798 would reinforce both of these opposite, extremist viewpoints. Grattan himself was horrified by the rebellion of the United Irishmen, as one might expect, and it reinforced the view of many of the British that Ireland could not be trusted and had to be ruled by an iron hand. Likewise, the passage of the Act of Union in 1801 reinforced the view of distrusting Irishmen that Britain had no intention of treating Ireland as an equal and would always trample them down at will.

As with most things, the Act of Union was forced on Ireland by the British parliament through a massive campaign of bribery in the Irish parliament. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland came into place and immediately into controversy as it concerned Ireland. The majority of the Irish people, the Catholics, were still being trampled on and had hardly any rights to speak of and now there was not even a pretense for local government but rather all power was concentrated in London. Naturally, there was opposition, especially since so many had seen the sacrifices of Irish soldiers fighting with the British army in North America and in the Napoleonic Wars, Many Irish, quite unlike the United Irishmen, had done their duty to their earthly rulers and got nothing in return for their efforts to prove their loyalty. Even some Protestants and some in Britain began to realize how unfairly the Irish were being treated; fighting and bleeding for a government that flagrantly oppressed them. Irish Catholics wanted their freedom and Catholic Emancipation became the goal of traditional, patriotic Irishmen and women. It had been hoped that this would have come as a concession with the Act of Union, abolishing all religious discrimination, however, King George III refused to allow it. To be fair to King George though, who was a decent man, his refusal was on the grounds that to do so would violate his oath to uphold the Church of England and not out of any hatred of Irish Catholics.

So, the struggle of Catholic Emancipation went on and it was taken up by another of the great heroes in Irish history: Daniel O'Connell. He was a lawyer and a popular statesman who was banned from living out his vocation because of the unfair British laws. He formed an organization to call for the emancipation of Catholics and for the abolition of the Act of Union between Britain and Ireland. However, O'Connell was no firebrand revolutionary. As a devout Catholic, he had witnessed the events of the French Revolution with horror and wanted no part of radical republicanism. Likewise, though he was mistreated by British authorities, he was not anti-British at all. Later more radical nationalists tend to ignore the fact that O'Connell believed firmly that if Union was repealed and Ireland treated fairly as an independent kingdom it would build ties of friendship between Britain and Ireland that would make them closer; equal partners rather than servant and master. The British put restrictions on O'Connell, which he respected, but he was arrested anyway. Irish Catholics united behind his cause like never before and Britain was finally forced to take notice. Finally, the conservative government of the Duke of Wellington, after initial opposition, decided that while the Act of Union would not be repealed, Catholic Emancipation was finally granted. Daniel O'Connell had triumphed and earned for himself the lasting nickname of "The Liberator". Things were far from ideal in Ireland certainly, but steps had been taken, a victory had been won and it was won when Irish Catholics united in pursuit of what was fair rather than behind revolutionary nationalism. Dan O'Connell and his movement might have gone farther, but everything in Ireland stopped with the Great Famine.

There had been crop failure for several years which had hit Ireland very hard. The greedy landlords used the majority of land to grow export crops, leaving only a tiny portion of land for the Irish who worked for them to raise food to sustain themselves. Since potatoes produced more on less land, it became the staple of the Irish diet. As a result, when the potato blight hit around 1845 Ireland suffered immensely. Many Irish people starved to death and all while other grain crops continued to be exported to England and other countries to profit the rich while the Irish went hungry. The new popularity of capitalism and laissez faire meant that while England could have stopped the ships of food going to Britain to feed the starving Irish, they did not, convinced it would be bad for business and profit is all that matters. This caused more animosity against the British in Ireland, however, it is only fair to remember that Britain did try to provide some help and famine relief for which Britain usually gets no recognition. The United States also pitched in, sending over cornmeal and the like to help feed the Irish people. The famine also set off a wave of emigration, much of it to the United States where the Irish community set about establishing itself with considerable initial opposition. Many sold everything they owned to afford the tickets to come to America. Conditions were so bad that the vessels they traveled on became known as coffin ships. It was a horrible time and ultimately cost the lives of roughly half the population of Ireland.

Politics and national aspirations never took a back seat though. In 1842, just before the Great Famine hit hard, a new nationalist group was formed called the Young Ireland movement. The founders included Thomas Davis, John Blake Dillon and Charles Gavin Duffy. Quite opposed to the goals and methods of Dan O'Connell, the Young Ireland movement was radical, revolutionary and republican, taking as their example the liberal, anti-clerical Young Italy movement. One of the leaders of the Young Ireland movement was Thomas Francis Meagher, who later came to America and became a noted general in the Union army during the Civil War commanding the famous Irish Brigade. The Irish Confederation was another such group inspired by radical liberal elements on the continent. Much of their strength was sapped by the Great Famine, although there was a disastrous attempt at an uprising in 1848 when liberal rebellions broke out all across Europe. The Church, under attack itself by the Young Italy movement, took a very dim view of all of these rebellions and urged all faithful Catholics to be loyal to their legitimate governments and to endure rather than risk another bloodbath like the French Revolution. It is also worth noting that when the Papal States came under attack by Italian nationalists faithful Irish Catholics formed a battalion of volunteers to join the international army in defense of Rome and Pope Pius IX.

About a decade later, in both Ireland and New York, which had a large Irish immigrant population, another similar group called the Fenian Brotherhood was formed. Designed to be a military organization, it aimed for a violent solution to create a Republic of Ireland. However, what started as a sort of hoped-for secret army soon became a political movement and so was more easily suppressed by the British authorities. Nonetheless, military action was to come, thanks mostly to the United States and the American Civil War. During the conflict there were Irish troops on both sides. In fact, the greatest Irish commander was undoubtedly Major General Patrick R. Cleburne of the Confederate States Army. The majority of Irish troops though fought in the northern army, particularly the Irish Brigade of New York which earned quite a reputation on the battlefield. After the war, with Britain and the US on less than friendly terms, and with so many trained Irish soldiers on hand, the Fenians saw an opportunity.

Flag used by Irish troops in the Fenian Raids

Some Union army veterans wanted to use their Irish soldiers for a formal invasion of Ireland and put out feelers in that direction. It was almost exclusively a northern effort. General Cleburne, for one, refused to take part. What finally did happen was a series of clashes known as the Fenian Raids in which Irish US army veterans invaded Canada and planned to hold part of the country hostage to force Britain to grant independence to Ireland. Despite the tacit support of the United States, however, the attempt was an utter disaster. The raids occurred from 1866 until 1871 and saw the first use of the name Irish Republican Army. The British were well aware of the plans of the Fenians and every effort to invade Canada by Fenian troops ended in failure. The invasions of Canada were swiftly defeated and the Fenians were sorely mistaken if they believed they could intimidate or coerce Britain into changing any of her Irish policies. Simultaneously, across the pond in 1867 there was also a Fenian uprising, however the movement had become so political that news of it leaked out ahead of time and this, combined with the fact that events in America had already put the British on the alert meant that the authorities were prepared and had little trouble suppressing it.

Culturally, things in Ireland grew worse with the creation of the National School which was part of a general campaign, social and political, to eradicate the Irish language and replace it with English. It was a campaign that was largely successful and though Gaelic continued to be spoken and passed down in certain rural communities in Ireland, English became the dominant language and most often the only language spoken by the majority of Irish people. There were some improvements though. Starting in 1870 Ireland began to see some progress in land reform and extending fair rent, free sale and fixity of tenure to tenants and rural landlords.

The faith remained strong in Ireland, and in 1879 the country received clear evidence that God had not forgotten them either. That year, at Knock, at least 15 people witnessed an appearance by the Blessed Virgin Mary, St Joseph and St John the Evangelist. Immediately, Knock became a place of pilgrimage and would ultimately become one of the most prominent Marian shrines in Europe alongside Lourdes and Fatima. More and more pilgrims poured in over the years, allowing the completing in 1976 of the Basilica of Our Lady Queen of Ireland at Knock. A great indication of Church approval of the apparition came in 1979 when Pope John Paul II visited Knock and the shrine became so popular that in 1986 Ireland opened an international airport there to serve the needs of those wishing to visit Knock from around the world.

Meanwhile, on the secular front, political rather than violent means also began to be taken up again toward home rule for Ireland. In 1886 and 1893 British Prime Minister William Gladstone tried to introduce a home rule bill for Ireland but was unsuccessful. Divisions flared up over the issue that last to this day. For the most part the majority of Irish country Catholics favored home rule and became known as nationalists. The Protestants of the industrialized Ulster region largely opposed home rule and became known as Unionists for favoring continued union with Great Britain. Social and economic differences added to the religious divisions as rural Irish Catholics felt dominated and exploited by the urban Protestant industrialists and could see no hope of relief so long as Ireland was ruled by the Protestant government of Britain.

Unfortunately, as it seemed more likely things would change, radical elements on both sides went to even greater extremes to ensure their side would win out. In 1914, when World War I broke out, just as in the Napoleonic Wars, Irish republicans decided that the misfortune of Britain would be to their benefit. Actually, self government was finally passed by the British Parliament the year the war began with the Third Home Rule Act, but this was suspended because of the war. During the conflict, great numbers of Irish troops fought in the British army, in the British Expeditionary Force, as well as those of other countries within the British Empire. At home though, other Irish leaders saw a chance to claim independence. Along with the old grievances was the threat of conscription and it is easy to imagine why many Irish people would be outraged by the thought of being drafted into the defense of the British Empire.

The call for Irish freedom reached the boiling point during the Easter Week of 1916. Padraic Pearse and a group of Irish nationalists stormed into the post office in Dublin and declared Irish independence. Other key locations were taken and uprisings also broke out in the countryside. Pearse had been a leader in the Gaelic League which sought to restore the Irish language and culture and a founding member of the Irish Volunteers. A Fenian, he was military director for the Irish Republican Brotherhood and had steadfastly refused to volunteer to fight with the British army. Pearse was the son of converts and he was a devout Catholic, though his political inspirations came from Protestant skeptics such as Robert Emmet and Wolfe Tone of the United Irishmen. There was great excitement across the country and Pearse was named provisional President of the Republic of Ireland. However, after only a week British forces had moved in and the Irish were forced to choose between surrender and annihilation. Pearse ordered his men to give up their weapons and surrender to the British authorities.

Britain responded with immense anger over the uprising. Once again the Irish had rebelled during a time of war and had colluded with the enemies of Britain, in this case Germany, though the German weapons being smuggled in were intercepted by the British and other hoped for German support never came. The leaders of the Easter Uprising were rounded up and executed with the exception of Eamon De Valera who was spared because of he was born in the United States and Britain feared arousing the anger of the United States at a time when they were hoping the Americans would join the war against Germany and was providing them with considerable support already. It was noted at the time that when Boer forces in South Africa had rebelled again, supported by the Germans, to restore their republics, the British had shown them considerable mercy after their defeat which went a long way to helping cement a lasting British and Dutch cooperation in South Africa. The same could not be said about Ireland and the subsequent crackdown only strengthened the resolve of the Irish nationalists. King George V had advised his government to be more forgiving, put the ringleaders in prison and let them fade from public memory. Indeed, many in Ireland at the time had opposed the uprising, but Prime Minister David Lloyd George insisted on retaliation. Anyone suspected of being sympathetic with the Irish nationalists was shot. British troops raided Irish homes and anyone found with weapons was also shot. George V was horrified by such measures and told his minister so.

One can only speculate as to what would have happened if the advice of the King had been taken. The night raids continued and a new group, classified as a police force but in actuality more of a military intimidation corps was formed called the Royal Irish Constabulary Reserve Force, part of the RIC, which the Irish named the Black and Tans. Given only three months training, they terrorized the Irish population, burning towns and villages, raiding homes and killing many more innocent Irish civilians that actual republican agitators. The atrocities committed by other, non government forces posing as Black and Tans were also widespread and far worse in their cruelty. These actions, however, only succeeded in making Britain more enemies and increasing the support of the Irish republicans among the general public. Much of this new nationalist support went to a hitherto small and moderate Irish party called Sinn Fein (we ourselves). The founder of Sinn Fein, Arthur Griffith, though a republican, had reasoned that the Act of Union was illegal and as such Ireland was still a separate kingdom which simply shared the Crown in a dual-monarchy with Great Britain. The survivors of the Easter Rebellion descended on Sinn Fein and changed its face forever. Eamon De Valera supplanted Griffith as leader of the party and made it distinctly republican in outlook, though with the promise that once Ireland was an independent republic the people could decide to switch to a monarchy provided no member of the British Royal Family was offered the Crown.

In 1918 the wave of anti-British sentiment made the new republican Sinn Fein the dominant party in Ireland. With widespread support the Sinn Fein representatives met in Dublin on January 21, 1919 to form their own parliament and declaring themselves the legitimate government of Ireland. They realized Britain would oppose this and so they also organized the Irish Republican Army to defend their newly asserted independence. These events immediately led to the Irish War of Independence as the British government did recognize the Irish government as legitimate and tried to enforce British authority. A guerilla was soon broke out between the British and the Irish Republican Army as the Irish attacked British installations to seize supplies and weapons. Eamon De Valera wanted to fight a traditional war to help present an image of legitimacy for his government around the world, however, Michael Collins, one of the organizers of the IRA, insisted that this would be suicidal and that they would have to stick to guerilla tactics as there was no real hope that Ireland could defeat the British army, fresh from victory in World War I.

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