Ireland

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Author:Laxman Burdak, IFS (R)
Ireland Map
Map of England, Isle of Man, Scotland & Ireland

Ireland (आयरलैंड) is a country in north-western Europe consisting of 26 of the 32 counties of the island of Ireland. The capital and largest city is Dublin, on the eastern side of the island.

Location

The sovereign state shares its only land border with Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom. It is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, with the Celtic Sea to the south, St George's Channel to the south-east, and the Irish Sea to the east.

Origin

The Irish name for Ireland, Éire, derives from the old Irish Ériu, the name of a goddess in Irish mythology.[1]

History

The first evidence of human presence in Ireland dates to around 33,000 years ago;[2] further findings have been found dating to around 10,500 to 7,000 BC. The receding of the ice after the Younger Dryas cold phase of the Quaternary around 9700 BC, heralds the beginning of Prehistoric Ireland, which includes the archaeological periods known as the Mesolithic, the Neolithic from about 4000 BC and the Copper Age beginning around 2500 BC with the arrival of the Beaker Culture. The Irish Bronze Age proper begins around 2000 BC and ends with the arrival of the Iron Age of the Celtic Hallstatt culture, beginning about 600 BC. The subsequent La Tène culture brought new styles and practices by 300 BC.

Greek and Roman writers give some information about Ireland during the Classical period, by which time the island may be termed "Gaelic Ireland".

By the late 4th century AD Christianity had begun to gradually subsume or replace the earlier Celtic polytheism. By the end of the 6th century it had introduced writing along with a predominantly monastic Celtic Christian church, profoundly altering Irish society. Viking raids and settlement from the late 8th century AD resulted in extensive cultural interchange, as well as innovation in military and transport technology. Many of Ireland's towns were founded at this time as Viking trading posts and coinage made its first appearance.[3] Viking penetration was limited and concentrated along coasts and rivers, and ceased to be a major threat to Gaelic culture after the Battle of Clontarf in 1014.

The Norman invasion in 1169 resulted again in a partial conquest of the island and marked the beginning of more than 800 years of English political and military involvement in Ireland. Initially successful, Norman gains were rolled back over succeeding centuries as a Gaelic resurgence[4] reestablished Gaelic cultural preeminence over most of the country, apart from the walled towns and the area around Dublin known as The Pale.

Prehistory (10,500 BC–600 BC)

Stone Age to Bronze Age: What is known of pre-Christian Ireland comes from references in Roman writings, Irish poetry, myth, and archaeology. While some possible Paleolithic tools have been found, none of the finds is convincing of Paleolithic settlement in Ireland.[5] However a bear bone found in Alice and Gwendoline Cave, County Clare, in 1903 may push back dates for the earliest human settlement of Ireland to 10,500 BC. The bone shows clear signs of cut marks with stone tools and has been radiocarbon dated to 12,500 years ago.[6]

It is possible that humans crossed a land bridge during the warm period, referred to as the Bølling-Allerød warming, that lasted between 14,700 and 12,700 years ago towards the end of the last ice age, and allowed the reinhabitation of northern Europe. A sudden return to freezing conditions known as the Younger Dryas cold phase, which lasted from 10,900 BC to 9700 BC, may have depopulated Ireland. During the Younger Dryas, sea levels continued to rise and no ice-free land bridge between Great Britain and Ireland ever returned.[7]

The earliest confirmed inhabitants of Ireland were Mesolithic hunter-gatherers, who arrived sometime around 7900 BC.[8] While some authors take the view that a land bridge connecting Ireland to Great Britain still existed at that time,[9] more recent studies indicate that Ireland was separated from Britain by c. 14,000 BC when the climate was still cold and local ice caps persisted in parts of the country.[10]

The people remained hunter-gatherers until about 4000 BC. It is argued this is when the first signs of agriculture started to show, leading to the establishment of a Neolithic culture, characterised by the appearance of pottery, polished stone tools, rectangular wooden houses, megalithic tombs, and domesticated sheep and cattle.[11] Some of these tombs, as at Knowth and Dowth, are huge stone monuments and many of them, such as the Passage Tombs of Newgrange, are astronomically aligned. Four main types of Irish Megalithic Tombs have been identified: dolmens, court cairns, passage tombs and wedge-shaped gallery graves.[12] In Leinster and Munster, individual adult males were buried in small stone structures, called cists, under earthen mounds and were accompanied by distinctive decorated pottery. This culture apparently prospered, and the island became more densely populated. Near the end of the Neolithic new types of monuments developed, such as circular embanked enclosures and timber, stone and post and pit circles.

The Céide Fields[13] is an archaeological site on the north County Mayo coast in the west of Ireland, about 7 kilometres northwest of Ballycastle, and the site is the most extensive Neolithic site in Ireland and contains the oldest known field systems in the world.[14] Using various dating methods, it was discovered that the creation and development of the Céide Fields goes back some five and a half thousand years (~3500 BC).[15]


The Bronze Age, which came to Ireland around 2000 BC, saw the production of elaborate gold and bronze ornaments, weapons and tools. There was a movement away from the construction of communal megalithic tombs to the burial of the dead in small stone cists or simple pits, which could be situated in cemeteries or in circular earth or stone-built burial mounds known respectively as barrows and cairns. As the period progressed, inhumation burial gave way to cremation and by the Middle Bronze Age, remains were often placed beneath large burial urns. During the late Bronze Age, there was an increase in stored weapons, which has been taken as evidence for greater warfare. Fleshed Bog Bodies also appear at this time, continuing into the Iron Age.[16]

Iron Age (600 BC–400 AD): The Iron Age in Ireland began about 600 BC. The period between the start of the Iron Age and the historic period (AD 431) saw the gradual infiltration of small groups of Celtic-speaking people into Ireland,[17][18] with items of the continental Celtic La Tene style being found in at least the northern part of the island by about 300 BC.[19]The result of a gradual blending of Celtic and indigenous cultures would result in the emergence of Gaelic culture by the fifth century.[20]It is also during the fifth century that the main over-kingdoms of In Tuisceart, Airgialla, Ulaid, Mide, Laigin, Mumhain, Cóiced Ol nEchmacht began to emerge. Within these kingdoms, a rich culture flourished. The society of these kingdoms was dominated by an upper class consisting of aristocratic warriors and learned people, which possibly included Druids.

Linguists realised from the 17th century onwards that the language spoken by these people, the Goidelic languages, was a branch of the Celtic languages. This is usually explained as a result of invasions by Celts from the continent. However, other research has postulated that the culture developed gradually and continuously and that the introduction of Celtic language and elements of Celtic culture may have been a result of cultural exchange with Celtic groups in southwest continental Europe from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age.[21]

The hypothesis that the native Late Bronze Age inhabitants gradually absorbed Celtic influences has since been supported by some recent genetic research.[22]

In 60 AD, it is said that the Romans invaded Anglesey in Wales causing concerns across the Irish Sea, but there is a small controversy[23] on if they even set foot into Ireland. The closest Rome got to conquering Ireland was in 80 AD, when, quote by Turtle Bunbury from the Irish Times,[24] “Túathal Techtmar, the son of a deposed high king, who is said to have invaded Ireland from afar in order to regain his kingdom at about this time,” end quote.

The Romans referred to Ireland as Hibernia around AD 100. Ptolemy, in AD 100, recorded Ireland's geography and tribes. Ireland was never a part of the Roman Empire, but Roman influence was often projected well beyond its borders. Tacitus writes that an exiled Irish prince was with Agricola in Roman Britain and would return to seize power in Ireland. Juvenal tells us that Roman "arms had been taken beyond the shores of Ireland". In recent years, some experts have hypothesized that Roman-sponsored Gaelic forces (or perhaps even Roman regulars) mounted some kind of invasion around AD 100,[25] but the exact relationship between Rome and the dynasties and peoples of Hibernia remains unclear.

Irish confederations (the Scoti) attacked and some settled in Britain during the Great Conspiracy of 367. In particular, the Dál Riata settled in western Scotland and the Western Isles.

Jat History

Dalip Singh Ahlawat[26] writes that Danes, Vikings, Normans and Goths were descendants of Scythian Jats. [27]

Dalip Singh Ahlawat[28] writes that Jat Blood flows in the people of England as the Celts, Jutes, Angles, Saxons and Danes were descendants of Scythian Jats. This is evident from Jat Clans surnames still prevalent in England though they follow Christianity. [29]

Migration of Jats to the New World

Hukum Singh Panwar (Pauria)[30] writes....we may very well attempt an account of migrations of Asias and Indian including remote ancestors of Jat to the New World across the Pacific ocean, on the other side of the globe, in the Neolithic period. Of late, the view that the Americas were totally unknown to Asia and Europe, has been widely challenged, and ample evidence has come to view now pointing to several people of the Old World having made incursions to the Americas in remote antiquity. The Reader's Digest in its book "Strange Stories, Amazing Facts" (1990 : 216 ff) says that "few lands have been discovered as often as America. The Phoenicians, Irish, Vikings, Welsh and Chinese voyaged to the New World before Columbus (1492 A.D.). A sixth century legend has us believe that a Buddhist monk, Hoei Shin, found a continent called Fusang. Was it America? No one has answered the question". Among these, we believe, people from India were the most important migrants to these continents, having crossed to them and actually settled-there.

Hukum Singh Panwar (Pauria)[31] writes... The fact, that a number of Saka (Scythian) tribes migrated from Sapta Sindhu and central Asia to the New World between 8000 to 12000 years ago, indubitably establishes the truth that the Old World was their cradle at that time. But, unfortunately, the ancient Greek, Roman and Byzantine writers, and the subsequent European and Indian historians who followed them, do not stipulate the antiquity of these people earlier than, at the most, 2500 B.C. To suspect, however, as a few scholars do, that so far as the antiquity of the Sakas (Sacae or Scythians) is concerned, the) might have been the victim of a 'conspiracy of silence' of the ancient chroniclers and their disciples, will be very unfair to them. All in all, we may say that these writers on the Scythians (Sakas or Sacae or Getae) did not have the benefit of the evidence which, consequent upon the latest researches in various sciences, is available to present students of the subject to determine the antiquity and migrations of these adventurous people. It is, perhaps, Waddell, followed by Calvin Kephart, Bridget Allchins, Siddhartha and Purushottam Singh who drew directly or indirectly our attention for the first time to the honourable antiquity of the Sakas or Getae and their migrations. Kephart even goes to the extent of saying that these people, after moving from higher reaches of the Indus river (Sapta Sindhu) to the fertile valley of the Oxus, gave their name Gete to it in circa 8000 B.C. and became the progenitors of the White (Nordic or Aryan) race.

Salient features

The Irish Free State was created, with Dominion status, in 1922 following the Anglo-Irish Treaty. In 1937, a new constitution was adopted, in which the state was named "Ireland" and effectively became a republic, with an elected non-executive president. It was officially declared a republic in 1949, following the Republic of Ireland Act 1948. Ireland became a member of the United Nations in December 1955. It joined the European Communities (EC), the predecessor of the European Union, in 1973. The state had no formal relations with Northern Ireland for most of the twentieth century, but during the 1980s and 1990s the British and Irish governments worked with the Northern Ireland parties towards a resolution to "the Troubles". Since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, the Irish government and Northern Ireland Executive have co-operated on a number of policy areas under the North/South Ministerial Council created by the Agreement.

One of Europe's major financial hubs is centred on Dublin. Ireland ranks among the top ten wealthiest countries in the world in terms of GDP per capita.[32]

A developed country, Ireland's quality of life is ranked amongst the highest in the world, and the country performs well in several national performance metrics including healthcare, economic freedom and freedom of the press.[33]Ireland is a member of the European Union and is a founding member of the Council of Europe and the OECD. The Irish government has followed a policy of military neutrality through non-alignment since immediately prior to World War II and the country is consequently not a member of NATO, although it is a member of Partnership for Peace and aspects of PESCO.

आयरलैण्ड

आयरलैण्ड उत्तर पश्चिम यूरोप में एक द्वीप है। यह यूरोप का तीसरा सबसे बड़ा द्वीप है और दुनिया में बीसवां सबसे बड़ा द्वीप है। पूर्व में संयुक्त राजशाही है।

References

  1. ↑ Where does the name Ireland come from? IrishCentral.com. 26 August 2021.
  2. ↑ Roseingrave, Louise (18 April 2021). "Reindeer bone found in north Cork to alter understanding of Irish human history". Irish Examiner.
  3. ↑ "What have the Vikings ever done for us?". The Irish Times.
  4. ↑ Egan, Simon Peter (18 December 2018). The Resurgence of Gaelic power in Ireland and Scotland and its wider impact, c.1350-1513 (Doctoral thesis). University College Cork – via cora.ucc.ie.
  5. ↑ O'Kelly, Michael J.; O'Kelly, Claire (1989). Early Ireland: an introduction to Irish prehistory. Cambridge University Press. p. 5. ISBN 0-521-33687-2.
  6. ↑ "Earliest evidence of humans in Ireland". Bbc.co.uk. 21 March 2016.
  7. ↑ Tanabe, Susumu; Nekanishi, Toshimichi; Yasui, Satoshi (14 October 2010). "Relative sea-level change in and around the Younger Dryas inferred from late Quaternary incised valley fills along the Japan sea". Quaternary Science Reviews. 29 (27–28): 3956–3971. Bibcode:2010QSRv...29.3956T. doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2010.09.018.
  8. ↑ Driscoll, Killian. "The Mesolithic and Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in Ireland"
  9. ↑ O'Kelly, Michael J. (2005). "III. Ireland Before 3000 BC". A New History of Ireland: Prehistoric and early Ireland. Clarendon Press. pp. 66–67. ISBN 978-0-19-821737-4.
  10. ↑ Edwards, R.J., Brooks, A.J. (2008) The Island of Ireland: Drowning the Myth of an Irish Land-bridge? In: Davenport, J.J., Sleeman, D.P., Woodman, P.C. (eds.) Mind the Gap: Postglacial Colonisation of Ireland. Special Supplement to The Irish Naturalists' Journal. pp. 19ff.
  11. ↑ Cooney, Gabriel (2000). Landscapes of Neolithic Ireland. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0415169776.
  12. ↑ Cooney, Gabriel (2000). Landscapes of Neolithic Ireland. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0415169776.
  13. ↑ Achaidh Chéide, Placenames Database of Ireland.
  14. ↑ "Where To Go in Ireland | Cities in Ireland | Visit Ireland | Discover Ireland". www.discoverireland.ie.
  15. ↑ http://www.museumsofmayo.com/ceide.htm
  16. ↑ "The Irish Bronze Age | National Museum of Ireland | Bronze Age Handling Box". microsites.museum.ie.
  17. ↑ Jonathan Bardon, A History of Ulster, 2005, ISBN 0-85640-764-X
  18. ↑ David Ross, Ireland History of a Nation, ISBN 1-84205-164-4
  19. ↑ S.J. Connolly, Oxford Companion to Irish History, 2002, ISBN 978-0-19-923483-7
  20. ↑ Sean Duffy, A Concise History of Ireland, 2005, ISBN 0-7171-3810-0
  21. ↑ "DNA Research Links Scots, Irish And Welsh To North-western Spain". George Mason University History News Network.
  22. ↑ A Y Chromosne Census of the British Isles (pdf)" (PDF). Familytreedna.com.
  23. ↑ "Romans in Ireland? - Archaeology Magazine Archive".
  24. ↑ "What did the Romans ever do for Ireland?".
  25. ↑ "Yes, the Romans did invade Ireland". British Archaeology.
  26. ↑ Jat History Dalip Singh Ahlawat/Chapter IV, p.406
  27. ↑ Ujagar Singh Mahil: Antiquity of Jat Race, p.66-70
  28. ↑ Jat History Dalip Singh Ahlawat/Chapter IV, p.401
  29. ↑ Ujagar Singh Mahil: Antiquity of Jat Race, p.66-70
  30. ↑ The Jats:Their Origin, Antiquity and Migrations/The migrations of the Jats to the North-Western countries, p.277
  31. ↑ The Jats:Their Origin, Antiquity and Migrations/The migrations of the Jats to the North-Western countries, p.282
  32. ↑ L. Prakke; C. A. J. M. Kortmann; J. C. E. van den Brandhof (2004), Constitutional Law of 15 EU Member States, Deventer: Kluwer, p. 429, ISBN 9013012558
  33. ↑ Henry, Mark (2021). In Fact An Optimist's Guide to Ireland at 100. Dublin: Gill Books. ISBN 978-0-7171-9039-3. OCLC 1276861968
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