History History

It is in the Mesolithic period, around 7000 BC, that man would have made his appearance in Ireland. It is during the Neolithic period (from 4000 to 2000 B.C.) that new populations coming from Great Britain and the Mediterranean mixed with the first occupants. The megalithic tombs (Browne's Hill, Carrowmore, Newgrange) date from the same period.

The dating of the arrival of the Gaels, a Celtic people, is not yet really established. Celtic texts preserved by Irish monks tell us that at that time (between the ^4th and ^1st centuries BC), society was organized around three functions: priestly, productive and warlike.

Thanks to the works of Ptolemy, Dublin would have been known as early as 140 BC, under the Latin name of Eblana or Deblana. This small settlement was located approximately in the Dublin area.

Saint Patrick is said to have landed on the island in 432 and thus gave it its Christian identity in about thirty years. Captured by "pirates" around 430, Saint Patrick kept sheep for several years in County Antrim. After his escape, a "vision" led him to go and evangelize the inhabitants. It is said that he succeeded in converting several kings. Saint Patrick would have succeeded in converting a small part of the north of the island. From the ^6th and ^7th centuries, many monasteries were established in the country (Clonmacnoise, Kells...).

Initially a simple fortified camp named Baile Atha Cliath, "the town of the ford with the clappers", the small Gaelic colony was joined in 841 by the Vikings, who came from Norway and founded the fort of Dubh Linn, "the black pond", in reference to a basin formed at the intersection of the rivers Liffey and Poddle. Because of its geographical location, this place became an important commercial crossroads for the Vikings (this was proven by excavations carried out around Wood Quay and Kilmainham) and above all a focus for attacks from the Irish and Danish Vikings.

The ^ninth and ^tenth centuries were marked by constant fighting against the Viking invaders, who plundered the wealth of the monastic sites. The Gaels succeeded in driving them out in 902, before their return in 917. The inhabitants began to build wooden buildings at Wood Quay and the present Christchurch Cathedral. In 988, the birth of the city was officially proclaimed with the first tax. Finally, Brian Boru, the High King of Ireland defeated the Vikings at the Battle of Clontarf in 1014. This new situation led to the conversion of the entire population of Dubh Linn to Celtic Christianity. The influence of the Vikings is then much more discreet.

However, Ireland still remains very disunited and subject to internal conflicts. For more than 150 years after the battle of Clontarf, the country was ravaged, while three rival families competed for the high kingship of Ireland: the O'Briens of Munster (who descended from Brian Boru), the O'Neills of Ulster and the O'Connors of Connaught.

With the support of Pope Adrian IV, King Henry II of England decided to "colonize" the country with the help of Norman barons. Among them is the famous Richard Fitz Gilbert, Earl of Pembroke (better known as Strongbow), who seized Dublin in 1170 and became Earl of Leinster. This invasion is a source of civilization: administration, castles, abbeys... In Dublin, the Normans began to fortify the city. It was at this time that the Christchurch and Saint Patrick's cathedrals were built, as well as Saint Audoen's church. Dublin developed and became a major place of pilgrimage, especially thanks to the Bacall Losa (Jesus' staff) given to Saint Patrick by an angel. The influence of the Vikings was definitively suppressed in 1171, when the king of Leinster Dermot MacMurroug killed the Nordic king Hasculf Thorgillsson. The same year, Henry II, worried about the growing power of the Norman counts, went to Ireland with a large army.

The military superiority of the Anglo-Normans forced the Irish king Rory O'Connor to accept peace under the conditions laid down by Henry II: in 1175, the Treaty of Windsor established Henry II's suzerainty over the whole island, which then became an English colony. The king established the seat of government in Dublin. In fact, their real control was limited to an area around Dublin known as "The Pale" (the fence). Outside, Irish families fought against the Anglo-Norman power.

It was on this date that John without Land, son of Henry II, became king of England and lord of Ireland. Ignorant of the complex situation of the Celtic world, he behaved in a contemptuous manner and succeeded in uniting the three local kings against him, even though they were enemies.

John without Land begins the construction of the famous Dublin Castle. The building was completed in 1230.

Dublin was constantly plundered, much to the despair of the English king Edward II, who sought by all means to intensify British control. In spite of this climate, trade developed at this time in Dublin. By the end of the ^12th century, the city had 5,000 inhabitants. But as Dublin expanded, poverty reigned and food was scarce.

In 1317, the Great Famine in Western Europe hit Dublin and killed thousands of people. It is even said that hunger drove some to cannibalism. After this tragic episode, Dublin's population began to grow again, reaching about 35,000 in 1348. But it is this same year that the Black Death ravages the city, killing more than a third of its inhabitants.

The English began to want to extend their power around the Pale by supporting the great Irish families, such as the Fitzgeralds or the Butlers.

But the arrival of Henry VIII to power in 1509 changed the policy of development, to the detriment of the great Irish names. In 1536, Henry VIII became head of the Church of England and, in 1541, he added to his title of "King of England" that of "King of Ireland". He then proclaimed Dublin an "Anglican city". The monasteries of the country were destroyed as well as icons and relics such as the Bacall Losa. Catholics were persecuted.

These attempts to eradicate the Irish culture provoked many discontents. With the arrival of Queen Elizabeth^I on the throne of England, the conflicts intensified. Considering that supremacy in Ireland was vital for England, the queen developed extensive resources to counter the rebellion and finally succeeded in defeating the Irish at the Battle of Kinsale in 1601: the Act of Supremacy was thus proclaimed.

An era of cruel English domination began. The leaders of the rebellion left Ireland for the continent: it was the "flight of the earls". From then on, Scottish and English settlers moved to the north of the country (Derry became Londonderry...) and transformed this land into an Anglo-Saxon colony of Anglican or Presbyterian faith.

The Catholics, robbed and expelled from their land, united and turned against the Protestant colonists: it was the insurrection of 1641. Ten thousand colonists were massacred. In England, Charles ^I, having lost the civil war, was beheaded by Oliver Cromwell in 1649. Cromwell, in a spirit of revenge, landed in Ireland with 12,000 men. At Drogheda, the soldiers killed 3,000 people and gradually eliminated a third of the Catholic population of Ireland. In 1650, this new "reconquest" came to an end.

Charles II's successor, the Catholic King James II, proclaimed an "anti-Protestant" law in Ireland in 1685. To counter this, the English nobles encouraged William of Orange to take the throne. The latter succeeded in defeating James II at the Battle of the Boyne, not far from Dublin, in 1692. The Irish were forbidden to bear arms and to educate their children and priests were banished.

Even tougher laws denied the Irish the right to vote, hold public office and buy land.

Dublin is in its golden age, while the rest of the country is suffering. The narrow medieval streets were rebuilt in the neoclassical style. The Temple Bar district developed and the Trinity College library was built (1712). It was during this period that buildings such as The Four Courts, The Custom House or Leinster House were built. The Protestant bourgeoisie settled north of the Liffey or in the Georgian houses around Merrion Square and Fitzwilliam Square. Dublin became the^second largest city in the British Empire and the^fifth largest city in Europe.

By 1775, a Protestant patriot party had emerged under the leadership of Henry Grattan. Intimidated by the importance of this party, the British government passed the Gardiner's Act in 1778, which removed restrictions on land ownership, the right to education and voter status. Daily life for Catholics improved. In 1782, with an army of 80,000 "Irish volunteers," Grattan obtained from London the creation of a Parliament in Dublin; a Protestant Parliament in a country that was three-quarters Catholic. Little followed by his peers, Grattan was ready for conciliations with the Catholics. Grattan's Parliament represented a hope of independence for Catholics, despite the omnipresence of the British government in all key positions. Indeed, the executive branch of government still depended on the Crown, and British MPs retained veto power over the decisions of Irish MPs.

In 1790, Theobald Wolfe Tone, although a Protestant, demanded freedom for Catholics and denounced England as an enemy of Ireland. He formed a political club: the Society of United Irishmen. Under the blows of repression, this club was transformed into a secret and military society and demanded the establishment of a republican government. Their revolt of 1798 failed and provoked the Union Act of 1801 which abolished the Irish Parliament: power was transferred to London. Dublin then experienced a period of decline during which the entire Protestant bourgeoisie chose to flee to London. The recently built monuments underwent a significant degradation.

This "association" with England did not satisfy many people, and certainly not Robert Emmet who, in 1803, tried to organize an uprising. He wanted to seize Dublin Castle but was imprisoned at Kilmainham Goal and sentenced to death. It was Daniel O'Connell who took up the torch. Born into a wealthy family in County Kerry, O'Connell believed that the union of the Irish could be achieved through a Catholicism that was free from English subjugation, but not from the Crown.

O'Connell was elected as a member of Parliament for Clare County. In 1829, he obtained emancipation for Catholics. as "King without a crown", he did not stop there, but demanded that Parliament repeal the Union Act and abolish tithing. In 1843, 250,000 people came to listen to him on the hill of Tara... He announced a meeting on the site of Clontarf, on the very spot where Brian Boru had once won over the Vikings. A million people are expected to attend! But the British authorities forbid this meeting.

In 1845, Ireland had 8 million inhabitants. In fifty years, the population had almost doubled. But the farmers did not benefit from their cereal crops, which were then destined for export. In 1845, mildew, a fungus, destroyed the first potato crop. In 1846, all crops were affected. It was the "Great Famine": 250,000 people died of hunger and the English government did not think for a moment of changing the system. Nearly a million Irish people died while another million tried to emigrate to the United States.
The misery was too great, and the Young Ireland movement (founded in 1848), which followed the theses of O'Connell (who died in 1847) but was less inclined to pacifism, was unable to galvanize the crowds. However, in the United States, the Irish emigrants founded, in 1853, a society called "Irish Republican Brotherhood", better known under the name of "Fenian movement". Only a succession of setbacks prevented the movement from carrying out the insurrection and, in 1867, the English authorities dismantled the network. But the essence of terrorism was born.

One man in England understood the extent and gravity of the Irish problem: Prime Minister William Gladstone. He succeeded in imposing some reforms: separation of the Protestant Church and the State in 1869, and land reform in 1870. For his part, Charles Parnell, a Protestant member of Parliament from Ireland, obstructed the work of Parliament by making endless speeches designed to attract the attention of the members.

Parnell became the undisputed leader of the Irish nationalist movement. He was called the "uncrowned king of Ireland". In 1881, Gladstone submitted a bill to Parliament to guarantee certain rights to landowners. But unrest over the issue mounted and Parnell and other league leaders were arrested in October 1881. An agreement was finally reached with Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone, and the Treaty of Kilmainham, named after the prison where Parnell was held, was signed. The prisoners were released and the land reform policy continued.
Gladstone presented to Parliament a draft of Home Rule (autonomy of Ireland in the British Empire). But it was rejected by the House of Lords. Gladstone then announced an immediate general election for July and the campaign was based on the theme of Home Rule. But he failed again, so that the cabinet passed to the Conservatives; Lord Salisbury became Prime Minister. Charles Parnell also fell: in 1889, the scandal of his affair with a married woman, Kiffy O'Shea, discredited him. He died two years later of pneumonia. Gladstone continued until his death (in 1892) to defend his Home Rule project. Re-elected in 1892, he proposed it again. For the third time, it was rejected.

The Gaelic League was born in 1893 and the Abbey Theater in Dublin opened in 1904. Around 1900, the Sinn Féin (We Alone) movement was created, which demanded independence. The struggle continued until it became dangerously inflamed.

A bill tabled in Parliament proposed partial autonomy for Ireland. It was accepted by the House of Commons and was to take effect from 1914. But the Protestants of Ulster do not hear it this way. They grouped together and armed themselves (via Germany) in a single corps of 100,000 Ulster Volunteers ready for the attack. In 1913, the republican Irish Volunteers gave the answer: the country was in a civil war situation... A big strike lasting several months was organized in 1913, which did not help the Dubliners' affairs and, on the contrary, intensified misery and discouragement. But while the Home Rule was being ratified, the First World War broke out, which postponed its application.

On April 24, 1916, 1,200 members of the Irish Volunteers led by Patrick Pearse and James Connolly's Irish Citizen Army seized the Dublin Central Post Office (G.P.O.) and other official English buildings, and proclaimed the Irish Republic. The majority of the city's population was against them. The insurgents resisted desperately for a week, while the city was under siege and skilfully bombarded by the British. More than 200 civilians were victims of this lightning repression. Four thousand sympathizers were arrested and many were sent to camps in Britain. More than 70 of them were sentenced to death, but after endless negotiations, only 15 were executed in the courtyard of Kilmainham Goal. Among them were Patrick Pearse, the young William Pearse, and James Connolly, who was severely wounded and unable to stand, and was executed in a chair. Éamon de Valera, future leader of Sinn Féin, was pardoned in 1924 because he had American citizenship. While the population was initially angry at the revolutionaries for the damage they had caused in the city, these executions changed public opinion and the condemned entered into legend.

Sinn Féin won a majority and party members refused to sit in London. In 1919, they convened an Irish Parliament in Dublin, the Dáil Eireann, which ratified the establishment of the Irish Republic and elected de Valera as its leader. The Irish Volunteers, led by Michael Collins, became the IRA (Irish Republican Army), which engaged in a policy of guerrilla warfare against the English police, while the British government sent troops, the Blacks and Tans. This civil war will last more than two years.

On November 21, 1920, Michael Collins learned of the arrival of 14 British informers in Dublin and had them all murdered while they slept. In retaliation, British forces opened fire on the crowd during a Gaelic soccer match in Croke Park, killing 12 people. In 1921, England proposed a law dividing Ireland into two parts: Northern Ireland (Ulster minus 3 counties with a Catholic majority) and Southern Ireland with its 26 counties. An armistice was signed and led to negotiations. On December 5, 1921 the Treaty of London was signed and Ireland became the Irish Free State, on condition that it did not intervene in Northern Ireland. The contemporary situation was sealed... Sealed but not accepted. De Valera and the IRA refused the treaty because they wanted a united Ireland.

A new civil war broke out in 1922, with the British arming the Irish Free State forces that had ratified the treaty. In 1923, de Valera agreed to lay down his arms. In 1925, he founded a new party, the Fianna Fáil (Soldiers of Destiny), and took a seat in the Dáil (Parliament). The minority that refused to follow him went underground, foreshadowing the present IRA. In 1932, de Valera came to power and renounced the oath of allegiance to the crown. The Fianna Fáil remained in power for 16 years. In 1937, de Valera passed a new constitution in which Ireland, under its new name of Eire, recognized itself as sovereign, independent and democratic.

During the Second World War, Eire remained neutral. In 1948, Fianna Fáil lost the elections to the Fine Gael party. A coalition government ruled the country. In 1949, Eire became the "Republic of Ireland" and left the Commonwealth, while Northern Ireland became part of the United Kingdom. After World War II, Dublin was an old-fashioned capital city; renewal was slow until the 1960s, when change began.

On the ^50th anniversary of the 1916 revolution, the IRA blew up the Nelson Column on O'Connell Street.

After the massacre of Sunday, January 30, 1972, Bloody Sunday in Derry, Dublin is little affected by the violence of the IRA in Northern Ireland. Even if, in 1974, three car bombs exploded in the city, killing 25 people.

In 1990, the election of Mary Robinson as President of Ireland was encouraging both for relations with Ulster and for the identity of the republic. Not belonging to either of the two major nationalist parties that had emerged from the war of independence (Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil) and married to a Protestant, the new president gave a more liberal image, offering greater prospects for reunification. Dublin was elected European cultural capital in 1992 and, since then, a whole policy of restructuring the city has been underway.

At the end of the 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s, Dublin woke up and massively developed its service sector. The economy, which was then essentially based on port activities and food production, is diversifying towards high technology (electronic and computer equipment).

Growth slowed, despite the changeover to the euro in 2002, before collapsing in early 2008 with the subprime crisis. On the other hand, this period saw the peace process between Eire and Northern Ireland take shape politically.
Following its fiscal austerity and the Brexit in 2019 (finally effective in 2021), the Irish capital is attracting British banks from the City because Dublin has assets and has already attracted multinational pharmaceutical and high-tech companies, such as Google. Both cosmopolitan and deeply Irish, this warm capital convinces many young Europeans to move here, despite the high cost of living and somewhat capricious weather.