The History of Irland began with the first human settlement around 8000BC, when hunter gathers arrived from Great Britain and Continental Europe, probably via a land bridge. Few archaelogical traces remain ofthis group but their descendants and later Neolithic arrivals, particularly from the Iberian Penninsula, were responsible for major Neolithic sites sych as Newgrange.

Following the arrival of Saint Patrick and other Christian missionaries in the early mid-5th century A.D Christianity subsumed the indigenous pagan religeon by the year 600

From around 88 A.D more than a century on Viking invasions brought havoc upon the monastic culture and on the islands various regional dynasties, yet both of these institutions proved strong enough to survive and assimilate the invaders. The coming of Cambro-Norman mercenaries under Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke, nicknamed Strongbow, in 1169 marked the begining of more than 700 years of direct Norman and later Engliah involvement in Ireland.The English crown did not begin asserting full control of the island until after the English Reformation, when questions over the loyalty of the Irish vassals provided the initial impetus for a series of military campapaigns between 1534 and 1691. This period was alos marked by an official ' English policy of plantation ' which led to the arrival of thousands of English and Scottish Protestant settlers. As the military and political defeat of Gaelic Ireland became more clear in the early seventeenth century, the role of religion as a new division in Ireland became more pronounced. From this period on secretarian conflict became a recurrent theme in Irish History.

The first English Involvement in Ireland took place in 684 Ad when an English expeditionary force sent by Northumbrian King Ecgfrith invaded Ireland in the summer of that year. The English forces managed to seize a number of captives and booty, but that apparently did not stay in Ireland for long. The next English involvement in Ireland would take place a little more than half a miienium later when the Normans invaded the country.

Early Irelnad had an unusual government. Ireland was divided into small kingdoms called " tuaths ". Each Tuath's King was elected by all the free men on its territory. The Tuath was thus a body of persons voluntarily united and its territorial dimensions was the sum total of the landed properties of its members. About 80 to 100 Tuaths coexisted at any time throughout Ireland. Above the " Tuaithe "

were the larger provisional Kingdoms. By the 12th Century, Ireland was divided politically into a shifting hierarchy of petty kingdoms and over kingdoms. Power was exercised by the heads of a few regional dynasties vying against each other for supremacy over the whole island. One of these men " King Diarmait Mac Murchada ( anglicised as Diarmuid MacMorrough ) of LEINSTER was forcibly exiled from his kingdom by the new High King " Ruaidri mac Tairrdelbach Ua Conchobair ". Fleeing to Aquitaine, Diarmait obtained permission from Henry II to use the Norman Forces to regain his kingdom. The First Norman Knight landed in Ireland in 1167, followed by the main forces of Normans, Welsh and Flemings in Wexford in 1169.

 

Above, " Norman presence " King John's Castle as it is today in my fathers historic home town of Trim, Co Meath, Ireland.

Within a short time Leinster was regained, Waterford and Dublin were under the control of Diarmait, who named his son-in-law

Richard de Clare ( Strongbow ) heir to his kingdom. This caused consternation to King Henry II of England who feared the establishment of a rival Norman state in Ireland. Accordingly, he resolved to establish his authority.

With the authority of the papal bull Laudabiliter from Adrian IV, Henry landed with a large fleet at waterford in 1171, becoming the first King of England to set foot on Irish soil.

was a papal bull issued in 1155 by the English Pope Adrian IV purporting to give the Norman King

Henry II of England lordship over Ireland. The " bull " granted Henry, who requested it, the right to invade Ireland in order to reform Church practices in Ireland, which up until that point, while being Christian, had been outside the direct control of the Catholic Church.

The title of the " bull Laudabiliter " means literally " laudably, in a praiseworthy manner "; it refers to Henry's laudable intention " to extend the borders of the Church, to teach the truths of the Christian faith to a rude and unlettered people, and to root out the weeds of vice from the field of the Lord..." It is often remarked that Adrian was the only Englishman to be Pope.

The actual wording which gave authority to Henry to take possession of ireland is as follows:

" You have signified to us, our well-beloved son in Christ, that you propose to enter the
island of Ireland in order to subdue the people and make them obedient to laws, and to root out from among them the weeds of sin; and that you are willing to yield and pay yearly from every house the pension of one penny to St Peter, and to keep and preserve the rights of the churches in that land whole and inviolate.

We therefore, regarding your pious and laudable design with due favour, and graciously assenting to your petition, do hereby declare our will and pleasure, that, for the purpose of enlarging the borders of the church, setting bounds to the progress of wickedness, reforming evil manners, planting virtue, and increasing the Christian religion, you do enter and take possession of that island, and execute therein whatsoever shall be for God's honour and welfare of the same. And, further we do also strictly charge and require that the people of that land shall accept you with all honour, and dutifully obey you, as their liege lord, saving only the rights of the churches, which we will have inviolably preserved...

Henry awarded his Irish territories to his younger son John with the title Dominus Hiberniae ( Lord of Ireland ) When John unexpectedly

succeeded his brother as King John, the " Lordship of Ireland " fell directly under the English Crown.

Initially the Normans controlled the entire east coast, from Waterford up to eastern Ulster and penetrated as far west as Galway, Kerry and Mayo. The most powerful lords in the land were the great Hiberno-Norman Lord of Leinster from 1171, Earl of Meath from 1172, Earl of Ulster from 1205, Earl of Connaught from 1236, Earl of Kildare from 1316, the Earl of Ormonde from 1328 and the Earl of Desmond from 1329 who controlled vast territories known as Liberties which functioned as self administered jurisdictions with the Lordship of Ireland owing feudal feality to the King in London. The first Lord of Ireland was King John who visited Ireland in 1185 and 1210 and helped consolidate the Norman controlled areas, while at the same time ensuring that the many Irish Kings swore feality to him. Throughout the thirteenth century the policy of the English Kings was to weaken the power of the Norman Lords in Ireland. For example King John encouraged Hugh de Lacy to destabilise and then overthrow John de Courcy as Lord of Ulster, before creating him Earl of ulster. Subsequently in 1210 John invaded Meath and Ulster and took control of the lands of both Earls. In 1241 the Earl of Meath, Walter de Lacy, died without a male heir and Meath was partitioned between his two grand daughters. Then in 1245 with the death of the last Lord of Leinster, Anselm Marshall, Leinster was partitioned between his five sisters and divided into the five counties of Kildare, Laois, Carlow, Kilkenny and Wexford. The partition of the original Lordships and the inheritance of lands by the often absentee husbands of Irish Heiresses contributed to the military weakening of the Hiberno-Normans.

The Hiberno-Norman community suffered from a series of events that ceased the spread of their settlement and power. Politics and events in Gaelic Ireland served to draw the settlers deeper into the orbit of the Irish.