A brief history
Begun 2020 | 950 words | Contents
In the light – or, rather, the Celtic gloom – of the Brexit Irish border problem, a little history is due.
A brief history of Ireland
Contents
A brief history of Ireland
Cromwell and the ‘Plantation of Ulster’
The Brutish Empire
After centuries of previous military incursions, the 1649-53 conquest of Ireland by Protestant mass murderer Oliver Cromwell made Ireland a British colony.
The ‘Plantation of Ulster’ consolidated colonialisation. British landowners acquired land in the north of Ireland, mostly stolen from the Irish under 1652 legislation. The new landowners imported English and Scottish tenants and workers as ‘settlers’.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, more British settlers came to the north of Ireland from Scotland, forced out by the theft of land known as the Highland clearances.
(Regarding the theft of land by the aristocracy, see my post, The super-rich, law and order.)
In 1800 Ireland became part of the newly named United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
A brief history of Ireland
The Battle of the Boyne and Orange parades
King Bully
Following the 1653 conquest of Ireland, the 1689-91 Williamite War consolidated Protestant ascendancy in Ireland.
Protestant William of Orange (formerly ruler of the Dutch Republic) had recently become William III of England and Scotland, deposing Catholic James II in the so-called Glorious Revolution.
James’s ‘Jacobite’ Irish army, mostly Catholic, hoped to reinstate James and resolve long-standing grievances about land ownership, religion and civic rights.
The crucial 1690 Battle of the Boyne was fought for control of a ford on the River Boyne near Drogheda, north of Dublin. William won.
Having lost the battle and the war, James fled to France. The defeated Irish Jacobites were allowed to practice Catholicism after swearing loyalty to William.
(The 1745 Jacobite uprising in Scotland was an attempt by James II’s grandson Charles Stuart, aka Bonnie Prince Charlie, to regain the British throne for his father James, aka the Old Pretender. The uprising collapsed at the 1746 Battle of Culloden.)
In current-day Northern Ireland, the Boyne victory by William III – popularly known as ‘King Billy’ by his supporters – is commemorated annually by Protestant unionists with Orange parades.
The parades face opposition from Catholic republicans, who see them as sectarian and triumphalist.
A brief history of Ireland
Home Rule and partition
After the rain, the sun – kind of
After several horrific famines and brutally suppressed rebellions including the 1917 Easter Rising when almost 500 people died and 14 were executed, in 1921 the Irish Home Rule movement resulted in the Anglo-Irish Treaty, and Ireland was partitioned.
The main part of Ireland became the Irish Free State, a dominium of the British Empire. Six counties in the northeast chose to stay in the UK, and became known as Northern Ireland.
In 1927, the UK was renamed the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
In 1937, following the brief Irish Civil War and its bitter aftermath, the Irish Free State got full independence as Ireland (or Éire). Ireland was officially declared a republic in 1949.
A brief history of Ireland
Northern Ireland: Protestants vs Catholics
Proddy Dogs vs Cats
Since the establishment of Northern Ireland in 1921, there’s been constant conflict there between the mostly Protestant unionist majority and the mostly Catholic republican minority.
Unionists – mostly descendants of English and Scottish ‘settlers’ – claim loyalty to the United Kingdom.
Republicans – mostly descendants of Irish indigenes – want Northern Ireland to leave the UK and join the Republic of Ireland.
This republican policy, known as unification, is sometimes wrongly called reunification. Ireland’s never been formally unified, so can’t be reunified.
It’s important to get that right – and to distinguish between unionism and unification. It’s not at all confusing. It’s Irish.
A brief history of Ireland
The Troubles and the Good Friday Agreement
War and peace
In the 1960s, the violent unrest known as the Troubles broke out in Northern Ireland. 30 years of armed conflict between republican and unionist groups and the British army resulted in over 3,000 deaths.
The Troubles ended in 1998 with the Good Friday Agreement, which brought an uneasy but lasting peace.
A power-sharing government was set up: the Northern Ireland Assembly at Stormont in east Belfast. It’s been suspended a number of times. Between 2002 and 2007, Northern Ireland was run from London.
Relations between the two main parties, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and the republican Sinn Féin, broke down again in 2017, and the assembly wasn’t restored until 2020. In 2022 the DUP vetoed the Assembly in protest against the Brexit NI protocol. In 2024 the government was restored.
A brief history of Ireland
The future
United Ireland
In 2020, a Northern Ireland opinion poll showed 47% in favour of staying in the UK, and 45% in favour of a united Ireland. (The same poll was run in Ireland: 71% favoured unification.)
On the whole, the rest of the UK couldn’t care less about Northern Ireland – it’s an embarrassing colonial hangover – and NI Protestants, despite their proclaimed ‘loyalism’, couldn’t really care less about the UK – they just want to preserve their postcolonial privileges.
Considering this horrible history, it’d be better and fairer all round if Ireland was unified. Sure, the Protestants would protest, but they’d be fine. They’d be a protected minority – in an EU country, lucky sods.
Unification would, of course, also solve the otherwise intractable Brexit Irish border problem.
- Note to Taoiseach: take Northern Ireland – I mean, actually take it, please!
(Apologies to Les Dawson et al)
This post is also a footnote to my longform post Brexit and free movement – the east European elephant. The footnote was written in the context of the problematic impact of Brexit on the Irish border. (The solution: unification!)
soothfairy 
Very interesting. There’s a good BBC series (buried deep on iplayer, too thoughtful for mainstream broadcast) by Adam Curtis called something like The Age of Self. It explores how by gaining certain freedoms in the 20th C, culminating in the hippy movement, we then fell into the trap of self absorption, thus letting in so called freedom-focused (as opposed to big state) politics. So those nice hippies gave us the best music but also Donald Trump.
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Thanks for your comment, Nigel. I’ll have to write a post for it…
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