Island of Ireland

If the history of the country is not known him it risks not to understand anything of Ireland, of the Irishmen, of the landscapes that are crossed, of the monuments that are visited, of the abandoned villages that are perceived here and there.

In 1169, called by a local kinglet in difficulty, Henry II of England sends in Ireland Richard Strongbow. In the turn of a few years the Anglo-Norman ones occupy Dublino and the whole surrounding region (since then said “Shovels”, the enclosure) and The great vassals are divided The grounds of the east and the center of the island. Henry II becomes sovereign of Ireland and The Anglo-Norman barons, tutelary of the administrative arrangement of the island, they build churches and castles, they develop the cities and, few to few, becomes Irish.
In 1541, with the triumph of the Reform in England, the protectorate does him heavier. Henry VIII becomes king of Ireland and moves war to the island been faithful to the Pope. As in England, the Catholic Church is persecuted, the dissolved monasteries and I suppressed. Fifteen years later it begins the agricultural exploitation and The farmers Protestant English they occupy the earths of the chased Irish Catholics. Three revolts are tamed and the last Irish noble are forced to abandon the country (her “Escape of the Accounts”).
The two following centuries will be very hard: in 1650 the repression of Cromwell upsets the island; in 1690 the defeat of Boyne sweeps away the last hope of the Irishmen, that is a Catholic king in England; from 1695 to 1725 the Penal laws deprive the their Irish Catholics of the last rights remained.
A cleared breve coincides with the War of American independence, but you/he/she cannot satisfy the Irishmen that want very more: the independence of their country.
Wolfe Tone tries to get the support of revolutionary France; Hoche fails to Bantry in 1796, Humbert to Killala in 1798 (it will be “the Year of French”), and finally Tone he commits suicide in the jail. In 1800, Ireland is united to England and the Irish Parliament you/he/she is loosened.

Paradoxically it is, really giving the possibility to stop the jobs of the Parliament in London to the Irishmen, following the unification of the two countries, that the English are seen forced to change the situation. O'Connell before, and then Parnells get the emancipation of the Catholics and a new agrarian law that it turns Ireland into a country of small land owners. But in the meantime a terrible catastrophe gets depressed on the country: the Great Famine. In 1846, and again in 1847, a parasite destroys completely the crop of the potatoes, principal maintenance of the population. More than 700.000 Irishmen they die and 800.000 emigrate in America. Ireland is emptied: the population drastically reduces him from 8 million to 4, and in 1914, 4 million and a half of Irishmen have left by now the country.
In 1912, the Parliament in London votes the law for the administrative autonomy of the island (Home Rule), but the burst of the Great War delays the application of it, doing the explode I displease some movements indipendentisti (Sinn Fein) that, the 1916 Easter day, they proclaim the Republic of Dublino. The army English suffocates the revolt, but in 1919 the Sinn Fein wins the elections and guide therefore the armed struggle up to the 1921 London Essay, with which Ireland gets the independence, remaining “Dominion of the Common-wealth”: the 26 counties become the Free State of Ireland, while the six counties of Ireland of the North keep on belonging to the United Kingdom.
A part of the population refuses the division of the island, enacted by the Essay, and in 1922-23 the civil war upsets the country. In the 1032 salt to the power De Valera. In 1937 a new constitution is voted and, in 1949, the last constitutional bonds with Great Britain are chopped off and Ireland becomes Eire. In 1973, the country enters to belong to the European union.