The course of Ireland's history spans some 5000 years. In fact, the oldest known building in the world is a mere 40 minute drive from Dublin. New Grange as it's called, is a mesolithic burial chamber built some 2500 years before the Pyramids in Egypt. The island has been invaded by many people throughout it's turbulent and bloody history. It has always remained an island of tribal loyalties. Mythology and history are intertwined so that the past never dies, it simply repeats itself. Legend has it that the first inhabitants were descendants of Noah, the Nemeds, who soon perished in a plague. Next came the Fir Bolgs, allegedly some horrible race of monsters who were then overthrown by the Tuatha de Dannan (Children of the Goddess, Danu) who were a race of powerful magic users. The Gaels, whom the modern-day catholics claim as their ancestors originally came from Northern Spain. They defeated the Tuatha de Dannan at the Plain of Muirthemne, in modern-day Northern Ireland and subjected then to life underneath the ground. Over time, they became known as the "faerie folk", banshees, leprechauns, etc.

It's a complicated story to tell, the history, but I'm going to give it a shot. I'm no historian, mind you. Some of it is pretty cut and dry stuff. But a majority of it requires volumes and volumes to set the entire story straight. I'm not going to do that to you, Dear Reader. If you are already familiar with Irish history, feel free to skip this introduction. However, if have no idea what is going on, then please, feel free to continue. I promise, this won't take too terribly long.

Travel back with me to the middle of the 5th Century AD to the withdrawal of Roman troops from the British Isles and Scotland was known as Alba to the indigenous people, and called Caledonia by the Romans. At this time, Romans called the people there Picts and called the Irish Scotti . Rome never invaded Ireland because they assumed the people there were insane and too fierce, plus they were always having trouble with native Britons. Rome did however, establish a somewhat stable, uniform government and they remained in Britain for a few hundred years, pretty much smothering the Celtic culture throughout the reign of the Pax Romana. When Rome left, Britain was left to fend for itself and subject to foreign invasion. From Denmark, and Saxony, they began to form England in the east. From Ireland invaders ran raids on the coast of Wales and more importantly, a tribe from Ulster known as the Dal Riada established a colony at present day Argyle, Scotland. Argyle in Gaelic loosely translates into "coast of the Gael", which is what the Irish referred to themselves as, Gaels. "Irish" is an English term. To further confuse things, the Irish never even referred to Ireland as "Ireland", but rather as Leinster, Munster, Ulster and Connaught which are the four historic provinces of Ireland with the High King, or Ard Ri located in Meath at the Hill of Tara.

Now, for the sake of making this a little less confusing, I'm just going to call the island "Ireland", but remember the names of the provinces. You will be quizzed shortly. Okay, still in the Dark Ages here, Ireland had been pretty much "Christian" since the 2nd Century, although some areas remained pagan. During this time, the island was divided into small petty kingdoms called tuaths or "toes" where a clann chieftain would answer to another fellow who in turn would answer to the Ard Ri. There was constant warfare between various tuaths mostly due to silly quibbling over cows and who got to be the big boy on the block. Needless to say, there wasn't much in the way of unity.

Sometime during the early 5thCentury, a raiding party hit the coast of Wales and brought back a few slaves to Ulster, one of them happened to be a little boy named Paidraig, or Patrick. Little Patrick lived in the area of Armagh as a sheepherder until he was about sixteen when he supposedly had a vision of the Virgin Mary who told him he was to make a pilgrimage to Rome. After a bit of finagling, he apparently made it to Rome and met the Pope who made him a Bishop and sent him back to Ireland to bring them into the Roman faith. Easier said than done.

So he goes back in around 430 AD and tries to get everyone to cease their "pagan" ways. However, what developed was a rather odd mixture of ancient Celtic practices and Christianity which unofficially became known as Celtic Christianity. He also apparently drove out all the snakes as well. Personally, I don't believe a snake ever lived in Ireland. Too damned cold. At any rate, Irish missionaries went all over Europe during these Dark Ages and kept the Gospel alive, kept literacy alive and established monasteries all over the mainland. These early Irish missionaries saw themselves as "modern druids", keeping the old style tonsure in which they shaved their heads from temple to temple and bringing their Celtic-brand of beliefs with them. Now these guys, they were just regular guys who hung-out with local people, remained true to their Lord and Saviour and believed deeply in what they taught. They were intelligent, articulate and charismatic. And more importantly, a Celtic priest or nun were able to marry and have kids. Sounds good, eh? Well, this worked really well for pretty much everyone involved. Just for your information, it is alleged that Patrick ordered the burning of a Druidic library as well which held some 18,000 volumes of information about druids and what they really did, because it possessed "forbidden knowledge". Nowadays, what we believe about the ancient faith is merely a matter of conjecture. And 90% of what we think we know is probably total bullshit. So, if you run into someone claiming to be a "druid", smile and take them with a grain of salt because they are either nuttier than squirrel shit, or simply misguided.

Beginning in the late 8th Century, Nordic men from Scandinavia went "a Viking". Now, I personally have never visited Scandinavia, but I understand that it's pretty cold up there. And there isn't a whole lot in the way of farmland and even in our modern world, I also understand that there isn't a whole hell of a lot to do there except get fucked-up. So mainly out of boredom, young Nords would board their long-ships and head for Britain, Ireland and mainland Europe to loot and plunder, rape and pillage. All in good fun mind you. It was their test of manhood, sort of like a dad taking his son on his first deer hunt. Coastal monasteries were a favorite target because monks were unarmed and peaceful people and various kings stored their riches in the vaults of the monasteries. In other words, the Northmen or "Vikings" found them to be easy pickings.

This business went on for a little over 200 hundred years, mainly because the Irish were so busy quibbling amongst themselves they could never get their shit together long enough to maintain a sustained defence. Why? You may ask. Look at it this way: you are a clann chieftain who doesn't like your neighbor chieftain for whatever reason. You want his land. He has more men under his command than you do. He has more money than you. His wife is hotter than yours. He has a cooler sword or house than yours. He's an asshole. Whatever. So in the process of native squabbling, and Viking raids, some of the Nordic fellows said to themselves, "Hey, this place is kind of cool. Good land for crops, not too cold. The women are pretty hot. Hell, fuck going back home, I'm staying here." And many did just that, hooking-up with local women and taking Irish wives, building farms and even cities. Dublin, Waterford, Wexford, Cork and Cobh all began as Viking settlements. And it's because of their long-term presence in Ireland is why there are redheads there.

Around the 960s, there was a man in the west of Ireland in the province of Munster who's parents had been killed by the invaders when he was a child. When, he got to be a man, he wasn't too happy about it at all. His father was a clann chieftain of some renown in Munster named Cennetig, or Kennedy (which, incidentally means "hideous head"). The man in question was Brian MacCennetig, later Brian Boru, the progenitor of the O'Briens. At any rate, Brian got his shit together and decided payback was going to be hell and carried-out a sustained guerrilla campaign against the Scandinavians. In the process, he did what no other Irishman had ever been able to do; he managed to unite the island against the foe and was crowned Ard Ri and was even referred to in some of the annals as "Emperor of the Irish". However, this is where things get rather interesting; although Leinster Irish, Munster, and Connaught were firmly behind him in his quest, Ulster remained out of his grasp. That province was in a bitter feud amongst the Northern O'Neills and the Southern O'Neills. So even united behind an Irishman against a foreign invader, Ulster wanted nothing to do with to do with the South. Because of a split within a clann, a family. Is any of this starting to make sense, yet?

Brian Boru died on the battlefield of Clontarf, just north of Dublin, in 1014 at the ripe old age of 73. And for awhile his legacy held the majority of the island together. That is until 1170 when this dickhead named Dermott MacMurrough decided to steal the then Ard Ri's wife named Aoife or "Eve". Fearing the obvious repercussions of such an act, he went to England begging for help. Now, England at the time was in control of the Norman French who came from Normandy, an area of France given to the Vikings by Charlemagne to quell violence between the Franks and the Northmen some umpteen years beforehand. Henry II sent the Earl of Pembroke, more commonly known as Strongbow over to help sort out your man who has stolen his rival's wife. Now the thing here is, Henry was married to a woman of Celtic descent who celebrated Easter on a different day than he did. He was a Roman Catholic, you see. and followed the Roman deal. Not the Celtic deal. At the time, there was an English Norman who held the post of Pope, a man named Nicolas Breakspeare, or Pope Adrian IV, the only Englishman to ever hold the title. Through a bit of bribery, Henry II managed to get Adrian IV to issue a bogus Papal bull claiming that the "barbarous Irish had strayed from the Flock of the Faithful". Henry then sent an army to Iona, which was the major Celtic monastery at the time, located on an island off the coast of Wales and, at the point of a sword, forced the Celtic monks to adopt the Roman way. Just to make his old lady bend to his will. Adrian also had another provision in the bull; Ireland was the sovereign territory of the English crown. Of course it was total bullshit, the whole deal. But this bit of paper was from the Vatican , and was thus the Will of God.

More of the Norman Lords were sent over, once Strongbow became King of Leinster, to help consolidate the English claim. But men, being men, had other ideas. Why kiss the ass of some dork across the Irish sea when you can have your own wee empire? Eventually these Norman English Lords became "more Irish than the Irish". This assimilation did nothing to endear the Norman Irish to their English overlords at all. In fact, in 1366, the English tried to enact laws forbidding these "degenerate English" from conducting court in the Gaelic language, from dressing in the Irish fashion and enforcing Irish laws, which were known as the Brehon Laws. A complicated set of land management, and such. I had never really done my homework on them, unfortunately. And I apologize to you, Dear Reader, for being ill-informed on the intricacies of said law. For more info on them, click here , or maybe your local library has a copy of the Senchas Mor which also explains them. At any rate, the English decree had little impact on the Norman Irish Lords who were enjoying their bit of power and the native Irish, for the most part, seemed to have little problem with going along with having these latter foreigners running the show. This resulted in English influence being confined to the eastern part of Leinster, mainly around Dublin, which was referred to as "The Pale".

Let's jump ahead a little to 1534 and the reign of Henry VIII. He was the guy who wanted a divorce from his wife, Anne Boylen. But the Vatican wouldn't allow it. Being the obese, arrogant bastard that he was, Henry decided he was going to protest this Romanish control over who he was going to be married to and proclaimed a new state religion, the protestant Church of England. To further his point, he had Anne beheaded. Wonderful man, Henry was. Shortly thereafter, he decided also to reaffirm his claim over Ireland and began a series of land management reform (read that as "taxation") and push his Protestantism upon, if not the masses, at least the Norman kings of Ireland. However, he managed only little more than huffing and posturing. Small forces were sent over to collect taxes, but no big deal. That is until his daughter comes along and takes over the show.

Enter the homely Elizabeth I who was considered "the Virgin Queen", probably because she was not in the slightest bit attractive and she was also ruthless. May have been due to all that bitterness and pent-up horniness. At any rate, when she took the throne in 1558, Ireland was in utter chaos. No revenue was coming to England from there and so in 1562 began the first concerted effort to bring the barbarous Irish up to Elizabethan standards. Frequently, her deputies would write to her speaking of how the Irish lived like beasts, how unclean and uncivil they were. Now, bear in mind here, they were writing to a woman who hardly ever bathed, would spray scented oils on herself to mask her stench and wore clothes until they were so filthy they would simply rot away. As was the fashion among the high-browed gentry at the time. The Elizabethan Wars in Ireland are regarded by many historians and most Irish Nationalists as the first attempt at the deliberate genocide of the Irish by the English.

I found a quote by one of Elizabeth's contemporaries who was speaking of one of her deputies at the time which I found interesting, if appalling. This deputy's methods were if anything an early form of "terrorism", in that after battles, it was his custom to behead the slain Irish and line them up leading to his tent,

"so that none should come into his tent for any cause but commonly he must pass through a lane of heads which he used ad terrorem... And it yet it did bring great terror to the people when they saw the heads of their dead fathers, brothers, children, kinsfolk and friends lie on the ground before their faces..." --- Sir Humphrey Gilbert.

So, what does this trip down memory lane have to do with Northern Ireland? I'm getting there. For all their high-browness, and looking down their nose at nearly every other culture in the world, successive English governments have had the unmitigated gall to carry out such acts of tremendous cruelty it shocks the soul. They have never shown mercy to a foe, never given those they have conquered any sense of justice, never shown any compassion that may make those they seek to rule any reason to be loyal subjects. India, in the early 20th century, when they machine-gunned crowds of innocent people in a peaceful protest. In South Africa, during the Boar War, when they set up the world's first concentration camps out in the desert and left women and children in them to starve to death. They even spent over one hundred years of war with France trying to take over there as well. And what has it gotten the common Briton? Sons sacrificed for the glory of the Crown. Rampant poverty. But now, the sun finally sets on the British Empire. Except in Ireland, it's oldest colony.

In the late 16th century, a man from County Tyrone in Ulster named Hugh O'Neill who had helped Elizabeth put down rebellions in Connaught and Munster turned on Her Majesty and decided to give her back some of the hell she had laid in Ireland. Most of the Irish nobles backed him and shook English power in Ireland drastically. In the end he of course failed, had he succeeded there would be no more story and Ireland would be all united, Gaelic and free and everyone would be all warm and fuzzy and there would be sunshine and butterflies.

By 1603, English rule was tightened, especially in Ulster and by 1608, what is known as the Protestant Plantations began in Ulster. These were mainly lowland Scots and northern English farmers starving for land. The idea was to use (and I do mean "use") these people to act as a buffer between English interests and hostile natives. And they being good protestants and had taken the Oath to the Crown they were considered "Loyal". For modern-day Ulster protestants, they simply view the Plantation as themselves coming-back to the home of their Dal Riada ancestors and made the most of it. Then, in 1641, another rebellion in Ireland. This time there were no Gaelic nobles leading the fight, they were all run out of Ireland years earlier. By this time less than 60% percent of Ireland belonged to catholics. The rebellion was more or less angry, displaced peasants who bore rusty swords and farm tools and basically ran amuck hacking up the settlers and their families.

It took a few years for England to respond as they were having their own trouble back home with the English Civil War. Seems people were getting a bit miffed that the Crown had more power than Parliament. Enter the illustrious cavalier Oliver Cromwell who led the Parliamentary army against the forces of King Charles II. Poor Chas didn't fare too well in the war and was beheaded. There seems to be a reoccurring theme with English rulers removing the heads of those they don't agree with. Rather morbid, I think. Anyway, with Charles out of the picture, Cromwell proclaimed himself Lord Protector of England. In 1649, he arrived in Ireland with an army of Puritans and proceeded to hack his way through the catholic population. After the massacre of some 3000 at the town of Drogeda, he declared that it was "the righteous Judgement of God" and in the next year he gave catholic landowners the ultimatum of "going to hell or Connaught". To this day, catholics throughout the island will bestow the "curse of Cromwell" on those they wish ill will upon.

Cromwell thankfully dies, and in 1685, we find that there is once again a king in the form of James II, whom apparently the English didn't care too much for, he being a Scotsman as well as a catholic, so they brought over his relative, William of Orange from Holland. James lived in exile for a number of years then tried to reclaim the throne. William and James met at the Boyne River Valley, south of Ulster on July 12th 1690. And with the financial backing of the Pope, James was soundly routed, and fled the field. So, a Dutch king fought a Scottish king in Ireland for the Throne of England. Make sense? Years later, his son, Bonnie Prince Charlie tried to reclaim the Stuart's line on the throne and was beaten horribly in 1745 at the Battle of Culloden in southern Scotland.

So, let's jump ahead once more to the late 1790s and the founding of the Protestant Orange Order in Ballymena as sort of a means to "defend Ulster and the Protestant faith". At this point, Catholics owned less than 14% of the land and the Mother Church did little to aid their beleaguered flock. Penal Laws were enacted so that catholics were forbidden to own a horse, a mule, a weapon, forbidden to meet in their own churches, forbidden educational facilities, forbidden to hold public offices, etc. The seeds for rebellion were also being sown.

The United Irishmen were led by a Belfast Protestant solicitor who called on the unity of Protestants, Catholics and dissentors to kick England out once and for all. He even managed to get France involved who sent a small fleet off the coast of Bantry Bay however due to inclimate weather were unable to land. In the end, he was captured and sentanced to hang. Rather than dying the death of a traitor, he slit his own throat with a penknife. That man was Theobald Wolfe Tone, the Father of Irish Republicanism. Three years after the failed rebellion of 1798, the Act of Union was imposed in 1801.

So in 1800, it seemed Ireland's fate was sealed. Forty-three years later the first blight hit the potato crop, and it wasn't too terribly horrible. But the blight struck for another four years straight, causing mass evictions of tenant farmers unable to pay rent. It also caused over a million catholics to starve to death, and over two million to emigrate to North America. And nearly half of the ones who left, died along the way in cramped "coffin ships", mainly due to starvation. To call this calamity a "famine" is tantamount to saying that Spiderman comics are "educational reading" or saying kiddie-porn is "a form of art". The fact was there was no famine. A million people don't die as the result of the failure of a single crop on an island the size and fertility of Ireland. You see, the problem wasn't a lack of food by any means. During those dark and horrible days of history, Ireland was exporting cattle and sheep and pigs, corn, butter, cheese, barley. Of course this all went to England. The problem was simple: crappy land management and the fact that protestants owned it all.

What was happening was that Catholics were allowed to live on a Protestant's land and work for them. They were in turn paid a grimey wage and out of these pennies, they were expected to pay rent. They were also allowed a small plot of land in which they could grow a susestance crop of potatoes. And that's all they were allowed to grow. Sometimes, if there was a bumper crop, they were able to sell off a few to subsidize this meagre diet. But once the blight hit, England refused to relax the market for fear of loosing money. British statesman Robert Trevelyan, did nothing but make matters worse with his statement that

"Too much has been done for the people...Ireland must be left to the operation of natural causes"

They made their money, and in the process made two million Irish martyrs and stewed-up enough bitterness to last well over two-hundred years. All for money. God Save the Queen!

Sure there was another rising, funded by disgruntled Irish in America in the late 1860s, but the manpower on the old sod just wasn't there anymore. It seemed the back of Ireland had finally been broken. The Fenians made more of an impact in America however, with John O'Mahoney and James Stephens organising the Irish Republican Brotherhood. They knew eventually, the men of Ireland would one day have what it took to finally drive the English out. They would simply have to bide their time and raise the money for such an undertaking. But another war in Ireland did begin to make waves: the Land War. The countryside was rife with agrarian unrest; the Defenders, the Peep o' Day Boys, Steelboys, Blueshirts, etc. All running around killing each other based on religion and land ownershitp. Total fucking chaos.

A Fenian by the name of Michael Davitt proclaimed a rent strike and appealed to a Protestant landowner with Nationalistic leanings to help the cause of the poor agrairian Catholics who were in dire need of their own land to till and maintain so that another "famine" would not ensue. The man he appealled to was Charles Stewart Parnell who began a movement called the Land League who's main cause was to break up the great estates held by absentee landowners who didn't even live on the lands they owned and were clueless as to the state of the families that worked the land and had them evicted for not being able to pay their rents. This became the fundamental core of modern Irish Nationalism. Some Republicans joke that the name "Ireland" came about during this period, saying "it's when we finally told the Brits that this was our land, the accent made it sound like Ireland." Others say it's a reflection of the anger or ire that the Irish possessed over the fiasco of English meddling.

Parnell was also the man who became the forerunner of the Irish National Party, and through his constitutional efforts and rejection of reactionary violence, was dubbed "the Uncrowned King of Ireland". This in turn lead to a few half-hearted attempts by Gladstone's government in London to allow a degree of Irish Home Rule. Ulster Protestants would have none of that, and beginning in 1912, Ulstermen determined not to be at the mercy of the Catholic Church formed the Ulster Volunteer Force and began importing weapons and ammo and drilling openly. A little later that year, some 300,000 men signed the Ulster Covenant to re-enforce their stand against Home Rule. Ulster will fight, and Ulster will be right. No Surrender. And thus, the battle lines drawn.

A third Home Rule Bill was drawn-up, the British decided to put it on hold because World War I had begun. Many Irishmen proudly served in the British army and died believing that one this mess was over, Ireland would be free. However, quite a handful who didn't go to war in France staged a reblellion in Dublin Easter week, 1916. The Irish Republican Brotherhood (a holdover of the Fenains) and James Connelly's Irish Citizen's Army (which was organized to fight police and protect trade union interests) combined and styled themselves The Irish Republican Army. For a week they held off the British, but in the end, the leaders were executed and most of the others imprisoned for the next three years. During the 1919 elections, the Irish Republican Party, Sinn Fein, won by a landslide and chose not to take seats in Westminster and instead established the Dali , or the Irish Parliment. The Irish War of Indepenence had finally begun.

It was mostly guerrilla work. But it got the job done. There was none of that silly, senseless sectarian crap; the enemy was clearly defined. Michael Collins lead the army and was chosen to go to the negotiating table in London with Sinn Fein founder, Arthur Griffiths which lead to the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1921 under the British threat of "total and utter war". The Treaty established the Border and was the death sentance of Michael Collins whom Anti-Treaty IRA men now labelled a "traitor". The leader of the Anti-Treaty IRA, was a dispicible American asshole named Eammon deValera who later became Ireland's first president and did little more than mouth Republican philospohy. He later went so far as to ban the IRA, his own IRA. For the most part, the man was nothing more than a worhless figurehead of arrogance who would chime against the border. When World War II broke out, Churchill said if Ireland would side with the allies, and allow them the use of ports and airstrips, they would give Northern Ireland back. The whole mess could have been solved then. However, deValera refused and chose to remain "neutral".

Meanwhile, Catholics in Northern Ireland were still being treated as second-class citizens while Protestants were still being used by consecutive Conservative politicians in Britain as a political poker chip. Nothing was really going well for anyone there and what little progress that was being made leaned heavily on the side of the Protestants there.

Starting in 1966, things began to look pretty grim; it was to be the 50th anniversary of the Easter Rising and it was feared that a defunct, disbanded IRA would resume it's campaign of violence against the state. The Rev. Ian Paisley staged a protest demanding that the Irish Tri-colour be removed from the window of a Sinn Fen office on Divis Street, Belfast. When the offensive banner was forcibly removed by police, heavy rioting ensued. Militant Protestants grouped together and called themselves the Ulster Volunteer Force after the fellows who opposed Home Rule way back in 1912. They carried out a few bombings, trying to blame the IRA as well as a few sectarian murders.

In 1968, the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association staged a series of marches. It was predominately a catholic organization who were pushing for an end to discrimintation in the allotment of housing, employment and one man one vote. Like the Orange marches, these too became violent affairs. There was a strong Republican element as well as members of the Communist party involved in the NICRA and this infuriated the Unionists. Communists AND Republicans? What was happening to thier country? In response to a percieved growing Republican threat, many Protestants took to running thier Catholic neighbors from mixed housing estates, such as Rathcoole, in Belfast.

By 1969, everything had gotten completely out of hand; Protestant mobs were burning Catholics from their homes, the police did nothing to stop them. Everyone was running around totally ape-shit and rioting. So, the British Government sent in the army. It worked… for a little while. Until the Falls Road curfew or "The Rape of the Falls" showed the Catholics exactly who's side the army was on; then things got even uglier.

So, beginning in January of 1970, Belfast Catholics once again picked up the rifle and proclaimed themselves the Provisional IRA. Protestants in turn did the same to fight them in the form of the Ulster Defence Association. To date, there have been nearly 3700 people killed in an area about the size of the state of Conneticuit. To make a ratio comparison, if Northern Ireland were the size of the US, that would be about 50,000 deaths. Think about that before you decide to give one of the paramilitaries money. And so the story goes on and on.