Irish history Essay

Rose Fitzgerald wife of Joseph Kennedy, Sr. and matriarch of a U. S. political dynasty was born of a proud Boston Irish family. Her closing curtain name however betrays origins that were other than Irish. In fact, the name Fitz-Gerald indicates that her firstly Irish ancestor to bear that name was the son of a Norman sawhorse or nobleman who was begotten in the wrong bed, so to speak. Irish legends say that the island had been invaded several clippings before the arrival of the Celts around 250 B.C. E. (Austin, 2007). In historical times however, Ireland was virtually untouched for centuries Romans never got to the island, nor did the too soonish Germanic invaders that turned Romano-Celtic Britain into England starting around 450 C. E. By the time of the first Viking raid just about 350 years later, the Celtic inhabitants of Ireland had kept up(p) their unique and ancient Celtic destination and language in a pure form for nearly a millennium.Even Christianity didnt stoma ch a huge final result on the core culture, and in that respect is evidence that suggests whatsoever druidic practices were integrated into early Celtic Christianity, which differed significantly from Roman Catholicism prior to the Council of Whitby (Griffin, 2000). Interestingly, Celtic languages historically are lost in the face of an invasion by a more aggressive culture. The Celtic language of Gaul was al intimately on the whole replaced by Latin, and in the face of Germanic invaders from the Continent, Brythonic (Welsh and Cornish) and Scots Gaelic withdraw into the mountainous fringe of Britain.However, Scandinavians (from whom Normans were descended) invading Gaelic-speaking Ireland lastly wound up adopting the language and the culture. This is probably due less to the durability of Irish culture than it is to Scandinavian adaptability. Wherever Scandinavian Vikings conquered and sett direct from Russia to Normandy, or around the Mediterranean they in conclusion becam e assimilated by the culture and language of those they had conquered.In the case of the early Norsemen, political conquest and colonization of Ireland was not a primary goal. For the first two centuries, raids were conducted for the purpose of booty. Only later, starting in the tenth century, did Norse Vikings begin building their port cities Dublin, Wexford, Waterford and Cork and begin to settle in. The purposes of the towns were to exercise as bases from which raids on England could be launched.Archaeological evidence suggests that over the future(a) two centuries, the Norse who started to sp tape out into the countryside around their towns were heavily Hibernicized (Oxford Companion, 1999). In the case of the Anglo-Normans however, there were additional factors political, social and environmental that led to the origin of their dominance and subsequent assimilation into Irish culture. The first Anglo-Normans in Ireland real arrived as mercenaries two years prior to the official date of 1169.They had been hire by the ousted King of Leinster, Dermot MacMurrough in order to reclaim his throne. At the time, their was a great deal of internecine warfare in Ireland at the time over the throne and title of High King, providing what was basically an opportunity for the red cent offspring of Norman knights who otherwise would remain landless. Anglo-Norman intervention began in impetuous with the arrival of over five deoxycytidine monophosphate fighters between May of 1169 and marvellous of 1170 (Oxford Companion, 17).Eventually and despite attempted intervention (with papal blessing) on the persona of King Henry II, Norman families such(prenominal) as Le Gros, Prendergast, FitzStephen, FitzGerald, FitzHenry and Le Poer had secured virtual kingdoms for themselves by 1200 (Wikipedia, 2007). Events in Ireland during the early 13th Century eventually led to the dissolution of these Norman principalities as the inwrought Gaelic-speaking Irish began to reassert themselves. Part of the reduction of Norman influence in Ireland had to do with inheritance laws land was divided among all sons, not just the eldest, which led to the reduction in size and fountain of Norman lands.Periodic famines similarly served to reduce Norman power in Ireland. Over the next hundred and fifty years, two additional events led to the decline of Norman power in Ireland. First was the invasion of Scottish king Edward Bruce, who rallied the Gaelic splendor against the Sassunach. The other was the Black Death 0f 1347-1350. This plague reduced the population of atomic number 63 by a third. Urban dwellers such as the Anglo-Normans of Ireland were affected in much greater numbers than those living in the countryside, which was the case of Gaelic-speaking Irish.As the side of meat-controlled areas became confined to the lands in and around Dublin (called The Pale), the Hiberno-Norman lords in the hinterlands began to adopt the Irish language, allying thems elves with the native Irish in politics and warfare, and remained Catholic despite the Reformation (Barry, 1988) . This process of Hibernicization was well underway by 1400 it so troubled the English authorities in Dublin that they passed laws in 1367 in an attempt to stop those of English (Norman) descent from intermarrying with the Irish and adopting the language and culture.The statutes had undersize effect, however because of the Dublin governments limited authority after-school(prenominal) of The Pale. Archaeological evidence of Norman occupation of the Irish countryside includes the remains of m any mottes, or remains of castles, scattered throughout the country. However, there are about places where Normans are indicated to induct lived in written records such as the Irish Annals, where remains of these mottes are not found. It is possible that ringworks earthen forts may have been present in these areas (McNeill, 1999).An archaeological dig at Caherguillamore in Count y Limerick sheds some light on daily life in Ireland during the late philia Ages. The construction and layout of the houses discovered in this area is similar to those on feudalistic Norman manors one would expect to find in France and England (Barry, 1988). They appear to be long houses with a central hearth, typical of Scandinavian construction which Normans retained long after becoming culturally and linguistically French.A hit found at the site from the reign of Edward I dates the houses construction to the decades on either side of 1300. There does not appear to have been any sort of genre as Norman-Irish or Norman-Gaelic literature, although the latter term was employ in the 1940s by Austin Clarke to describe poetry such as Feuch fein an obair-se a Aodh , which, while strongly Irish in its pendent matter and structure, bears some resemblance to the courtly love poems of the French troubadours, which whom most Norman nobility would have had some familiarity with (Carney, 1 955).This cross-pollination seems to have gone both(prenominal) ways Bebedeits Voyage of Saint Brendan, dedicated to the wives of Henry I, was competent from the Irish saga Navigatio Sanctis Brendani, an account of what may have been an early Irish excursion to North America in the 5th Century (Harper-Bill, 2003). Beyond this, there is little in the way of true Anglo-Norman-Irish literature or prose. correspond to an article in The Cambridge History of English and American writings, there were trio reasons for this. First of all, the vernacular language of Ireland Irish Gaelic was difficult for English speakers then as now, and very few inside The Pale would have bothered to learn it. Secondly, those Norman-English living within The Pale were busy laborious to hold on to what they had in the face of rebellion by the native Gaels.The Third reason has to do with the entire assimilation issue scattered from their kinsmen in England and on the Continent, surrounded by native Ir ish speakers, it was unavoidable that the Anglo Normans living outside The Pale should be drawn away from the Anglo-French literary traditions and into the Irish Gaelic forms (Bartleby, 2005). The Scandinavian influence powericularly that of the Normans on European history can hardly be underestimated. The Vikings and their Norman descendants were a dynamic people who, for all their violent ways, created energetic societies wherever they went.Had William the conqueror failed in 1066, English would presently sound a great ilk Dutch or German, and the socio-political landscape would look very different today. This power may be exactly what has allowed Irish culture to survive, despite seven-spot centuries of what was often harsh, cruel and even murderous oppression on the part of the Protestant English beginning around 1600. This vigorous culture was ultimately transplanted to the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. In the U. S. especially, people of Irish descent read like a Whos Who of American history.The fact that the Irish who came to the U. S. who were ab initio despised and discriminated against violently eventually rose to prominence and produced some of the superlative political leaders and literary figures in the nation owe their talent in part to the contribution of Scandinavians and their Anglo-Norman descendants. Works Cited The Cambridge History of English and American Literature. (190721). (Vol. XIV). The Oxford Companion to Irish History. (1999). ).Oxford Oxford University Press A Companion To The Anglo Norman World.(2003). ). Suffolk Boydell Press. Norman Ireland. (2007). Wikipedia. Retrieved 2 April 2007, from http//en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Norman_Ireland Barry, T. B. (1988). The Archaeology of Medieval Ireland. London Routledge. Carney, J. (1955). Studies in Irish Literature and History. Dublin Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies. Griffith, P. (2000). Celtic Cross Development. Retrieved 2 April 2007, from http//www. bluhorizonlines. org/cros/cros2. html Mcneill, T. (1999). Castles in Ireland Feudal Power in a Gaelic World. London Routledge.