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Ireland’s appeal to tourists is clear. There’s the fantastic capital city, Dublin, bound in rich layers of history and now overflowing with trendy bars and nightclubs. Beyond, there are mountains, heather moors, coastline, valleys, waterfalls and lakes, dotted with prehistoric and religious sites and a wealth of dramatic castles.
The most enduring features of the history of Ireland are, firstly, an unswerving commitment to Catholicism, the origins of which can be traced back to the pioneering
monastic orders of the fifth and sixth centuries. Secondly, the frequent instability governing Anglo-Irish relations: Ireland was never so fully conquered that it absorbed the culture and way of life of its larger neighbour.
After the monastic age, Viking invaders built heavily fortified ports, laying the foundations of some major Irish cities. War between Irish chieftains and
Vikings first led to the involvement of the English. Richard of Clare, Earl of Pembroke (nicknamed Strongbow), was invited
by one of the chieftains to support his claims, but instead conquered almost the entire country in 1169-70. Many Norman families
moved across the Irish Sea, effectively colonising the country.
The turbulent and increasingly polarised political life of Ireland took a new and bitter twist after the English Civil War, when the Irish rose in favour of the deposed monarchy
in 1649. The victorious Oliver Cromwell ruthlessly put down the rebellion. All Catholic land was expropriated and given to a new wave of Protestant immigrants.
The subsequent Act of Union, passed in 1801, incorporated the whole of Ireland, along with England, Scotland and Wales, into the UK. However, the grossly
inadequate response of the government to the potato famine of 1845/6, which decimated the Irish population through death and emigration, highlighted its lack of interest in the welfare
of the Irish people.
Various independence movements struggled until Home Rule was granted in 1920. The terms of independence partitioned Ireland into two parts because, in the northern provinces, mostly Protestants settlements fiercely opposed being ruled by
a government drawn from a Catholic majority. Six of the nine counties of the historic province of Ulster therefore remained
in the UK; the other 26 counties became the Irish Free State, given full sovereignty within the Commonwealth in 1937, and
remaining links with Britain dissolved.
In 1973, Ireland became a member of (as it then was) the EEC and adopted the Euro in 2002. European membership has proved to be of huge economic benefit.
Yet certain issues still dominate the political agenda. The first concerns the orthodox morality of the Catholic Church; abortion
contentiously remains illegal, despite divorce being legalised after a referendum in 1995. Equally contentious is the future
of Northern Ireland. Ironically, for now, the Republic is more prosperous than the North, and the Irish are happy to forget
any troubles with some good, hearty craic.
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