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700 BCE
The Celts came to Ireland
The Celts brought their advanced culture with them. Then, the Celts were very fierce and defeated the native population easily. -
400
The Celts brought people
The Celts needed slaves to work their land. They sent ships across to Britain, captured people from there and brought them back to Ireland. -
800
The Vikings invaded Ireland
The Vikings built settlements and these later became important cities like Dublin, Cork and Limerick. The Vikings soon became part of the population of Ireland. -
1169
The English invaded Ireland
The English invaded Ireland and also integrated into the Irish population. -
The English King sent English farmers
The English King, James I, sent Protestant English farmers to Ireland to take the land from Catholic farmers. The Irish Catholics became tenants on their land. Now, instead of owning the land, they paid rent to the English owners. -
The British Parliament abolished the Irish Parliament
The British Parliament abolished the Irish Parliament and governed Ireland themselves. Many areas weren't happy about it. -
Period: to
The starvation
A fungus infected the potato crop and the potatoes started to decompose. The farm workers had nothing to eat and more than one million people die from starvation. Most of the English landowners didn't really care about their farm workers. Once they saw that their tenants couldn't paid their debts, they evicted them and demolished their houses. -
Easter Rebellion
About 1,600 Irish rebels took possession of some important public buildings. One of the leaders, Patrick Pearse, stood on the steps of the General Post Office and read the Proclamation of the Republic, calling for total independence from Britain. They were fighting the powerful British army. In this fight died a total of 1,350 people. -
The End of the War
The war ended, with a treaty dividing Ireland into two parts. Six countries in Northern Ireland remained under British control because they wanted this. The rest became the Irish Free State (later, the Republic of Ireland). -
Period: to
The Troubles
The situation in Northern Ireland was complicated. The Protestants there discriminated against the Catholic minority. Protestants got jobs and social benefits, like subsidised housing, before Catholics. As a result of the discrimination many Catholics in Northern Ireland wanted to unite with the rest of Ireland