Notes:
Ireland (Irish: Éire; IPA ˈeːrʲə) is a country in north-western Europe. The modern sovereign state occupies five-sixths of the island of Ireland, which was partitioned in 1921. It is bordered by Northern Ireland (part of the United Kingdom) to the north, by the Atlantic Ocean to the west and by the Irish Sea to the east. The term Republic of Ireland (Irish: Poblacht na hÉireann) is officially used as "the description of the State."
Name
Bunreacht na hÉireann (Irish), the constitution of Ireland, provides that "the name of the state is Éire, or, in the English language, 'Ireland'." The state is also described as the "Republic of Ireland", in order to distinguish it from the islaland of Ireland and from Northern Ireland. The Republic of Ireland Act defined Republic of Ireland as the description of the state in 1949 (the purpose of the act being to declare that the state was a republic rather than a form of constitutionaal monarchy). However, because this was a statutory provision, the constitutional name of "Ireland" remains the official name of the state, whilst "Republic of Ireland" is a description of the state. The form Ireland is used for official purposeses in English language documents such as treaties, government and legal documents, and membership of international organisations:, the form Éire is used when these are Irish language documents. However with Irish being named the European Union's twenty-third official language in 2007, the state will be referred to in both constitutional official languages, the Irish and English languages, similarly to other countries such as Finland and Belgium using more than one language at EU levelel. This means the label 'Éire-Ireland' will be used on various signage and nameplates referring to the state. The state is also known by other names in English, such as Éire, The Free State and the Twenty-six Counties. Occasionally in the United Kingdom the state is referred to incorrectly as Southern Ireland, this term was only used officially for a brief period in Irish history: Irish people generally understand the phrase "southern Ireland" to mean Munster. Northern Irish people sometimes refer to the state as "The South" - it is not uncommon to hear Northern Irish people talking about going "down south".
The state has had more than one official title. The all-island revolutionary state, declared in 1919 by the large majority of Irish Members of (the United Kingdom) Parliament elected in 1918, was known as the "Irish Republic"; when the present smaller state achieved de jure independence in 1922, it became known as the "Irish Free State" (in the Irish language Saorstát Éireann), a name that was retained until 1937.
History
The state known today as Ireland came into being when 26 of the counties of Ireland seceded from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (UK) in 1922. The remaining six counties remained within the UK as Northern Ireland. This action, known as the Partition of Ireland, came about because of complex constitutional developments in the early twentieth century.
It was preceded by the Easter Rising of 1916, when Irish volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army took over sites in Dublin and Galway under terms expressed in the Proclamation of the Irish Republic. The seven signatories of this proclamation, Patrick Pearse, Thomas MacDonagh, Thomas Clarke, Sean MacDiarmada, Joseph Plunkett, Eamonn Ceannt and James Connolly, were executed, along with nine others, and thousands were interned precipitating the Irish War of Independence.
From 1 January 1801 until 6 December 1922, Ireland had been part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. During the Great Famine from 1845 to 1849 the island's population of over 8 million fell by 30 percent. One million Irish died of starvation and another 1.5 million emigrated, which set the pattern of emigration for the century to come and would result in a constant decline up to the 1960s. From 1874, but particularly from 1880 under Charles Stewart Parnell, the Irish Parliamentary Party moved to prominence with its attempts to achieve Home Rule, which would have given all of Ireland some autonomy without requiring it to leave the United Kingdom. It seemed possible in 1911 when the House of Lords lost their vetto, and John Redmond secured the Third Home Rule Act 1914. The unionist movement, however, had been growing since 1886 among Irish Protestants, fearing that they would face discrimination and lose economic and social privileges if Irish Catholics were to achieve real political power. Though Irish unionism existed throughout the whole of Ireland, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century unionism was particularly strong in parts of Ulster, where industrialisation was more common in contrast to the more agrarian rest of the island. (Any tariff barriers would, it was feared, most heavily hit that region.) In addition, the Protestant population was more strongly located in Ulster, with unionist majorities existing in about four counties. Under the leadership of the Dublin-born Sir Edward Carson and the northerner Sir James Craig they became more militant. In 1914, to avoid rebellion in Ulster, the British Prime Minister H. H. Asquith, with agreement of the Irish Party leadership, inserted a clause into the bill providing for home rule for 26 of the 32 counties, with an as of yet undecided new set of measures to be introduced for the area temporarily excluded. Though it received the Royal Assent, the Third Home Rule Act 1914's implementation was suspended until after the Great War. (The war at that stage was expected to be ended by 1915, not the four years it did ultimately last.) For the prior reasons of ensuring the implementation of the Act at the end of the war Redmond and his Irish National Volunteers supported the Allied cause, and tens of thousands joined battalions of the 10th and 16th (Irish) Divisions of the New British Army.
In January 1919, after the December 1918 general elections, 73 of Ireland's 106 MPs elected were Sinn Féin members who refused to take their seats in the British House of Commons. Instead, they set up an extra-legal Irish parliament called Dáil Éireann. This Dáil in January 1919 issued a Unilateral Declaration of Independence and proclaimed an Irish Republic. The Declaration was mainly a restatement of the 1916 Proclamation with the additional provision that Ireland was no longer a p part of the United Kingdom. Despite this, the new Irish Republic remained unrecognised internationally except by Lenin's Russian Republic. Nevertheless the Republic's Aireacht (ministry) sent a delegation under Ceann Comhairle Seán T. O'Kelly to the Paris Peace Conference, 1919, but it was not admitted.
After the bitterly fought War of Independence, representatives of the British government and the Irish treaty delegates, led by Arthur Griffith, Robert Barton and Michael Collins negotiated the Anglo-Irish Treaty in London from October 11th -6th December 1921. The Irish delegates set up headquarters at Hans Place in Knightsbridge and it was here in private discussions that the decision was taken at 11.15am on 5th December to recommend the Treaty to Dáil Éireann. Under the Treaty the British agreed to the establishment of an independent Irish State whereby the Irish Free State (in the Irish language Saorstát Éireann) with dominion status was created. The Dáil Éireann narrowly ratified the treaty.
The Treaty was not entirely satisfactory to either side. It gave more concessions to the Irish than the British had intended to give but did not go far enough to satisfy republican aspirations. The new Irish Free State was in theory to cover the entire island, subject to the proviso that six counties in the north-east, termed "Northern Ireland" (which had been created as a separate entity under the Government of Ireland Act 1920) could opt out and choose to remain part of the United Kingdom, which they duly did. The remaining twenty-six counties became the Irish Free State, a constitutional monarchy over which the British monarch reigned (from 1927 with the title King of Ireland). It had a Governor-General, a bicameral parliament, a cabinet called the "Executive Council" and a prime minister called the President of the Executive Council.
The Irish Civil War was the direct consequence of the creation of the Irish Free State. Anti-Treaty forces, led by Éamon de Valera, objected to the fact that acceptance of the Treaty abolished the Irish Republic of 1919 to which they had sworn l loyalty, arguing in the face of public support for the settlement that the "people have no right to do wrong". They objected most to the fact that the state would remain part of the British Commonwealth and that Teachtaí Dála would have to swear an oath of fidelity to King George V and his successors. Pro-Treaty forces, led by Michael Collins, argued that the Treaty gave "not the ultimate freedom that all nations aspire to and develop, but the freedom to achieve it".
At the start of the war, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) split into two opposing camps: a pro-treaty IRA and an anti-treaty IRA. The pro-Treaty IRA became part of the new National Army. However, through the lack of an effective command structure in the anti-Treaty IRA, and their defensive tactics throughout the war, Collins and his pro-treaty forces were able to build up an army capable of overwhelming the anti-Treatyists. British supplies of artillery, aircraft, machine-guns and ammunition boosted pro-treaty forces, and the threat of a return of Crown forces to the Free State removed any doubts about the necessity of enforcing the treaty. The lack of public support for the anti-treaty Irregulars, and the determination of the government to overcome them, contributed significantly to their defeat.
The National Army suffered 800 fatalities and perhaps as many as 4,000 people were killed altogether. As their forces retreated, the Irregulars showed a major talent for destruction and the economy of the Free State suffered a hard blow in the earliest days of its existence.
On 29 December 1937, a new constitution, the Constitution of Ireland, came into force. It replaced the Irish Free State by a new state called simply "Ireland". Though this state's constitutional structures provided for a President of Ireland instead of a king, it was not technically a republic; the principal key role possessed by a head of state, that of symbolically representing the state internationally remained vested, in statute law, in the King as an organ.
The Irish state remained neutral during World War II, a period it described as The Emergency.
On 21 December 1948, the Republic of Ireland Act declared a republic, with the functions previously given to the Governor-General acting on the behalf of the King given instead to the President of Ireland.
The Irish state had remained a member of the then-British Commonwealth after independence until the declaration of a republic on 18 April 1949. Under Commonwealth rules declaration of a republic automatically terminated membership of the association; since a reapplication for membership was not made, Ireland consequently ceased to be a member.
The Republic of Ireland joined the United Nations in 1955 and the European Community (now the European Union) in 1973. Irish governments have sought the peaceful reunification of Ireland and have usually cooperated with the British government in the violent conflict involving many paramilitaries and the British Army in Northern Ireland known as "The Troubles". A peace settlement for Northern Ireland, the Belfast Agreement, was approved in 1998 in referendums north and south of the border, and is currently being implemented.
Politics
Matches 1 to 29 of 29
Matches 1 to 4 of 4
Last Name, Given Name(s) | Death | Person ID | Tree | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Fenton, Patrick | 1847 | Éire | I451625 | Veenkoloniale voorouders |
2 | Goldbogen, Michael | Sunday 05 May 2002 | Éire | I671298 | Veenkoloniale voorouders |
3 | Hayes, Thomas | Date unknown | Éire | I166677 | Veenkoloniale voorouders |
4 | Mountbatten, Louis Francis Albert VIctor Nicholas | Monday 27 August 1979 | Éire | I691752 | Veenkoloniale voorouders |
Matches 1 to 2 of 2
Family | Marriage | Family ID | Tree | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | McGarry / Diffley | 1840 | Éire | F174616 | Veenkoloniale voorouders |
2 | McGarry / McDermott | 1811 | Éire | F174617 | Veenkoloniale voorouders |
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