IRELAND IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

But history is being made all the time, and this book begins with the Republic of Ireland as a wholly independent European nation, having the euro as its currency and possessing a stronger economy than at any previous time. Northern Ireland has the political machinery in place for devolved and democratic government, based on power-sharing between former antagonists, but is finding that mutual suspicion, and the urge to confrontation, take a very long time to subside. Lengthy resumptions of 'direct rule' from London have marked the early years of the century. So far, however, the new and tentative inter-governmental links between Belfast and Dublin have withstood the strains.

In 2005, something that had been evident for some time was acknowledged in official statistics – in terms of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) divided by the number of the population, Ireland was the second-richest member of the 25-nation European Union. Only tiny Luxembourg had a higher per-capita GDP Britain, Germany, France, all had been overtaken. How individual Irish people felt about themselves as Europe's wealthiest was another question. It was a still-new sensation: centuries of national self-examination had formed an accepted image of relative poverty and deprivation. The notorious referendum of 2001, when a majority of those voting (little more than a third of the electorate) opposed enlargement of the European Union, suggested a rather begrudging attitude to those countries who wanted to follow the same road to prosperity. But that verdict was overturned, to official relief, in 2002. Nevertheless a point had been made by the voters, to the government, to business and social leaders, and by extension to the commissioners and parliamentarians of the EU – do not take the people's assent for granted. Until 2002, Ireland had been a country that said 'Yes'. Since the mid-1960s it had been a valued supplier of troops for United Nations operations, its neutrality an asset in policing sensitive regions of the world. It had said ‘Yes’ to entry into Europe, to the Maastricht Treaty, and to the European Single Currency. But within the vast multi-national entity, the only way in which the inhabitants of a state with one per cent of the EU's population could assert themselves was by saying 'No'.

The government too had its difficulties with the EU. The Republic of Ireland's economy, the 'Celtic Tiger' to financial writers, had roared ahead to such a degree that its partners within the 'euro-zone', and the European Central Bank, were concerned enough to speak out publicly. Strong expressions were made about Ireland's rate of inflation, running above the European average and showing signs of increasing. The deficit on government spending was also a worry. By 2005 these aspects seemed to be more under control; to a new generation of politicians they were simply part and parcel of the life of the Neo-Ireland that they had grown up in since the 1970s.

These social and economic issues, integral to Ireland's future and yet whose resolutions lie beyond Ireland's boundaries, are bound into the two great themes of contemporary Irish history. The first of these themes is political, and has two strands: one is the achievement of a successful independent state (though bearing the continuing issue of full Irish unity), and the other is the maintenance, through many vicissitudes, of a separate sense of identity among a section of the population that strongly feels its own differences in 'heart and mind' to the almost equal number of its fellow-citizens in the six counties of Northern Ireland. The second theme is social: the emergence of a democratic society and its transition from cultural isolation and relative poverty behind a 'green curtain' to a degree of wealth, secularization and international involvement that would have strained a prophetic imagination even in the 1950s. In many of its aspects and effects, this development remains controversial, and no commentator on Irish society would call it pure 'progress'.

Irish History

1155 – King Henry II of England was made King of all Ireland by the Pope. There were still native Irish kings of parts of Ireland.

1541 – King Henry VIII of England, self-declared head of a new English Protestant church, was recognized as King of Ireland by the English parliament. Later, his daughter Elizabeth I broke the power of the Irish kings. She was afraid they would help Catholic Spain in its war against England.

1609 – In a further move against Irish Catholic, their land was given to tens of thousands of Protestants from England and the Scottish Landlords. Ulster (modern Northern Ireland) soon had more Protestants than Catholics.

1689 – The Dutch Protestant William of Orange had been invited by the English parliament to become King of England instead of the current king, James II, who was a Catholic. James still claimed to be King of Ireland, but the Protestants in Ulster fought against him.

1690 – William of Orange finally defeated James II in Ireland at the Battle of the Boyne. Since then there has been no Catholic king or queen in Britain.

1703 – By this time, only 14 per cent of Irish land was still owned by Catholics. In Ulster, Protestants owned 95 per cent of the land.

1800 – Act of Union between Great Britain and Ireland.

1845 – 1849 – The Great Famine. Repeated failure of Irish potato harvest caused death and suffering. Between 1840 and 1900, the population of Ireland fell from 8.5 million to 4.5 million. Two million people emigrated to the United States, Canada and Australia. In the same period, the population of England doubled (from 16 million to 32 million).

1916 – The Easter Rising. Irish nationalists rebelled during the First World War (1914 – 1918). Three years of bitter fighting followed. The Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein (Gaelic for "Ourselves alone") developed a military wing, the Irish Republican Army (IRA).

1922 – Partition of Ireland. The Catholic South became the Irish Free State (later the Irish Republic), with its parliament in Dublin. The Protestant North continued to be part of the United Kingdom, but with its own local parliament in Belfast.

1969 – The British Army was sent to Northern Ireland after disturbances between Protestants and Catholics.

1972 – Direct rule from London replaced the Northern Irish Parliament.

1985 – The Anglo-Irish Agreement was signed in Belfast, giving the government of the Republic of Ireland a part in the future of Northern Ireland.

Northern Ireland is the smallest component of the United Kingdom. It occupies northeast of the island of Ireland, only one-sixth of its territory. Northern Ireland contains six of the nine counties of the historic province of Ulster and that is why the name "Ulster" is sometimes used as equivalent to. Northern Ireland. Its capital city is Belfast.

If one asks an Irishman away from home what he misses most about Ireland, he will probably say "the greenness". Irish poets put it in a different way when they call Ireland "the Emerald Isle". Is the grass really greener in Ireland? The fact is that the winds usually blow in from the Atlantic Ocean and make the air and soil warm and damp, Grass grows well in such a climate and it makes the island look so beautiful.

There are low hills and peaks of rocks in the north-west, while the northeast sector of the island is a plateau. The Mourne Mountains in the southeast slope down to Lough Neagh, the largest lake in the British Isles. The rivers of Ireland are short, but deep. The largest river is the Shannon.

The population of Northern Ireland is about 1,5 million people. 53% of the total population lives in urban areas. The whole economy of Northern Ireland is closely integrated with that of Great Britain. It has its roots in 3 basic industries – agriculture, textiles and shipbuilding. The largest industry is agriculture conducted for the most part on small family farms. It occupies about 72 per cent of the land area.