History.ire.dates

Front 1

1169

Back 1

Normans land in Ireland, seize Wexford, and in the following year capture Waterford and Dublin

Front 2

1171

Back 2

Henry II, the king of England, summons the Irish and Norman lords to do homage to him in Dublin

Front 3

1297

Back 3

The English government in Dublin calls a parliament on the lines of England's recent Model Parliament

Front 4

1306

Back 4

Robert de Bruce, in hiding on the island of Rathlin, is supposedly given a lesson in perseverance by a spider

Front 5

1316

Back 5

Edward Bruce is crowned king of Ireland at Dundalk, but his uprising ends two years later when he is killed in battle with the English

Front 6

1487

Back 6

Lambert Simnel, supposedly a nephew of Edward IV, is crowned in Dublin - but ends up working in the royal kitchens of Henry VII

Front 7

1607

Back 7

The earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnel sail from Ireland with their families, in the event known as the Flight of the Earls

Front 8

1649

Back 8

Cromwell captures the royalist stronghold of Drogheda and massacres some 2800 people

Front 9

1650

Back 9

James Ussher, archbishop of Armagh, calculates that creation began on Sunday, October 23, 4004 BC

Front 10

1658

Back 10

Parliamentary reprisals against the rebellious Irish result in two thirds of Ireland's land being owned by the English or the Scots

Front 11

1689

Back 11

James II, landing in Ireland, is acclaimed as king in Dublin by enthusiastic Irish Catholics

Front 12

1690

Back 12

The armies of James II and William III confront each at the river Boyne, with victory going to William

Front 13

1704

Back 13

In the years after the battle of the Boyne, Catholic ownership of land in Ireland is reduced to just 14% of the total

Front 14

1766

Back 14

Irish novelist Oliver Goldsmith publishes The Vicar of Wakefield, with a hero who has much to complain about but keeps calm

Front 15

1790

Back 15

Anglo-Irish politician Edmund Burke publishes Reflections on the Revolution in France, a blistering attack on recent events across the Channel

Front 16

1791

Back 16

Wolfe Tone is one of the founders in Belfast of the Society of United Irishmen

Front 17

1795

Back 17

A secret Protestant group, the Orange Society, is formed in Co. Armagh to resist Irish nationalism

Front 18

1796

Back 18

Irish nationalist Wolfe Tone sails from France to invade Ireland with a force of 14,000 French soldiers

Front 19

1798

Back 19

Irish nationalist Wolfe Tone, convicted of treason for his failed invasion, cuts his throat to cheat the British gallows

Front 20

1801

Back 20

The Act of Union comes into effect, linking Ireland with Britain to form the United Kingdom

Front 21

1803

Back 21

The uprising by Irish nationalist Robert Emmet ends in disaster when he marches on Dublin with only about 100 men

Front 22

1814

Back 22

Robert Peel, chief secretary for Ireland, introduces a police force soon known as the 'Peelers'

Front 23

1823

Back 23

Daniel O'Connell organizes Catholic Associations throughout Ireland, funded by the members' penny subscriptions

Front 24

1828

Back 24

Irish nationalist Daniel O'Connell wins a sensational by-election victory to join the Westminster parliament

Front 25

1838

Back 25

An Irish packet steamer, the Sirius, becomes the first steamship to cross the Atlantic, completing the journey in 19 days

Front 26

1842

Back 26

Irish nationalist Daniel O'Connell pioneers mass political demonstrations, which become known as 'monster meetings'

Front 27

1843

Back 27

Daniel O'Connell is convicted of seditious conspiracy and is sentenced to prison

Front 28

1844

Back 28

Daniel O'Connell is acquitted on appeal and released from prison

Front 29

1845

Back 29

A blight destroys the potato crop in Ireland and causes what becomes known as the Great Famine

Front 30

1869

Back 30

British prime minister William Gladstone introduces a bill to disestablish the Anglican church in Ireland

Front 31

1870

Back 31

Isaac Butt, an Irish MP at Westminster, founds the Home Rule association

Front 32

1875

Back 32

Charles Stewart Parnell takes his seat in the House of Commons at Westminster and immediately adds zest to the campaign for Home Rule

Front 33

1879

Back 33

The ancient Irish game of hurling is formalized by the newly founded Irish Hurling Union

Front 34

1882

Back 34

Irish chief secretary Lord Frederick Cavendish and a colleague are assassinated in Phoenix Park in Dublin

Front 35

1884

Back 35

The Gaelic Athletic Association is founded in Ireland to promote indigenous games such as hurling

Front 36

1889

Back 36

Charles Steward Parnell is cited as co-respondent in a divorce case brought against Kitty O'Shea

Front 37

1892

Back 37

W.B. Yeats founds the National Literary Society in Dublin, with Douglas Hyde as its first president

Front 38

1893

Back 38

The Gaelic League is founded to restore the use of Gaelic as Ireland's spoken language

Front 39

1900

Back 39

The Irish Parliamentary Party, which split after the Parnell divorce case, reunites under the leadership of John Redmond

Front 40

1902

Back 40

Irish politician Arthur Griffith launches Sinn Fein, as an organization campaigning for a strong and independent Ireland

Front 41

1903

Back 41

Erskine Childers has a best-seller in The Riddle of the Sands, a thriller about a planned German invasion of Britain

Front 42

1904

Back 42

Dublin's Abbey Theatre opens as a new home for the Irish National Theatre Society

Front 43

1905

Back 43

The Ulster Unionist Party is founded in Belfast to oppose Home Rule

Front 44

1910

Back 44

Edward Carson, previously a prominent Conservative politician at Westminster, becomes leader of the Ulster Unionist party

Front 45

1911

Back 45

Edward Carson tells a vast crowd in Northern Ireland that they must be ready to defend their Protestant province by force

Front 46

1912

Back 46

Half a million Unionist men and women in Belfast commit themselves to civil disobedience if Home Rule government is established in Ireland

Front 47

1913

Back 47

The Irish National Volunteers are formed in Dublin, in response to the Protestant equivalent in Ulster

Front 48

1914

Back 48

British officers stationed at the Curragh in Dublin say they would resign if ordered to quell Protestant resistance in Ulster

Front 49

1914

Back 49

A Home Rule Act is finally passed for Ireland, with its implementation postponed until after the war

Front 50

1916

Back 50

The occupation of the General Post Office in Dublin marks the beginning of the Easter Rising

Front 51

1916

Back 51

The rebel leader Patrick Pearse stands under the portico of Dublin's General Post Office to announce the birth of the Irish republic

Front 52

1916

Back 52

Roger Casement is arrested after returning secretly to Ireland three days before the Easter Rising

Front 53

1916

Back 53

Eamon de Valera comes to prominence as one of the republican leaders in the Easter Rising

Front 54

1916

Back 54

Patrick Pearse and his fellow Irish rebel James Connolly are executed by firing squad

Front 55

1917

Back 55

Eamon de Valera, newly released from prison, is elected to lead Sinn Fein

Front 56

1918

Back 56

The British viceroy in Dublin imprisons 73 Sinn Fein leaders, including Eamon de Valera, on allegations of a German plot

Front 57

1918

Back 57

Countess Markiewicz, an Irish republican, is elected a member of Britain's House of Commons but refuses to take her seat

Front 58

1919

Back 58

The Sinn Fein members elected to Westminster establish their own parliament in Dublin, the Dáil Eireann (Assembly of Ireland), soon declared illegal by Britain

Front 59

1919

Back 59

The armed supporters of Sinn Fein become the IRA, or Irish Republican Army, in Ireland's war of independence

Front 60

1919

Back 60

Michael Collins springs de Valera from Lincoln gaol, with the help of a duplicate key

Front 61

1919

Back 61

John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown fly from St John's in Newfoundland to Clifden in Ireland

Front 62

1920

Back 62

The Government of Ireland Act provides for separate devolved parliaments in southern Ireland and the six counties of Ulster

Front 63

1920

Back 63

The brutal behaviour of the British police reinforcements, the Black and Tans, aggravates the violence in Ireland

Front 64

1920

Back 64

The IRA and the British security forces clash during a violent 'Bloody Sunday' in Dublin

Front 65

1921

Back 65

James Craig succeeds Edward Carson as leader of the Ulster Unionist party in northern Ireland

Front 66

1921

Back 66

The republican party Sinn Fein is unopposed in southern Ireland's first general election, and so wins every available seat in the Dail

Front 67

1921

Back 67

Lord Lieutenant of Ireland appoints James Craig the first prime minister of the new N.Ireland Parliament . Parliament of N.Ireland convenes for the first time James Craig (laterLordCraigavon) begins a 19-year term as prime minister of the new province of Northern Ireland

Front 68

1921

Back 68

The Anglo-Irish Treaty, agreed in London, ends the war between the British army and the IRA

Front 69

1921

Back 69

de Valera repudiates it and resigns as president of the Dáil

Front 70

1922

Back 70

James Joyce's novel Ulysses is published in Paris, by Sylvia Beach, because of censorship problems elsewhere

Front 71

1922

Back 71

Bitter war breaks out between factions of the IRA supporting and opposing the Anglo-Irish Treaty

Front 72

1922

Back 72

The Irish Free State takes stringent measures against rebel terrorism, making possession even of a pistol a capital offence

Front 73

1922

Back 73

With the ratification of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, the 26 counties of southern Ireland formally become the Irish Free State

Front 74

1922

Back 74

After Michael Collins is killed in an ambush, William Cosgrave and Kevin O'Higgins emerge as leaders of the Irish Free State

Front 75

1922

Back 75

William Thomas Cosgrave becomes the first prime minister of the Irish Free State

Front 76

1923

Back 76

De Valera and the IRA lay down their arms, bringing to an end the Irish civil war

Front 77

1926

Back 77

Eamon de Valera's faction, Fianna Fáil (Warriors of Ireland), enters mainstream Irish life as a political party

Front 78

1927

Back 78

Irish Free State president Kevin O'Higgins is murdered by members of the IRA on his way to mass

Front 79

1927

Back 79

De Valera and his party, the Fianna Fáil, finally take their seats in the Dáil

Front 80

1930

Back 80

The Irish National War Memorial opens in Dublin, designed by Edwin Lutyens in a garden setting

Front 81

1931

Back 81

The Irish government classifies the Irish Republican Army as an illegal organization

Front 82

1932

Back 82

US aviator Amelia Earhart lands in Ireland 15 hours after leaving Newfoundland, to become the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic

Front 83

1932

Back 83

Fianna Fáil wins enough seats in the Irish Free State's election for Eamon de Valera to form a government

Front 84

1932

Back 84

De Valera withholds farmers' annuities from Britain, provoking British tariffs and a trade war

Front 85

1933

Back 85

Fine Gael is the name given to a new political party in Ireland, formed by the merger of several smaller groups

Front 86

1937

Back 86

De Valera introduces a new constitution, changing the name of the Irish Free State to Eire (Gaelic for Ireland)

Front 87

1939

Back 87

De Valera declares that Eire will be neutral in any forthcoming European war

Front 88

1939

Back 88

A German U-boat sinks the British aircraft carrier Courageous off the coast of Ireland

Front 89

1943

Back 89

Basil Brooke begins an unbroken 20-year period in office as Unionist prime minister of northern Ireland

Front 90

1949

Back 90

Eire is renamed the republic of Ireland and withdraws from the Commonwealth, severing the last link with the British crown

Front 91

1957

Back 91

De Valera takes stringent measures against the IRA and Sinn Fein, detaining activists in an internment camp

Front 92

1959

Back 92

On the retirement of de Valera, Sean Lemass succeeds him as leader of Fianna F´il and prime minister of Ireland

Front 93

1963

Back 93

Terence O'Neill succeeds Basil Brooke (Lord Brookeborough) as Northern Ireland's prime minister

Front 94

1968

Back 94

The first civil rights march in northern Ireland, in Derry, is halted by the police with batons and water cannon

Front 95

1969

Back 95

The Provisional IRA reintroduces terrorism to northern Ireland after Protestants attack a civil rights march

Front 96

1970

Back 96

The Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) is formed in northern Ireland as a coalition of Catholic nationalists and civil-rights campaigners

Front 97

1971

Back 97

Ian Paisley and others in northern Ireland form the Democratic Unionist Party, as the intransigent wing of Ulster Unionism

Front 98

1971

Back 98

Gerry Adams is imprisoned for suspected IRA links but is released for lack of evidence

Front 99

1972

Back 99

British paratroops open fire on a civil rights march in Derry, killing thirteen, in what becomes known as Bloody Sunday

Front 100

1973

Back 100

Prime minister Jack Lynch leads Ireland into the European Community

Front 101

1975

Back 101

Excavation of the 5200-year-old passage grave at Newgrange in Ireland is completed

Front 102

1979

Back 102

Lord Mountbatten is killed by an IRA bomb that explodes on his boat in the bay of Donegal

Front 103

1984

Back 103

Republican activist Gerry Adams is elected president of Sinn Fein

Front 104

1985

Back 104

Britain's Margaret Thatcher and Ireland's Garret FitzGerald sign an Anglo-Irish Agreement to tackle shared problems

Front 105

1990

Back 105

Mary Robinson is elected president of the republic of Ireland, the first woman to hold the

Front 106

1993

Back 106

UK and Irish premiers John Major and Albert Reynolds sign the Downing Street Declaration, a strategy for peace in Nothern Ireland

Front 107

1994

Back 107

The IRA declares a cease-fire in Northern Ireland, a gesture followed a month later by Protestant paramilitaries