B.C.

6000--Human settlement may have begun in Ireland.

6000-2000--Stone Age tomb builders and farmers.

700--Bronze Age

400--About the year that the Celts arrived in Ireland.

A.D.

380-405--Niall of the Nine Hostages, an important High King, ruled. He was reputed to have built five roads, all of which led to Tara, the Celtic capital of Ireland, at that time.

390--Approximately the year that Saint Patrick was born.

405--Approximately the year that Saint Patrick was captured by a raiding party, sent by Niall of the Nine Hostages, to work as a slave in Northern Ireland. He was a slave for six years. During this time he became very religious.

400--O’Neill family begin rule in Ulster

432--About this time St. Patrick arrives in Ireland to teach Christianity. Also the beginning of the Golden Age in Ireland.

461--St. Patrick dies on March the 17th.

795--Vikings invade Ireland.

914--Vikings established settlements at Waterford.

916--Vikings established settlements at Dublin.

920--Vikings established settlements at Limerick.

940--Brian Boru was born. Son of a leader of one of the royal free tribes of Munster.

976 Brian succeeded his brother Mahon, as King of Munster until 1014.

1002--Brian Boru becomes the first Christian High King.

1014--Vikings defeated. Brian Boru killed in his tent.

1160's--Turlough O’Connor overthrows Dermot MacMurrough.

1169--The Norman earl of Pembroke, known as Strongbow, arrived in Ireland and made himself king of Leinster.

1171--Henry II gains control of Ireland. Dublin becomes the chief city of Ireland.

1541--Henry VIII becomes King of Ireland.

1553--Queen Mary I becomes Queen of Ireland. She began the colonization method known as ''plantaion''.

1558--Queen Elizabeth I becomes Queen of Ireland. She tried to force the Irish to become Protestants and outlawed Catholic practices.

1591--Trinity College founded.

1593--Hugh O'Neill defeats the English in battle.

1601--Hugh O’Neill assembles an army of Irishmen and Spaniards and fights the English, but is badly defeated.

1603--James I becomes King of Ireland.

1610--Protestants from England and Scotland begin to settle in Ulster, Northern Ireland, by order of King James I.

1641--Irish revolt against England. Catholic rebellion against Protestants in Ulster. Catholics in Ireland support the Royalists against Oliver Cromwell and the Puritans in the Civil War, crushing the rebellion, the Puritans confiscate the land of the Irish rebels and give it to English Protestants.

1649--Irish defeated by Oliver Cromwell, who goverened England.

1685--James II, a Catholic, becomes King of Ireland.

1688--James II forced to give up the throne. The throne was then given to his Protestant daughter Mary II and her husband William III (William of Orange).

1690--Battle of the Boyne. William III, also William of Orange, the new Protestant King of England, defeats James II, the old Catholic King of England, who has been fighting the English in Ireland with Irish and French Catholic support. William’s victory cements the British control of Ireland.

1695-1725--Penal Laws enacted against Catholics. Catholics are forbidden from possessing weapons and good horses. Their right to education are limited and more anti-Catholic laws follow over the next 50 years.

1728--Catholics are denied the right to vote.

1760's-1770's--Ulster migration to colonial North America. Thousands of people from the northern province of Ulster, often people of Scottish descent, leave Ireland for North America.

1792--Catholic Relief Act. Catholics are allowed to work as lawyers. Over the next 40 years Britain gradually abolishes the laws against Catholics.

1798--Theobald Wolfe Tone’s rebellion against English rule.

1801--Act of Union makes Ireland part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Irish parliament in Dublin is abolished and Ireland is now ruled from the British parliament at Westminster in London.

1803--Robert Emmet’s revolt.

1823-1843--Daniel O’Connell fights for and wins rights for Irish Catholics.

1829--Catholic Emancipation Act. They are granted right to hold office and to join the army.

1845-1847--The Great Potato Famine.

1858--Fenian Movement founded.

1867--The Fenian Movement revolt.

1870--Beginning of the Home Rule movement, a movement in Ireland supported by some British politicians to give Ireland a parliament to make laws on local issues like education, taxation, agriculture and manufacturing.

1877-1891--Charles Stewart Parnell is major political force in Ireland. He heads the Irish Party and fights for Irish Home Rule.

1879-1882--Irish Land War. Irish tenant farmers rise up in protest against their landlords and demand fair rents and secure leases of land.

1881--The Land Act. Gladstone, the British Prime Minister, grants the Irish farmers their demands. Landlord power in Ireland begins to weaken.

1886--Home rule bill defeated.

1892--Home rule bill defeated again.

1893--Gaelic League founded, part of a cultural revival that increases Irish nationalism.

1904--Abbey Theater founded.

1905--Sinn Fein political organization founded.

1914--Home rule bill passed.

1914-1918--World War I.

1916--Easter Rebellion. About 1200 Irish nationalists seize government buildings in central Dublin and proclaim Irish independence. They are quickly captured and their leaders are executed by the British.

1919--House of Deputies declares Ireland an independent republic.

1920--Government of Ireland Act divides Ireland into two separate political units.

1921--Irish Free State founded. After vicious fighting between Irish nationalists and British troops, the British granted independence to southern Ireland and the Irish Free State is created on December 6. Most of the northern province of Ulster stays in the union with Britain.

1922--Civil War in Ireland begins.

1926--Eamon de Valera founds Fianna Fáil, fight against 1922 treaty with England.

1932--De Valera breaks political and economic ties with England.

1937--The constitution adopted, declares Irish sovereignty.

1939-1945--World War II. Ireland remains neutral during the war and does not support Britain or her allies in the war against Hitler’s Germany.

1948--Republic of Ireland Act. The bill is introduced by Prime Minister John A. Costello of the Irish Free State.

1949--Republic of Ireland. The bill passed unanimously and on April 18. The government of the Irish Free State declared Ireland a totally independent republic. After seven centuries of battle, Ireland won her right to stand separate from England.

1955--Ireland joins the United Nations.

1958--Industrial Development Act. Ireland invites overseas countries to build factories in Ireland in order to create employment and prevent her young people from emigrating.

1964--Street fights, bombings and executions start in Northern Ireland. All attempts to end fighting, share power or form a stable government of both Catholic and Protestant interests fail.

1968-- Catholics in Northern Ireland protest against Protestant discrimination against Catholics. The Irish Republican Army (IRA) begins a campaign of bombing and terrorism in Northern Ireland and Britain designed to end the British control of Northern Ireland and to reunite the north with the south. Violence increases between Catholics and Protestants.

1969--British Army sent to Northern Ireland. British soldiers attempt to keep the peace between Catholics and Protestants, but violence continues.

1973--Ireland joins the European Common Market.

1976--Laws passed to increase punishment for terrorism.

1985--The Anglo-Irish Treaty allow the republic a say in the affairs of Northern Ireland, a possible turning point in the future of the struggle between Ireland and Great Britain.

1986--Voters uphold Ireland’s ban against divorce (Ireland remains the only Western European nation, aside from Malta, to prohibit divorce).

1988--Charles Haughey takes office as prime minister.

1990--Mary Robinson, a non-Fianna Fáil candidate, wins the presidency, the first time since 1945 that a Fianna Fáil candidate did not win.

1992--Mary Robinson is again elected president and Albert Reynolds is elected prime minister.

1993--Following 1992 elections, a new coalition government is formed of the Fianna Fáil and Labor parties with Albert Reynolds as prime minister; the Irish punt is devalued by ten percent.

1994--The British government participates in talks with Sinn Fein and President Clinton of the United States lifting the ban on official contact with Sinn Fein. In August the IRA announces a cease fire and a few months later the Unionists of Northern Ireland announces a cease fire contingent on the permanence of the IRA declaration.

1996--IRA’s cease fire ends, but peace efforts continue.

1997--IRA cease fire continues; talks begin in Belfast between government of Irish Republic.

1998--Initial peace plan accepted by all parties.