The history of Ireland and the Irish language

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The history of Ireland and the Irish language

• 1000 B.C. 1850 A.D.

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The history of Ireland and the Irish language

• We start in the late Bronze Age
• 1200 B.C. 800 B.C.
• A considerable wealth of bronze and gold is
  present, an example of which is the great Clare
  gold hoard

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The history of Ireland and the Irish language
A ring fort near Leacanabuaile
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The history of Ireland and the Irish language
A burial monument (dolmen) near Poulnabrone
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The history of Ireland and the Irish language

• Ca. 700 B.C., the Celts arrived from parts of
  Spain, Gaul and Britain
• they brought the Iron Age to Ireland

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The history of Ireland and the Irish language

• Under the Celtic influence, Ireland was organized
  into a number of petty kingdoms, or clans
• There were no urban centres, and the economic
  basis of society was cattle rearing and
  agriculture
• The dwellings were built by the post-and-wattle
  technique
• Some were situated within the older protected
  sites archaeologists call ring forts

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The history of Ireland and the Irish language

• Irish as one of the oldest Celtic and historic
  written languages of the British Isles and
  Ireland has its earliest evidence preserved in
  OGHAM inscriptions
• There are dated from the 2nd to the 6th century
  A.D.

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The history of Ireland and the Irish language

• Since ca. 430 A.D. expansion of Christianity
• Traditions in the south and southeast refer to
  early saints who allegedly preceded St. Patrick

• St. Patrick converted all the
• Irish to Christianity and got
• the status of national apostle
• feast day March 17

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The history of Ireland and the Irish language

• The Irish monasteries became notable centres of
  learning and devotion
• Irish scribes produced manuscripts written in the
  clear hand known as Insular Minuscule

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The history of Ireland and the Irish language

• Traditional Latin alphabet was adapted for the
  native language
• It is still used on road signs and public notices
  throughout Ireland

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The history of Ireland and the Irish language

• The early Irish Church was strongly influenced by
  the Brittonic (or Welsh) Church
• Through this medium Irish came into contact with
  the classical languages
• Brittonic/Welsh Loans from Latin and Greek
  (through Latin)
• Massive phonological changes between the 5th and
  6th centuries

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The history of Ireland and the Irish language

• ca 500 A.D. predominace of five tribal kingdoms
  (Ulster, Munster, Connacht, Leinster, Meath)
• Meath was eventuelly absorbed into Leinster

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The history of Ireland and the Irish language

• ca 500 A.D., five tribal kingdoms (Ulster,
  Munster, Connacht, Leinster, Meath)

Munster
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The history of Ireland and the Irish language

• ca 500 A.D., five tribal kingdoms (Ulster,
  Munster, Connacht, Leinster, Meath)

Ulster
Munster
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The history of Ireland and the Irish language

• ca 500 A.D., five tribal kingdoms (Ulster,
  Munster, Connacht, Leinster, Meath)

Ulster
Connacht
Munster
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The history of Ireland and the Irish language

• ca 500 A.D., five tribal kingdoms (Ulster,
  Munster, Connacht, Leinster, Meath)

Ulster
Connacht
Leinster
Munster
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The history of Ireland and the Irish language
Ulster Munster
The flags of the 4 provinces
Connacht Leinster
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The history of Ireland and the Irish language

• 7th 9th century, period of Old Irish
  literacy
• Well represented in a large number of textual
  genres, as well as glosses (explanations) and
  marginalia (notes on the margin of manuscript
  texts)
• It is the time with the widest geographical
  spread of Irish speech in Ireland

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The history of Ireland and the Irish language

• High kings ruled in Ireland but with
  opposition, meaning that they were not
  acknowledged by a minority of provincial kings
• The fact that power had been preserved at a local
  level in Ireland enabled a maximum of resistance
  to be made (decentralisation)
• Viking invaders established maritime strongholds
  (8th century)

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The history of Ireland and the Irish language

• Viking contacts the result was
• lexical borrowing esp. seafaring
• 23.04.1014 Battle of Clontarf
• (outside Dublin)
• Munster vs. Leinster
• Munster won with much
• slaughter on both sides
• Vikings lost their influence

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The history of Ireland and the Irish language

• Anglo-Norman invasion took place (1169 A.D.)
• Far-reaching political changes inspired the Irish
  literati to undertake a new standardization of
  their language
• From the beginning of the 13th century, there was
  a rigidly fixed written norm, often called
  Classical Modern Irish, which was used as the
  exclusive literary medium in Ireland and in
  Gaelic-speaking Scotland for over four centuries

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The history of Ireland and the Irish language

• The Anglo-Norman Invasion led to a
  nine-century-long series of adstratum contacts
  between Irish and English
• This included massive lexical borrowings and also
  syntactic, morphological and phonological
  modifications

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The history of Ireland and the Irish language

• 1264 A.D., the first Irish parliament was set up
• Anglo-Norman control was strengthened by the
  creation of three new Anglo-Irish earldoms
• Kildare, given to the head of the Leinster
  Fitzgeralds
• that of Desmond, given to the head of the Munster
  Fitzgeralds
• and that of Ormond, given to the head of the
  Butlers, around Tipperary

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The history of Ireland and the Irish language
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The history of Ireland and the Irish language

• 15th 16th century linguistic borrowings of
  popular nature (card-playing terminology) from
  the continent (mostly French)
• 1558 Elizabeth became Queen of England
• Her Irish policy had the distinction of having
  reduced the country to obedience for the first
  time since the invasion of Henry II (1169)

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The history of Ireland and the Irish language

• 1601 The Battle of Kinsale
• The Irish and the supporting
  
  Spaniards were defeated by the English
  (Lord Mountjoy)
• The 1000 years old high-literary tradition of
  Irish collapsed
• The Irish standardised written language was
  washed away

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The history of Ireland and the Irish language

• Irish continued as the language of the greater
  part of the rural population and, for a time, of
  the servant classes in town
• A general rebellion of the Irish in Ulster was
  inevitable. It took place in October 1641 and
  thousands of colonists were murdered or fled

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The history of Ireland and the Irish language
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The history of Ireland and the Irish language

• 1642 Gaelic Irish, Old English and royal
  English settlers founded the Confederation of
  Kilkenny aspiring a Catholic royalistic Ireland
• in 1720 the Declaratory Act affirmed the right
  of the British Parliament to legislate for
  Ireland and transferred the powers of a supreme
  court in Irish law cases to the British House of
  Lords

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The history of Ireland and the Irish language

• Official national flag in the 18th century
• 1801 Ireland gets united with Great Britain to
  the Unitded Kingdom of Great Britain and
  Ireland(Act of Union)

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The history of Ireland and the Irish language

• 1.000.000 catholics died of starvation in The
  Great Potato Famine (1846-1849)
• Map shows Percent Change by County from 1841 -
  1851