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Who colonized Ireland?

Europe — the powers that ruled Ireland, the dates, and what independence did and did not change.

In short

Who colonized Ireland?

England, then Britain. Anglo-Norman conquest began in 1169, Tudor plantation systematised it from the 1550s, and the Act of Union absorbed Ireland into the United Kingdom from 1801 until the Free State of 1922.

Ireland was Britain's first colony and the laboratory for methods later exported: plantation settlement, confessional land law, and famine relief subordinated to market doctrine.

Reference

Who ruled Ireland, and when

before 1169
Gaelic kingdoms
1169–1801
Lordship and Kingdom of Ireland under the English crown
1801–1922
United Kingdom

At a glance

Key facts

Colonising powers
England, Britain
Independence
6 December 1922 (Free State); republic 1949
Famine deaths
About one million dead, one million emigrated, 1845–52
Penal Laws
Barred Catholics from land, office and education for over a century
Population
Ireland has never regained its pre-famine population

Chronology

Key dates

  1. 1169

    Anglo-Norman invasion.

  2. 1609

    Plantation of Ulster.

  3. 1649–53

    Cromwellian conquest and land confiscation.

  4. 1845–52

    The Great Hunger; food exports continue throughout.

  5. 1916–21

    Rising, War of Independence.

  6. 1922

    Irish Free State; partition of the six counties.

Context

What the record shows

Between 1845 and 1852 roughly a million people died while Ireland continued exporting food under armed guard.

Questions

Frequently asked

Was Ireland a British colony?
In practice yes — through conquest, plantation and the 1801 Act of Union — though it was formally part of the United Kingdom rather than a colony from 1801 to 1922.
How many died in the Irish famine?
About one million from starvation and disease between 1845 and 1852, with another million emigrating.
When did Ireland become independent?
The Irish Free State was established in December 1922; the state declared itself a republic in 1949.

Read on

Related in the archive

References

Sources — colonial Ireland

  1. [1]Bartolomé de las Casas, Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias (Seville, 1552).
  2. [2]Noble David Cook, Born to Die: Disease and New World Conquest, 1492–1650 (Cambridge University Press, 1998).
  3. [3]Eduardo Galeano, Open Veins of Latin America (Monthly Review Press, 1971; English 1973).
  4. [4]Adam Hochschild, King Leopold's Ghost (Houghton Mifflin, 1998).
  5. [5]Thomas Pakenham, The Scramble for Africa (Random House, 1991).
  6. [6]Shashi Tharoor, Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India (Hurst, 2017).
  7. [7]Caroline Elkins, Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya (Henry Holt, 2005).
  8. [8]Alfred W. McCoy, Policing America's Empire: The United States, the Philippines, and the Rise of the Surveillance State (Wisconsin, 2009).
  9. [9]Daniel Immerwahr, How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019).
  10. [10]Jürgen Zimmerer, "The birth of the Ostland out of the spirit of colonialism", Patterns of Prejudice 39:2 (2005), on the German South-West Africa → Holocaust lineage.
  11. [11]Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (Bogle-L'Ouverture, 1972).
  12. [12]Karl Marx, Capital, Volume I (1867), Chapter 31 ("Genesis of the Industrial Capitalist").

All works cited in good faith for documentary, educational and critical use. Errors and omissions: contact the archive.