1916 and All That: A History of Ireland from Back Then Until Right Now

by C. M. Boylan

Overview

1916 And All That is as an extremely funny and irreverent satirical history of Ireland. The central assumption behind '1916 And All That' is that, despite all of the compulsory school lessons and exams taken, there are only a few muddled facts of our history that most people retain into adulthood. We recall snatches of events, names and dates, and few of us can piece together a coherent narrative or offer up any description of events in detail. We all know Robert Emmet's name, but what did he do, why did he do it, and when? This book references the fuzzily remembered facts, but plays very fast and extremely loose with the details of our history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780752488219
Publisher:	The History Press
Publication date:	05/30/2012
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	160
File size:	3 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

C.M. Boylan is a librarian at the National Library of Ireland.

Read an Excerpt

1916 and All That

A History of Ireland from Back Then Until Right Now

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By C.M. Boylan

The History Press

Copyright © 2012 C.M. Boylan
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-7524-8821-9

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CHAPTER 1

Settling Early

Irish history started when people arrived on the island. At least, that is when history really got going. Before that things were rather quiet: mountains rose groaning from the ground, rivers carved long, deep valleys, and trees peacefully spread their roots and branches. The first people, or 'earliest settlers' as they are sometimes known, came from Continental Europe to disturb this calm. They were Stone Age people, so named because they adored stone. They made everything from stone – or 'flint' as it was known at the time – even their shoes and clothes. As a result, they rarely had good posture.

These earliest settlers arrived a very long time ago, before the wheel was invented and long, long before pillowcases. Eventually, they began to farm, which was much less taxing than spearing berries and gathering boar, and they settled into communities.

Aside from farming, their favourite activity was building tombs; in particular, megalithic tombs such as court cairns, portal dolmens and passage tombs. These were often large, impressive and, perhaps unsurprisingly, stone based. Tomb-building was nothing short of a mania and eventually the tombs vastly outnumbered the amount of available dead. It was therefore agreed to bury much-loved household pets in the superfluous tombs, leading to entire portal dolmens housing the bones of a single ungrateful cat.

The most famous of all ancient Irish tombs is the narrow passage tomb at Newgrange in County Meath, which proves beyond doubt that claustrophobia did not exist in 3200 BC but is an entirely modern ailment. About 200,000 tonnes of stone were used during the construction of Newgrange, begging the question: what were they thinking?

Note:

Historians often begin with questions such as this one, which they use to guide their research. For instance, nobody would know anything about the Battle of Waterloo unless one inspired historian had asked, 'Where did Napoleon go that week?' It turned out that he had gone to battle, at Waterloo.

The people at this time drew spiral decorations on every available surface from stones to rocks and boulders. Historians are deeply divided over whether this represented a primitive attempt to hypnotise one another or a simple love of twirling. This is called a 'historical debate'.

One final point to be noted about these early settlers is that they appear to have worshipped the otter as some form of god or emperor, as evidenced by the many forty-foot statues of otters that have been unearthed across the country dating from this period, most of which depict the otter standing upright on its hind legs, looking magisterial.

Test Your Knowledge:

1. In this stone-based economy, how many pebbles did a pebble necklace cost?

2. What is a historical debate and who won?

3. Why was stone called 'flint' and not some other word?

CHAPTER 2

Third Best Metal

People in Europe eventually discovered how to mine for metal and make infinitely sturdier weapons and tools than the granite axes and limestone screwdrivers they had previously employed. After a while they created a metal called bronze. This was the third best metal ever made, but it was still quite effective. The next age, therefore, was the Bronze Age.

Eventually, some Bronze Age people moved to Ireland. Ireland's early metalworkers were also called the 'Beaker' people because they evidently enjoyed conducting science experiments. Laboratory after laboratory has been unearthed by archaeologists all over Ireland, littered with countless numbers of beakers, pipettes and primitive Bunsen burners. Quite what these experiments were aimed at is unclear, as precious few hardback science copybooks were found amongst the remains of these ancient labs.

The further back in time one goes, the more difficult it is for historians to reconstruct a detailed picture of the society at the time. This is down to a lack of remaining sources from the past. Professor Gonigle McGonigle of a university explains:

It is very difficult to 'converse' with the past at a great distance, to ask it questions or receive any clear replies. It is the equivalent of having an exasperating afternoon sandwich with a drunken Dutchman – only snippets of sense can be gleaned.

You might therefore assume that history books about the distant past would be shorter. You would be wrong. This is because in the absence of source-based facts, historians instead proffer fanciful conjectures on how things might have been. That a great many works on early history lapse into fantasy novels featuring dragons and magic trees is one unfortunate upshot of this historiographical travesty.

While these Bronze Agers made many progressive strides in metallurgy and state science exams, our knowledge of their lives is still rather hazy. We do know that they made lovely pottery and jewellery. From this we might postulate that they were very house-proud and glamorous.

Indeed, jewellery-making replaced tomb-building as the main activity, to the extent that the only tombs that were invented during this period were wedge tombs, a comparatively perfunctory form of burial house when compared with its impressive funerary predecessors. The jewellery, by contrast, was exquisite and of such variety – from earrings to bracelets and leg ornaments – that it is very likely that people dressed entirely in jewellery rather than clothes.

Although bronze was a very good metal, it was, as noted, not quite the best. Some people in Europe therefore invented an even stronger and more durable metal called iron, with which to make axes, swords and cheese graters. The next age, therefore, was the Iron Age.

Test Your Knowledge:

1. To what extent was the above: (a) true, (b) lovely, (c) above?

CHAPTER 3

Fiery, Warlike

The Celts were a group of Iron Agers who originated in Central Europe. Being a fiery and warlike people, they conquered much of that continent before arriving in Ireland. Historians are still undecided as to exactly how the Celts arrived and from where, but the most likely scenario is that they flew here on giant eagles from Biarritz around 600 BC.

The Celts of Celtic Ireland created a complex society that deserves to be described under headings.

Celtic Dwellings

The Celts lived in various types of fortified enclosures of mottled daub, which they then daubed with more mottle. There were ringforts, which were round; hill forts, which were round and on hills; and crannógs, which were round and in lakes. Inside the ringforts, hill forts and crannógs the Celts ate, slept and made Tara brooches. Brooch after brooch after handcrafted brooch was produced by the eager jewellers, until eventually they became as commonplace and worthless as gravel. People took to throwing down a layer of brooches on their driveways or flinging excess brooches onto roads and pathways with a bored insouciance that would shock modern sensibilities. This made visiting neighbours or simply going for a casual stroll a treacherous affair, and cases of 'brooch foot' are numerously described in the annals.

Celtic Society I: Hierarchy

The country was divided into kingdoms called 'tuatha', each of which was ruled by a chieftain. Other types of people also existed. Here is a table to help you understand what each of these people did:

Name
What they would be today
Druid
Priest
Brehon
Judge
File
Poet
Freeman
Rich person
Unfree man
Poor person

Celtic society was very hierarchical. This is a difficult word to pronounce, but it is important as it refers to the very complex sociological issue of who was better than who in every way. The chieftains were better than the druids, brehons and filí; the druids, brehons and filí were better than the freemen, and the freemen were better than the unfree men, who could not own property or carry weapons. The cow occupied a respectable middle ground between freemen and filí. Sheep, by contrast, were considered as lowly as unfree men, and were sometimes bullied openly for their lack of sophistication and learning. The plight of the Celtic sheep is just one of the many overlooked areas of Irish history.

Learning Exercise:

Imagine you are a Celtic sheep. How would you feel and when would you feel it? Is it fair that you are not a cow? What would be your favourite colour?

Celtic Society II: War

Being famously fiery and warlike, the Celts battled each other on a near-constant basis. Sometimes the Celts went on cattle raids, stealing cow after respectable cow (see above). More often, they went to war with rival clans, fighting in chariots with swords, shields, slings and javelins. They were very much like pale Romans in this respect.

The most famous male warrior was Cúchulainn. He also invented hurling and had a dog called Santa, proving conclusively that Christmas existed well before Christ.

Celtic Society III: Dreamy, Merry

As well as being fiery and warlike, the Celts were also dreamy and merry, as this vivid and moving account from the epic saga Cúl Mac Cúl agus an Bó Mór Iontach illustrates:

And lo, on a dreamy night we made merry and feasted heavily inside our fortified fort of daubed mottle, etc.

Meat at such feasts was cooked on a fulacht fiadh, which was very like a modern-day microwave but with fire, stones and water in place of high-frequency electromagnetic waves.

Test Your Knowledge:

1. Describe and explain brooches.

2. Name a famous Celt. Was he or she more famous than, say, Martina Navratilova?

CHAPTER 4

Shamrocks

Before Christianity arrived Ireland was pagan, which was a bad thing because nobody knew about sin or heaven or purgatory or Mass, all of which are good things to know about in case they start happening to you. The person who brought Christianity to Ireland was St Patrick, a young shepherd from Wales who was kidnapped and brought to Ireland, this being the main form of job recruitment at the time.

Patrick spent many years trying to explain the complex concept of the Holy Trinity to the eager simpletons of Ireland. He drew Venn diagrams, made papier-mâché God heads and wrote endless limericks to explain the idea, but it was only when he plucked a shamrock from the ground in complete plucking exasperation that everybody finally got it.

The people praised St Patrick with a parade and drunken binge.

Learning Exercise:

Imagine you are an important Christian sent to convert some heathens. How would you explain 'transubstantiation' using only the following aids: a plank of wood, a tulip, a tear on a child's face?

Two other important early Irish Christians were St Bridget, who invented the first day of Spring, and St Colmcille, who invented Irish monks. Ireland was known as the land of saints and scholars, and historians have estimated that 3.5 out of every 4 Irish people were monks at this time. As a result, there was a huge import trade in sackcloth, vellum and anti-toupees (bald-head coverings for resolutely hirsute people unable to maintain a tonsure).

The monks founded monasteries in the most remote and isolated parts of the country they could find. One such place was Sceilig Mhichíl, a treacherous rocky outcrop in the wild Atlantic that up until this point had been populated by puffins, who reigned there in lordly dominion. The famous Battle of the Puffins, during which the monks fought for space to build their monastery, is described in the Annals of the Four Puffins, from the eighth century:

The great battle commenced with the puffins wheeling and diving at the beleaguered monks who wanted nothing but a treacherous rocky outcrop upon which to pray and shave their heads. After eight days and two nights of the most violent pecking and squawking, peace descended and the two – monk and puffin – have shared the holy crag ever since, thanks be to Shamrock.

How the battle is recounted in puffin history is not known, as puffins are famously illiterate.

Monks were fiercely competitive in their search for the most isolated monastic site, leading one monk – St Fintubar – to found a monastery under the sea. Due to his inability to breathe in his briny priory, he abandoned his plan and settled instead on a basalt projection thirty miles off the coast of Antrim.

Monks lived famously disciplined lives following the Rule of St Benedict, which said:

Monks must rise at 1 a.m. (11 p.m. in summer) and must not yawn or rub their eyes.

Monks must not eat more than two daily meals in the refectory, neither of which is to contain more than three tastes.

Monks must attend church to chant at the following: matins, vespers, elevenses, lauds, lullabies.

Praying must be undertaken audibly enough for a mouse to be alarmed but not so audibly as to scare a jumpy nun.

Flagellation must be self-inflected and vigorous.

Irish monks spread far and wide across Europe, e.g. Bobbio, Lindisfarne. This was our first time abroad and we made a very good impression – an achievement subsequent generations have been enthusiastically undoing. Overall, though, this was a very pious period of our history and therefore somewhat boring.

CHAPTER 5

Vikings and High Kings

The pious tedium of the period was broken by waves of invasions by Scandinavians in helmets, known as 'Vikings' or 'Norsemen'. The Vikings were a fiery and warlike people who built impressive long ships called longships, established impressive long ports called longphorts, and travelled about ransacking, pillaging and plundering to great effect.

The Vikings, being most at home on the sea, plundered primarily along the coast and they rarely made it further inland than a seagull on day out. Indeed, it has been surmised that they may have suffered from a congenital inability to cope with inland regions. One account left by Henrik the Helmeted depicted what would nowadays be diagnosed as a full-blown panic attack, when he found himself deep in present-day Louth:

The land was dry and sealess for miles around and my heart began to pound louder and louder. I screamed out to Thor for a gull or a tern, but nothing, nothing but hills, grass and ground which did not move up and down but remained terrifyingly solid. At last I came upon a rivulet and threw my face into it to feel its watery comfort. At this point, I passed out.

Account of the Plundering of Future-Day Louth, AD 912.

The Vikings plundered monasteries for their stores of wealth, so the monks attempted to protect themselves and their treasures by building Round Towers. One monk was chosen to guard the treasure, his job being to live at the top of the tower and grow his hair. He was known as the 'Rapunzel Monk', and when an invading band of Vikings was spotted, the Rapunzel Monk would drop his hair to the ground to allow his fellow ecclesiastics to clamber to safety.

Some Vikings found the near-incessant pillaging and ransacking tiring, and so decided to relax and stay in Ireland, inventing towns such as Waterford, which means 'Ford of water' in Norse, and Limerick, which comes from the Norse words for sea (limer) and gull (icke). The Vikings were also the first to introduce money to Ireland, which baffled everybody until it was explained using a shamrock. They likewise brought fjords, carving one in Connemara called Killary Harbour sometime around the year 850. So strong were the mighty Vikings that Killary was carved by only three men – Thorin, Bjornin and Klorin – using nothing but two chisels and a rusty hammer. Interestingly, the county of Longford is named after this long fjord, despite its being well over seventy miles away. This was done in an attempt to give Longford some historical meaning.

Over time, the Vikings grew in strength and they eventually controlled a small kingdom stretching from Skerries to Arklow, which historians have agreed are the most underwhelming perimeters of a kingdom ever recorded.

Since the Vikings were fiery and warlike, and since they had settled in a country of fiery and warlike people, it was only a matter of time before a substantial ruckus took place. This was the Battle of Clontarf, between the High King Brian Boru and approximately 800,000 Vikings. Brian won easily with the help of a magic tree, but while in his tent, praying to a shamrock, he was murdered by a cowardly retreating Viking.

The battle signalled the end of Viking power in Dublin. From then on the Vikings decided it would be easier to convert to Christianity, learn Irish, marry natives and wear brooches. This is called 'assimilation'. It was a trend that caught on with future invader-settlers or 'invado-settlers'.

Test Your Knowledge:

1. Complete the following sentence: The Vikings were ______, ______, and twelve ______ their ______ sometimes.

2. Was Brian Boru a High King, a Viking, a wedding ring or a flower in spring?

3. How much is money worth?

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from 1916 and All That by C.M. Boylan. Copyright © 2012 C.M. Boylan. Excerpted by permission of The History Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Contents

Title,
Short Introduction,
1. Settling Early,
2. Third Best Metal,
3. Fiery, Warlike,
4. Shamrocks,
5. Vikings and High Kings,
6. Anglo-Normans,
7. Tu dor or not Tu dor,
8. Gardening,
9. William Fight War,
10. Protestants Ascending,
11. Irishmen United,
12. Kingdoms United,
13. Very Liberating,
14. Blight and Children,
15. Ruling Home,
16. More Ruling Home,
17. Rising na Cásca,
18. Fine Big Lads,
19. Camán,
20. Amen,
21. Other Parties,
22. Séan the Mass,
23. Grace and Paisley,
24. Slightly Better,
25. Boom!,
26. Right Now,
Epilogue,
Appendix A,
Appendix B,
Appendix C,
Appendix D,
Appendix E,
Copyright,