3000BC

Stone Age settlers begin to construct elaborate Irish passage-graves.

753BC

Founding of City of Rome.

400-300BC

Greece's Golden Age - Socrates, Plato etc.

390BC

The Celts, a nomadic people with no homeland, try unsuccessfully to invade Rome.

350BC

Celtic tribes cross to Ireland and settle there, displacing earlier inhabitants. It is thought that the Celtic tribes begin the "leprechaun myth" at this time, feeling guilty about taking over Ireland from the original inhabitants. These original inhabitants were given mystical powers and were believed to hide behind the elaborate grave sites they had built. The Irish storytelling legacy began. Even at this early stage of their development, the Irish were intoxicated by the power of words.

70BC-14AD

Rome's Golden Age

400AD

Patricius is taken into slavery in Ireland from England. He tends flocks during the day and prays at night. He escapes Ireland and goes back to England. Missing early latin schooling he plunges into a new language called Gaelic Irish, similar in certain ways to Welsh. Visions send him to a monastery near present day Cannes, where he receives theological education. He is ordained priest and bishop, virtually becoming the first missionary bishop. His name becomes Patrick. In 432 he arrives back in Ireland bringing Christianity with him. He puts a halt to Irish slave trade as well as other forms of violence. Born in England of Celtic descent his love for his adopted people in Ireland shines through his writings. His relations with his British brothers lessens as rising petty kings along the western coasts of Britain rush to fill the power vacuum left by the departure of the the Roman legions as the Roman Empire collapses. However blind his British contemporaries may have been to it, the greatness of Patrick is beyond dispute: the first human being in the history of the world to speak out unequivocally against slavery. The snakes he chased out of Ireland were slavery and sin. He died in 461 and the world would not see the likes of him until Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, for Patrick's teachings and philosophies were similar to both. His philosophy of the innate goodness of man helps explain how Ireland could become the only land into which Christianity was introduced without bloodshed.

500-800AD

The collapse of the Roman Empire leaves Europe in chaos. Patrick's followers start up many monasteries in Ireland where, far from the barbarian despoliation of the continent, monks and scribes laboriously, lovingly, even playfully preserve the west's written treasury. Ireland is known as the "island of saints and scholars". The great heritage of western civilization - from the Greek and Roman classics to Jewish and Christian works - would have been utterly lost were it not for the holy men and women of unconquered Ireland. Respect for differences was written into the rule books of Irish monasteries. "Different is the condition of everyone, and different the nature of each place." Books, people and anything to do with thought made it to the island. With the return of stability in Europe, these Irish scholars were instrumental in spreading learning. They founded monasteries throughout the continent. More than half of all biblical commentaries during this time frame were written by the Irish.

793AD

First Viking attack occurs. The illiterate Vikings destroy books, torture monks and burn buildings.

1014AD

Vikings are finally defeated. Irish society recovered but it would never regain its cultural leadership of European civilization. The Vikings did establish Ireland's first cities, places like Limerick, Cork, Wexford, Waterford and Dublin.

1170AD

Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland occurs. These people assimilate into the Irish culture and are referred to as becoming "more Irish than the Irish" but this is the start of what is referred to as the beginning of the end of Irish Democratic society under the Celtic system of order.

1198AD

Roderick O'Connor, last King of Ireland dies. His descendants are believed to remain in County Sligo. O'Connor means from or of Connacht (also spelled Connaught), one of four Irish provinces, and is considered the most illustrious of Irish names.

1556AD

Elizabethan plantation of Ireland begins. Under Queen Elizabeth Ireland becomes Great Britain's first colony. By this time the church of England became England's church with a sincere dislike of Rome. The Irish were a religious people of Roman following, were farmers and had no thoughts of world domination. The English used these early invasions to raid Ireland of its forests to use the wood for ships and buildings. Without trees much of Ireland's landscape began eroding.

1649AD

Cromwell arrives in Ireland and begins his massacres of Catholics. The English seize the land from the Irish and place ownership of these lands to imported Scots. When Cromwell is finished the Catholics own less than 5 percent of their own country and are reduced to chattel status without human rights. Cromwell states that no Catholic be permitted to own land, vote, hold public office, own a weapon, be educated, or practice as a lawyer, doctor, trader or professional. All Catholics were to pay a tax to the Anglican Protestant Church and the Catholic religion was forbidden. This led to secret masses which led to the hunting down and hanging of priests.

1690AD

Battle of the Boyne. Catholics lose decisively to William of Orange. Catholic flight begins.

1692AD

Catholics are excluded from office for the first time.

1695AD

Penal laws are enacted, depriving Catholics of civil rights. St. Patrick is said to be turning in his grave.

1829AD

Daniel O'Connell, "the Liberator" and masterful Irish politician, forces Catholic Emancipation on the British Parliament. The English allow the Protestants in Ireland a reasonably good life using the Catholics as labor.

1845-1850

The Irish Holocaust. A fungus from North America establishes itself in Ireland and destroys the potato crop. By this time the only crop the English allow Catholics to keep as food is enough potatoes to feed their families. Wheat, oats, barley, butter, eggs, beef and pork are known to have been exported. Ireland is now a third world nation completely under the control of Britain. Irish Catholics experience extreme racism and starvation based on systematic exploitation by the British. Basically, the British watched the Irish starve to death. One book referred to it as "extermination". Numbers vary widely but some accounts list 2 million Irish Catholics died during the famine while 1.5 million emigrated.

1893

Douglas Hyde founds Gaelic League to revive Irish culture.

1916

Easter Rising. Irish Republic proclaimed.

1919-1921

Irish War of Independence.

1922

Ireland and Britain sign treaty establishing the Irish Free State, excluding the six counties of Northern Ireland which remain under British rule.1998

Ireland is said to be poised to make an impact on the world economy.

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