Irish

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The Irish ( Irish : Muintir na hÉireann , na hÉireannaigh , na Gaeil , English : Irish (people) ) are an ethnic group whose core area lies in northwestern Europe on what is now the British Isles . In the narrower sense, the inhabitants of the island of Ireland , v. a. in the Republic of Ireland , but also in British Northern Ireland . As a rarely used denomination of residents, the word Irish is also possible in German .

etymology

The name Irish is probably derived from the word Érainn , which referred to a Celtic tribe that lived in Munster in pre-Christian times .

A synonym used for all residents of Celtic origin in Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man is that of the Gael (Irish na Gaeil ), which is derived from the old Irish name Goídel , which in turn was originally a Welsh name for the Irish ( gwyddel , German robber, attacker ).

ancestry

Investigations of the genome of a female skeleton from Ballynahatty near Belfast , which dates back to 3343-3020 BC. BC shows that it genetically belongs to people of the Middle East , although it shows other influences as well. Three male skeletons from Rathlin Island , County Antrim , dating from 2026–1534 BC. However, they are genetically related to steppe peoples from southern Russia . The finds represent two waves of immigrants in Europe who first brought agriculture to Europe in the Neolithic and then introduced better metal technology in the Bronze Age . In doing so, they displaced an already resident hunter - gatherer population in many parts of Europe , but in Ireland they encountered an area previously uninhabited by them, and the Irish formed from the two waves of immigration. There is a very close genetic relationship with the Scots and the Welsh , who point to the emergence of an island Celtic genome around 4000 BC. Indicate. There is still an ethnic relationship with the inhabitants of Cornwall , the Manx on the Isle of Man , but also the Bretons ( Celtic Nations ).

Ireland ( lat. Hibernia ) was never conquered by the Roman Empire , but had trade links with the Romans of Britain and some of the Celtic Irish were also Roman mercenaries.

The pre-Celtic inhabitants of Ireland (see Newgrange ) and the Vikings who invaded from northern Europe in the 9th and 10th centuries also left traces. The Vikings founded important cities such as u. a. Dublin , Cork , Waterford , Wexford and Limerick .

After 1169 came from the UK from Anglo-Normans to Ireland. They had dominance over the island in the late Middle Ages, their core area was the "pale" area around the city of Dublin. With their castles, they shaped the landscape and the cityscape. a. of Dublin and Limerick and laid the basis for the rule of the English crown (1171–1541 Lordship of Ireland , 1541–1800 Kingdom of Ireland (personal union of the King of England and Ireland), 1800–1922 United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland ) over the island.

Since the late 16th century ( Ulster Plantation ) in the north of Ireland in the province of Ulster there is a predominantly English and Scottish population (see Ulster Scots ) (today 1–2 million). This formed the political elite of Northern Ireland until the 1990s, excluding the Irish population.

religion

See also: Patrick of Ireland , Scotsman , Book of Kells , Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, and Church of Ireland

The pre-Christian Irish population adhered to Celtic polytheism .

In the early 5th century, the Irish were Christians from the Roman Kingdom under the leadership of Patrick Christianized . In the early Middle Ages, a Christian high culture of monasticism emerged in Ireland, which also strongly influenced Christianity on the European continent, which is why Ireland was nicknamed the island of "saints and scholars".

See also: Columban of Iona , Columban of Luxeuil , St. Kilian , Virgilius of Salzburg

The seat of the Catholic (later also the Anglican) Primate of Ireland was and is traditionally in Armagh in Ulster.

In the late 16th century, the Anglican Protestants ( Protestant Ascendancy ) began to rule in England, who had been detached from Rome in 1534 . Catholicism was largely suppressed, Catholics expropriated, the church property secularized and in 1536 subordinated to the new Anglican state church, the Church of Ireland . Since around 1560, Protestants have been settled from England and Scotland, mainly in the north and east, and today large parts of the population of Ulster follow this tradition. Some Huguenots from France were also settled in Ireland as part of the plantation (see above, Ulster Plantation). In the early 17th century, Gaelic Catholic nobles ( Escape of the Counts ) fled after the Elizabethan conquest of Ireland by England.

In the middle of the 17th century (1641 to 1647) the Catholic Irish tried to achieve more autonomy and religious freedom in a war parallel to the English Civil War after the uprising of 1641 ( Confederation of Ireland ). This failed and resulted in the reconquest of Ireland under Oliver Cromwell's leadership until 1653. Attempts to bring a Catholic line to the throne ( Battle of the Boyne 1690) failed, as did the nationalist Irish Rebellion of 1798 and led to the incorporation of Ireland into it British Kingdom ( Act of Union 1800 ).

In 1829, Catholics were given political equality (see Catholic Emancipation , Daniel O'Connell ), and in 1869 the Church of Ireland's status as a state church was revoked.

In 1921/22 the island was split into an independent, Catholic-dominated southern part and a Protestant-dominated northern part, which remained with Great Britain.

The Catholic Church dominated the socio-political structures in the Irish Free State, which had been independent from the United Kingdom since 1922 (1922 to 1939), and then in the Republic of Ireland well into the 20th century. Until 1973 she had a constitutional “ special position ”.

Today the majority of the Irish in the republic are Roman Catholics (almost 90%), in Northern Ireland the proportion of Catholics is around 45 percent.

In the north-east of the island in the province of Ulster , however, there is a Protestant , mostly Presbyterian or Anglican, majority of the population, which traces most of its roots back to English and Scottish immigrants from the island of Great Britain (55% in Northern Ireland). In Northern Ireland, this British Protestant majority dominated political events from 1922 to the 1990s in a situation comparable to apartheid to the exclusion of the Irish Catholic minority (see Northern Ireland Assembly , Troubles , Good Friday Agreement ). In Northern Ireland, the sectarian division has shaped the social situation to this day.

The only remaining stronghold of the Church of Ireland in the Republic of Ireland is the region south of Dublin in northern County Wicklow .

language

Traditionally, the Irish spoke the Irish Gaelic language, a Goidelic language . In the early Middle Ages, with Christianity, the Latin language spread in Ireland, which made contact with the peoples of the continent possible.

After 1169, the Anglo-Norman Romansh Anglo-Norman came up as the language of the elites, which was replaced by English in the early modern period . At the same time, however, the Irish language was still spoken by large parts of the Irish population; the decline of this language and the dominance of English only began in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Today almost all Irish speak English as their mother tongue ( Hiberno-English and Mid-Ulster English ), but a significant proportion are also at least partially able to speak Irish (tens of thousands of native speakers in the Gaeltachtaí in western Ireland (especially County Donegal , County Galway , County Kerry , County Mayo , County Cork )). The Republic of Ireland is seeking a revival of Irish. Irish is an official language alongside English. All laws are published in Irish and the wording is binding in case of doubt.

Ulster Scots , a variant of English , is also widespread in Ulster .

Culture

see Irish Literature , Anglo-Irish Literature , Irish Renaissance , Irish Folk

Irish counted since early modern times, v. a. but since the Irish Renaissance in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, to some of the most famous writers in the English language (including Jonathan Swift , Bram Stoker , Oscar Wilde , George Bernard Shaw , William Butler Yeats , John Millington Synge , James Joyce , Samuel Beckett , Seamus Heaney ).

The traditional music of the island of Ireland is known as Irish Traditional Music . Well-known bands of this style were and are u. a. The Dubliners , The Chieftains , The Pogues and The Wolfe Tones and as a solo artist a. a. Ronnie Drew , Christy Moore , Paddy Reilly and Sharon Shannon . The style of music from u is based on this. a. Enya , Kate Bush and Van Morrison .

A special element of Irish music is dancing. Tap dance , set dance and formation dance are very popular in Ireland and have a long tradition.

In the pop and rock music of the 20th and 21st centuries, u. a. Rory Gallagher , The Boomtown Rats , Boyzone , Chris de Burgh , The Corrs , Johnny Logan , Snow Patrol and U2 national celebrities.

Names

Names beginning with O or Mc or Mac are common among Irish families of Celtic or Gaelic origin . Ó means grandson, Mc or Mac son in Irish .

Old Anglo-Norman-Irish family names begin with the prefix Fitz -, which is derived from the Old French fils , English son. In addition, some people of Norman descent have a de in their surname, which indicates original land ownership.

Population development

The Republic of Ireland, with a population of just over 4 million today, is the only country in Europe that (still) has less population than in the middle of the 19th century. The greatest population losses were due to the famine of 1740/41 and the Great Famine in Ireland in the middle of the 19th century, when between 1845 and 1855 the population fell from over 8 million to 6.25 million due to starvation (500,000 to 1 million) and mass emigration (approx. 1 million). The greatest losses were recorded in what is now the northwestern province of Connacht .

But apart from that, Ireland was a country of emigration from the late Middle Ages to the late 1980s and its population had decreased to less than 2 million by 1962. Therefore, today one can assume a diaspora of around 80 million people of Irish descent worldwide. Large parts of the population v. a. of the USA (approx. 36 million), Great Britain (approx. 14 million), Canada (approx. 4 million) and Australia (approx. 2 million), but also New Zealand , South Africa and some countries in the Caribbean are of Irish descent . New York City is considered the largest Irish city in the world. In England, the majority of the city of Liverpool's population is of Irish descent. Another center of the Irish diaspora in the United States is Boston , Massachusetts . The most famous American of Irish descent was arguably John F. Kennedy , the first Irish-born and Catholic President of the United States.

Since the 1960s there has been a slight increase in population, which was caused by the economic boom of the Celtic Tiger in the 1990s and 2000s . Many Irish living abroad returned to Ireland because of the better economic situation.

Today the island of Ireland has a little over 6 million inhabitants.

literature

See also

Web links

One in ten Irish men may be descended from a fabled Irish chieftain named Niall of the Nine Hostages.

  • Zealous overfather . On Wissenschaft.de on December 28, 2005. Ten percent of Irish men are descendants of a tribal prince.

Individual evidence

  1. Irishman, the. In: duden.de .
  2. Lara M. Cassidy, Rui Martiniano, Eileen M. Murphy, Matthew D. Teasdale, James Mallory, Barrie Hartwell, Daniel G. Bradley Neolithic and Bronze Age migration to Ireland and establishment of the insular Atlantic genome Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , December 28, 2015, accessed December 29, 2015.
  3. Tim Radford, Origins of the Irish down to mass migration, ancient DNA confirms in: The Guardian , December 28, 2015, accessed December 29, 2015.