Irish lit and history (for our book-group)

By DRaB

  • <= Earlier events

    1171 - England conquers Ireland
    1315-1500: Irish push Anglo-Normans into the Pale
    1495-1600s: England gains control of most of Ireland
    1688: Ireland backs wrong English king; Irish exports banned
    1779: Irish right to export restored
    1782: Limited independence granted to Irish Parliament (excluding Catholics)
    1801: Irish Parliament abolished; Ireland & England unify as UK
    _
    Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)
    Maria Edgeworth (1768-1849)
    Bram Stoker (1847-1912)

  • 1845-1852: *an Gorta Mór* (Brit-imposed famine)

  • Period: to

    Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

  • Anti-English Fenian movement founded

  • Period: to

    William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)

  • 1870s: Beginnings of women's sufferage & education reform (RoI)

  • Married Women's Property Act grants some rights of contracts, ownership, etc. (RoI)

  • Period: to

    James Joyce (1882–1941)

  • Period: to

    Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)

  • Ulysses time setting

  • Period: to

    Samuel Beckett (1906–1989)

  • Irish Volunteers (proto-IRA) founded

  • Self-rule for Ulster, but then nipped by WWI

  • A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (pub. 1916)

    A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (pub. 1916)

  • Easter Rising

  • Anglo-Irish Treaty & Partition (resulting in Irish Free State in south)

    This was an outcome of the Irish War of Independence, 1919-1921. Northern Ireland had a chance to join the South in the Irish Free State, but opted out.
  • Ulysses

    Ulysses

  • All women 21+ granted the right to vote (but Church successful in limiting public roles) (RoI)

  • Period: to

    Edna O'Brien (b. 1930)

  • Sale & import of contraceptives banned (RoI)

  • Married women banned from public service (RoI)

  • Divorce made illegal (as result of religious content in constitution of Irish Free State) (RoI)

  • Period: to

    Seamus Heaney (1939-2013)

  • Period: to

    Country Girls time setting (approx.)

  • Molloy

    Molloy

  • The Country Girls

    The Country Girls

  • Period: to

    Anna Burns (b. 1962)

  • "The Troubles" begin in Northern Ireland

  • Period: to

    Claire Keegan (b. 1968)

  • Period: to

    Est. Milkman time setting

    We know only that it was in "the seventies" (unless someone else spotted other hints?).

  • British direct rule of N. Ireland instituted

    Due to The Troubles, the UK suspended the Northern Ireland parliament and imposed direct rule from London. Later power-sharing agreements in the 1990s and especially after the Good Friday Agreement have devolved many powers back to a N. Ireland Assembly, but London retains control over foreign policy, defense, and other key areas.

  • Bloody Sunday

    The context was an increasingly successful nonviolent civil-rights campaign in Northern Ireland, which was splitting Protestant and unionist sympathies, shining light on fundamental inequalities, and even giving Catholics and non-aristocratic Protestants some common interests. When 14 peaceful marchers were gunned down in Derry on Bloody Sunday by British troops, that all collapsed. The autonomous regional government was suspended that year by the Brits and direct rule was imposed.

  • Rep. of Ireland joins European Community (pivotal shift away from UK)

  • Women's job & marriage rights restored b/c of EC entry (RoI)

  • Right to maternity leave established (RoI)

  • Divorce becomes a right via public referendum (narrowly passed) (RoI)

  • 1995-2007, "Celtic Tiger" economic bubble in Rep. of Ireland

  • Last of Magdalene laundries/asylums closed (housed girls and women deed too promiscuous by families, and orphans)

  • Good Friday Agreement ends 30 years of "The Troubles" in N. Ireland

  • Antarctica

    Antarctica

  • Milkman

    Milkman

  • Small Things like These

    Small Things like These