Articles: The History of Ireland, Scotland, and Stories from our Trips

Sam Couch earned his Ph.D. in Geography at the University of Idaho. His cultural geographic studies focused on topophilia - love of place. After a successful career creating and directing Irish Studies programs and Summer Study Abroad in Ireland programs at Georgia colleges and universities, Dr. Couch retired from university teaching in 2004. Establishing Rising Road Tours has allowed Couch to continue sharing his passion for Irish culture and the Irish people with others. We hope you enjoy reading the following articles about the history of Ireland and Scotland.

Special Features

The Top Ten Reasons to Travel Now - by Ed Hewitt, Features Editor of The Independent Traveler

"It turns out that a recession is a great time to travel, not only because we might have some unexpected time on our hands, but for a host of other reasons besides. Why travel now?" Read the full article...

The Difference Between Celtic, Gaelic, and Gallic - by John Mackay

Is it "Gaelic", "Gallic" or Celtic"? Our intrepid Scottish explorer and friend John Mackay wrote this article explaining the origins and meanings of these terms.

Weaving a Future, Building a Dream: Modification in Hand Weaving and Dry Stone Wall Construction of Gleann Cholm Cille, County Donegal, Ireland

Irish Hand Weaving and Stone Wall Construction. This article is a detailed field study and documentary of the roots, changes and current state of these traditional Irish arts, crafts and skills handed down from uncountable generations. This documentary includes in-person interviews, photographs, and observations by Susan Moody as part of her post-graduate studies.

The Grandfather Mountain Highland Games of July 2008

In July of 2008, Rising Road Tours was selected to be the official representative of the  Scottish Tourist Board at the Grandfather Mountain NC Highland Games. We were there to provide helpful travel information, brochures, suggested itineraries, maps and answers to questions about travel in Scotland. We had a wonderful time, and so did all the folks at the games! Read about all the fun we had, see a few pictures, and find out more about the 2009 Clan Gathering and Homecoming Scotland 2009.

Early History of Ireland

Prehistory, Myth and Legend. Around 6000 BCE the first people settled in Ireland following the receding of European glaciers. This article describes what we do know about the earliest background of Ireland and its people, the myths and legends that evolved during this time, monastic achievements, and concludes around 664 CE when the Synod of Whitby initiated a renewed isolation of Ireland.

Norse, Norman and English Invaders. By the 8th century CE, Christianity had firmly taken hold in Ireland. But the next few centuries would see a fresh incursion of settlers and invaders. This article covers the time between the first Norse invasions and concludes with the foundations of systematic English settlement of Ireland in the early 16th century.

Tudors to Early Immigration. When Henry VIII split with the papacy and set up the Church of England, there were serious ramifications for the devoutly Catholic Irish. This article begins with that momentous event and concludes in the early 17th century with the Tudor colonization of Ireland.

The Plantation to the Penal Laws. During the 17th century, the Plantation overran Ulster. Protestant immigration claimed over 1/2 million acres as the leaderless Irish were expelled or resettled. The period of the Penal Laws began in 1695 and lasted until 1829. During this time the minority Protestant population governed totally. The Penal Laws resulted in long-term effects on virtually every facet of Irish life.

18th Century Ireland

I. The Period of the Penal Laws. After 1695, crushing enactments against Catholics dominated the relationship between the British crown and the Irish people. Many Catholics saved settlers during 1641, now Protestants returned the favor. By the end of the 18th century, the Penal Laws gradually were repealed, but some provisions remained in effect until the early 19th century.

II. Beginnings of Parliamentary Reform. Composition of the Irish Parliament during this period was totally Protestant. Catholics had no political power. They could not hold seats in Parliament and were denied the right to vote. Irish politicians struggled for independence from the English Parliament with some success by the time of Grattan's Parliament in 1782.

III. Early Revolutionary Parties and Irish Opposition. The destruction of Irish trade led to the development of oath-bound secret societies. The Whiteboys began in 1761. This was a mixed group of tradesmen in Waterford, Cork, Limerick and Tipperary. They worked against the oppressions of the landlords. Often they were ruthless in their actions. In Ulster Protestant societies arose. The Hearts of Oak and the Steel Boys worked to put down unjust and intolerable rents. They often were merciless as the Whiteboys.

IV. The United Irishmen and Modern Revolutionary Movements. Events in Europe had a profound effect on politics in Ireland. The French revolution of 1789 moved Irish leaders to think about freedom. French notions of liberte, egalite et fraternite moved the poor and rustics in Britain and Ireland. Leading political figures and intellectuals formed clubs and committees to advocate governmental reform.

V. Early Movements Toward Irish Freedom. Desperate, the United Irishmen (mostly Protestant) took secret oaths to overthrow the government. The society peaked at 500,000 but was rife with spies.

19th Century Ireland

I. Union with Britain and the Rise of Daniel O'Connell. By the beginning of the 19th Century, British Prime Minister William Pitt believed that the time had come for a legislative union between England and Ireland. The Irish parliament did not agree...

II. O'Connell and Catholic Emancipation. The Act of the People allowed Catholics to hold all offices of state except the very highest. The penal laws were virtually ended. O'Connell now took on another crusade: repeal of the Act of Union. The purpose of O'Connell's huge rallies was involvement of the newly politicized, if disenfranchised, mass of the poorer Irish...

III. The Famine or The Great Hunger. When Grattan in his famous speech against the Act of Union described Ireland as "in her tomb, helpless and motionless," he was speaking in rhetorical terms. It was an apt description of the country at the time of the Liberator's death. Starvation, disease and emigration had reduced the "nine million" of the Mallow defiance to six and a half. By the 1861 census, the figure was 5.76 million and the downward tendency would continue into the 1980s...

IV. The Effects of "The Famine" in Ulster. The system of landholding was different: the "Ulster custom" gave tenants a greater security of tenure and the plantation legacy was of many small wholly owned farms. The region established a reputation for industry and industriousness and survived the change from cottage to factory and the meteoric rise and fall of cotton. It accepted the Union and realized that its prosperity was a function of that coupling. It overcame its insularity. As a result of sea transport, Belfast grew into a recognizable Victorian industrial city partaking of the advantages of the Industrial Revolution.

V. Renewed Nationalist Movements. Sectarian violence was endemic from 1850 on. The moment it became clear that because of the Famine and more normal demographic factors there was a sizeable population of Papists, Taigs or Fenians within the city boundary; after 1850 occupancy meant franchise...

VI. "Celtic Twilight". The Gaelic language was a casualty of the Famine plagues and of the migrations of Irish to England, Scotland and America. English was the language of success in these émigré homelands; Gaelic, the language of the homeland was a barrier. Irish trying to raise themselves from poverty or attempting to escape the famine and plague abandoned Gaelic, adopted English and anglicized their names...

VII. Yeats, Synge, and the Abbey Theatre. Lady Augusta Gregory was the widow of a diplomat. After her husband's death, she cycled round the villages near her Galway home collecting on paper the folk-tales the people could still recite from memory. She filled books with them and wrote plays in "Kiltartanese" the English spoken by these Irish whose first language was Gaelic. The dialect was named for a local village. In 1898 she met the poet William Butler Yeats. With others they planned the Irish Literary Theatre which opened with his play Cathleen ni Houlihan in 1899. Other literary and artistic figures included the novelist George Moore and the young playwright John Millington Synge. The assembled talent of writers, actors and directors was formidable. With the help of English patronage they opened what Yeats called "a small dingy and impecunious theatre" in Abbey Street in 1904. Within a few years the Abbey was one of the world's most famous theatres...

VIII. Land Reform and Boycott. While plans were being laid for the Celtic Revival during the 1890s, hard and pragmatic men were pursuing two much less romantic ideals. The traditional rulers of Ireland were going to learn that the granting of political concessions - the removal of the penal laws, and the more positive legislation to transfer ownership of land from the Anglo-Irish landlords to tenants - would not arouse gratitude in the beneficiaries. Such steps never did. Between 1870, when the prime minister, Gladstone, introduced the first land act to divide up the great estates among those who worked them and 1909 when the last such act was passed, the number of Irish householders in possession of some land rose from 3 percent to 60 percent and the redistribution of land had gone as far as it might reasonable be expected to go. Yet within a few years of that last act, revolution broke out...

IX. The Gaelic Athletic Association and the Gaelic League The movement which put down successful roots from end to end of the country was the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA), founded in 1884, which was dedicated to the promotion of traditional Irish games. No less than fostering Celtic games - hurling, Gaelic football, camogie and handball - their aim was to exile the traditional English games of cricket, soccer and rugby. It called these "foreign games" and it forbade its members to play or attend them - a ban that lasted up to the 1960s...

X. Militant Organizations Yeats's Celtic Revival, which held center stage for a while, left an indelible mark on European civilization, but - too dreamy and cerebral - scarcely touched the bulk of the Irish population. It was the unsmiling, uncompromising face of nationalism, which defined the direction Ireland took during the 20th century. There as the Gaelic League and the GAA. Linked to them, more or less formally, were the various armed factions, not all pursuing the same dream but willing to overlook their differences to achieve independence...

Stories From Our Tours

Three Brilliant Days. It was the rainiest summer in recent Irish memory. The bogs were so sodden one literally bounced when walking across them. Cattle had to be removed from summer fields and returned to winter barns so the pastures would not be destroyed. Two-thirds of the summer fruit crop was lost to mold and mildew. What I’d like to share are memories of three magical days when the clouds parted for us. In the Irish idiom, these days would be described as “brilliant” because they approached perfection.

Foreign Travel and Some Bull — The Saga of Georgie. On a soft, grey Connemara morning in June 2003, Dr. Couch took his morning walk on the lanes around Wellfield Farmhouse where he and his summer students were staying. Passing one pasture, he noticed a cow lying on her side breathing heavily. Knowing it was calving season and sensing something was amiss, Couch hurried to the farmhouse and roused Pat Rattigan the farmer. Pat rushed to the pasture to find the cow trying to deliver a calf whose foreleg blocked the birth canal. While Rattigan called for the vet, Couch gathered the students to witness this event – common on the farm, but a rare siting for city-raised students from Georgia.

This series of articles on Irish History is based on lectures given by Dr. Samuel Couch to Irish Studies courses at Georgia Southern University and Young Harris College between 1997 and 2004. Documented sources come from Couch's research and studies in American universities and with scholars in Ireland. The articles and reference list are in no way intended to be comprehensive.

Background materials come from, but are not limited to, readings in the following books:

Duffy, Sean, ed., Atlas of Irish History. Gill & Macmillan: Dublin. 1997.

Joyce, P.W., Outlines of the History of Ireland from the Earliest Times to 1905. M.H. Gill & Son: Dublin. 1909.

Killeen, Richard, A Short History of Ireland. Gill & Macmillan: Dublin. 1994.

Smyth, Daragh, A Guide to Irish Mythology. 2nd ed. Irish Academic Press: Dublin. 1996.

Any lack of attribution to primary sources is unintentional and the sole responsibility of Dr. Couch.

Rising Road Tours
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