Editing Republic of Ireland

{{Infobox country|name=Republic of Ireland|mode_of_production=[[Capitalism]]|area_footnote=<br>84,421 km² (including occupied counties)|area_km2=70,273|population_estimate_year=2021|unemployment=26%|population_estimate=5,011,500|map_width=200|image_flag=Irish flag.png.png|image_map=Ireland.png|leader_name2=[[Leo Varadkar]]|native_name=Poblacht na hÉireann|leader_name1=[[Michael D. Higgins]]|leader_title2=Prime Minister|leader_title1=President|government_type=Parliamentary republic|official_languages=English, Irish|largest_city=Dublin|image_coat=Coat of arms of Ireland.svg|capital=Dublin|image_map_caption=Light green area is under British occupation.}}

The '''Republic of Ireland''' is a country in [[Europe]]. Formerly a [[United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland|British]] [[Colonialism|colony]], six of its 32 counties are still occupied by the United Kingdom.<ref>{{Citation|author=Brendan O'Brien|year=1999|title=The Long War: The IRA and Sinn Féin|page=167|publisher=Syracuse University Press|isbn=9780815605973|title-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Io085Nl0CJQC&pg=PA166#v=onepage&q&f=false}}</ref> Since the island was partitioned in 1921, [[Irish republicanism|Irish Republicans]] have been fighting for unification. On 5 May 2022, [[Sinn Féin]], formerly the political arm of the [[Irish Republican Army]], won the Northern Ireland Assembly election, igniting hope of unification in the near future.<ref>{{News citation|author=Steve James|newspaper=World Socialist Web Site|title=Sinn Féin wins Northern Ireland Assembly election|date=2022-05-08|url=https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/05/08/zznv-m08.html}}</ref>

== History ==

=== Early British settlement ===
In the early 17th century, [[Kingdom of England (927–1707)|England]] opened 500,000 acres in the north of Ireland to [[Settler colonialism|settlers]] from [[Scotland]]. The English banned traditional Irish music and culture and exterminated entire clans. They tried to create a reservation for the Irish. The English paid bounties for Irish heads and later only required scalps or ears.<ref name=":8">{{Citation|author=[[Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz]]|year=2014|title=An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States|title-url=|chapter=Culture of Conquest|page=38|pdf=https://www.lcps.org/cms/lib/VA01000195/Centricity/Domain/10601/An%20Indigenous%20Peoples%20History%20of%20the%20United%20States%20Ortiz.pdf|city=Boston|publisher=Beacon Press Books|series=ReVisioning American History}}</ref>

In 1654, [[Oliver Cromwell]] conquered Ireland and ended Celtic control of the country's land.<ref>{{Citation|author=[[James Connolly]]|year=1915|title=The Re-Conquest of Ireland|chapter=The Conquest of Ireland|chapter-url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/connolly/1915/rcoi/chap01.htm|mia=https://www.marxists.org/archive/connolly/1915/rcoi/index.htm}}</ref> In 1725, the British passed a law banning marriages between the Irish and English.<ref name=":1">{{Citation|author=[[Domenico Losurdo]]|year=2011|title=Liberalism: A Counter-History|chapter=Were Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century England and America Liberal?|page=116|publisher=Verso|isbn=9781844676934|lg=https://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=5BB3406BC2E64972831A1C00D5D4BFE4|pdf=https://cloudflare-ipfs.com/ipfs/bafykbzacebhsj2yxuoudkhkjp6lzgr5jvgyhu76zxe4gw3d65gpg32a6nded4?filename=Domenico%20Losurdo%2C%20Gregory%20Elliott%20-%20Liberalism_%20A%20Counter-History-Verso%20%282011%29.pdf}}</ref>

=== French Revolutionary wars ===
[[Wolfe Tone|Theobold Wolfe Tone]], a radical Protestant, founded the [[United Irishmen]] to fight for Irish independence. They began an uprising in 1798 that united Protestants and Catholics against [[British]] rule. The British killed 30,000 rebels, and [[French Republic (1792–1804)|French]] troops failed to arrive on time to support the resistance.<ref name=":0222">{{Citation|author=Neil Faulkner|year=2013|title=A Marxist History of the World: From Neanderthals to Neoliberals|chapter=The Second Wave of Bourgeois Revolutions|page=130|pdf=https://cloudflare-ipfs.com/ipfs/bafykbzacedljwr5izotdclz23o3c5p4di4t3ero3ncbfytip55slhiz4otuls?filename=Neil%20Faulkner%20-%20A%20Marxist%20History%20of%20the%20World_%20From%20Neanderthals%20to%20Neoliberals-Pluto%20Press%20%282013%29.pdf|publisher=Pluto Press|isbn=9781849648639|lg=https://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=91CA6C708BFE15444FE27899217FBA8E}}</ref>

Following the rising, in 1800 the Irish parliament, mostly controlled by the English, voted itself out of existence and in 1801, the Act of Union allowed Great Britain to officially annex Ireland.<ref name=":2">{{Citation|author=Tim Pat Coogan|year=2016|title=1916: one hundred years of Irish independence: from the Easter Rising to the present|title-url=https://annas-archive.org/md5/b61215e7ed896b542695efaaa3ea9900|chapter=The Road to the Rising|page=7-38|isbn=9781250110602}}</ref>

=== British occupation (1801–1922) ===
The Insurrection Act in Castlebar allowed the British to deport any man found outside at night without a passport.<ref name=":1" />

During the 1913 Dublin lockout, English workers raised money for the Irish, but the [[Labor aristocracy|bureaucracy]] of the [[Trades Union Congress]] refused to support the strike.<ref name=":02">{{Citation|author=[[Vijay Prashad]]|year=2017|title=Red Star over the Third World|chapter=Red October|page=35|pdf=https://cloudflare-ipfs.com/ipfs/bafykbzacecu7gb2ei65us6ip3r2ugcgkblneqcftbm456mb6bzvprkbqk55qm?filename=Vijay%20Prashad%20-%20Red%20Star%20Over%20the%20Third%20World-LeftWord%20Books%20%282018%29.pdf|city=New Delhi|publisher=LeftWord Books}}</ref>

==== Great Famine ====
In 1845, the British appointed [[Charles Trevelyan]] to administer Ireland during a famine. Trevelyan adopted a [[Laissez-faire capitalism|laissez-faire]] attitude and wrote that the famine was an "[[Malthusianism|effective mechanism for reducing surplus population]]" and "the judgement of God to teach the Irish a lesson." Exports of food from Ireland increased during the famine and over a million people starved to death.<ref name=":03">{{News citation|author=Larry Holzwarth|newspaper=History Collection|title=10 Atrocities Committed by the British Empire that They Would Like to Erase from History Books|date=2018-03-17|url=https://historycollection.com/10-atrocities-committed-by-the-british-empire-that-they-would-like-to-erase-from-history-books/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210616103933/https://historycollection.com/10-atrocities-committed-by-the-british-empire-that-they-would-like-to-erase-from-history-books/|archive-date=2021-06-16|retrieved=2022-05-21}}</ref> The population of Ireland had been nearing nine million when the potato blight struck. By the time the Famine officially ended in 1852, it had fallen to six, and it would continue to decline steeply in the following decades, a population decrease that Ireland still has not recovered from in the modern day.<ref name=":2" />

==== Easter Rising ====
{{Main article|Easter Rising}}
In 1914 the [[First World War]] began in Europe, and although preparations for an Irish revolt had already begun, the distraction of the war for the British provided the Irish with an opportunity. Emissaries were sent to [[Berlin]] to secure weapons and other practical assistance from the [[German Empire (1871–1918)|German]] government, but in the end they came away with much less than they had hoped for and on the return journey to Ireland the supplies were captured.<ref name=":2" />

On 24 April 1916, [[Pádraic Piarais]] read out an Irish proclamation of independence, beginning a [[Proletariat|proletarian]] rebellion against the British that lasted for six days.<ref>{{Web citation|newspaper=[[Proletarian (newspaper)|Proletarian]]|title=The 1916 Easter Rising remembered|date=2016-04-01|url=https://thecommunists.org/2016/04/01/news/history/1916-easter-rising-remembered-ireland-centenary/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220516092220/https://thecommunists.org/2016/04/01/news/history/1916-easter-rising-remembered-ireland-centenary/|archive-date=2022-05-16|retrieved=2022-12-04}}</ref> The rising was to be a failure before it even began but the Irish still fought valiantly for their freedom, with roughly 1,500 rebels taking up arms in Dublin before they were brutally crushed by the British. After the Easter Rising ended, the British executed all seven signers of the proclamation including Piarais himself, [[James Connolly]] and [[Thomas Clarke]], and along with several other leaders.<ref name=":2" />

==== War of Independence ====
The [[Dáil Éireann]], Ireland's legislature, met for the first time during the [[Irish War of Independence]] and read out the [[Irish Declaration of Independence|Declaration of Independence]] and the [[Message to the Free Nations of the World]].<ref>{{Citation|author=Michael Hopkinson|title=The Irish War of Independence: The Definitive Account of the Anglo Irish War of 1919–1921|title-url=https://b-ok.cc/book/3656101/7ed856|page=85–87|publisher=Gill & Macmillan|isbn=9780717161980}}</ref> A treaty signed in December 1921 in London ended the Civil War but retained the British king as head of state and allowed Britain to retain colonial control of the northeastern six counties. The Dáil approved the treaty in January 2022 with a vote of 64 to 57.<ref name=":0">{{Web citation|author=[[Ella Rule]]|newspaper=[[Proletarian (newspaper)|Proletarian]]|title=Ireland gets the government it didn’t vote for|date=2020-07-30|url=https://thecommunists.org/2020/07/30/news/ireland-gets-government-it-didnt-vote-for/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220517172424/https://thecommunists.org/2020/07/30/news/ireland-gets-government-it-didnt-vote-for/|archive-date=2022-05-17|retrieved=2022-12-04}}</ref>

Opponents of the treaty founded [[Fianna Fáil]] while supporters founded the predecessor of [[Fine Gael]]. An anti-treaty faction of Sinn Féin refused to accept the treaty, and a civil war began.<ref name=":0" />

== Politics ==
Since its partial independence from Britain, a duopoly of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael has dominated Ireland. Both parties support low taxes and allow international [[Imperialism|imperialists]] to exploit the country. The center-left [[Green Party (Ireland)|Green Party]] also supports [[austerity]] and bailing out banks.

Sinn Féin seeks to improve living standards, reunify Ireland, and end collaboration with the [[European Union]] and [[North Atlantic Treaty Organization|NATO]].<ref name=":0" />

== References ==
[[Category:Countries]]
[[Category:European countries]]