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Chapter One

A Little Irish History

We need to understand from the beginning that our story is centered around the Irish culture. What we are talking about is a SEPT, Mac Giolla Mhartain. This is Gaelic spelling for MacKilmartin and many other Irish names who were involved in intermarriage with Kilmartin or Gilmartin. My initial research centered in County Tyrone and Fermanagh, then in Bradford, Leeds, and North Bierly, in Lancashire, England, then in towns in Pennsylvania. Most of the marriages of the time were within the Irish ethnic group. Basically, this was because that is where they were born, grew up, and lived - in a close knit and poverty stricken environment during the past two hundred years. These conditions were imposed from the outside by the rule of the British Government and even the mine owners of America. The same conditions can be said for the Italians, Germans and other Europeans nationalities during the 17th and 18th centuries.

The calendar of historical events listed may show a little Irish history and set the stage for the early Beginning of our ancestor’s life in Ireland.

3000 BC- Separate waves of Stone Age Settlers began to construct elaborate burial places, Court Cairns, Dolmas and round-cairns passage graves.

350 BC - Celtic people begin to arrive from the continent and Gaelic speaking Celts gain control. The Iron Age hill forts and ring forts are built.

ONE AD- The action of Ireland’s epic the TAIN, the Gaelic order flourishes, aristocracy of petty Kings, warrior-heroes, hereditary poets and druids based on land and livestock holdings.

432 AD- Saint Patrick arrives, initially the age of Christian monastic Ireland.

794 AD- Vikings begin their raids and establish the first towns and ports.

1170 AD-The string bow lands: the Anglo-Norman Invasion.

1172 AD-The Pope grants Ireland to England under Henry II.

1367 AD-Anti-Irish statues of Kilkenny are enacted.

1536 AD-First Protestant reformation Parliament in Dublin.

1556 AD-The Ulster Plantations begin, the English king grants confiscated Irish land to English settlers.

1590 AD-Gaelic Ireland is decisively defeated by the English rulers at Kinsale.

1645 AD-Catholic confederacy, meeting in Kilkenny not united against Cromwell.

1690 AD-King William wins the battle of Boyne.

1692 AD-Catholic representatives excluded from office.

1695 AD-Beginning of the Penal Laws against Catholics.

1724 AD-Swift’s "Drapiers Letters."

1782 AD-Grattan Independent Irish Parliament, era of Georgian Architecture.

1800 AD-Rebellion Against England Breaks out led by Anglo-Irish. Irish Parliament dissolved by an act of Union with England.

1829 AD- Daniel O’Connell forces Catholic Emancipation

1845 AD- The Great Famine cause large scale emigration to America.

We stopped in 1845 as the family fortunes shifted to England and finally America.

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Page last updated on January 10, 2016

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