SOME KEY DATES IN IRISH GOTHIC HISTORY

1500-1690         Plantations of large sectors of Ireland.  This meant the introduction of English settlers into lands previously occupied both by the Irish chieftains and also the Old English (descendants of Norman invaders, heavily integrated into Irish life)

1690                 Defeat of Jacobite forces (supported by Irish Catholic majority) by the Williamite forces (supported by the Protestant settlers) at the Battle of the Boyne

1740                 Belevdere House built

1760                 Jealous Wall built

1762                 Castleward House built

1798                 United Irishmen rebellion leading to 30,000 deaths

1800                 Act of Union passed; Maria Edgeworth publishes Castle Rackrent

1804                 Birr Castle remodelled in the Gothic style

1806                 Lady Morgan publishes The Wild Irish Girl

1810                 Swiss Cottage designed by John Nash

1812                 Maria Edgeworth publishes The Absentee; Lismore Castle remodelled in Gothic style

1816                 The burning of Wildgoose Lodge

1820                 Maturin publishes Melmoth the Wanderer

1829                 Catholic Emancipation

1845 – 1847       The Irish Famine caused by potato blight and overdependence on this crop results in 2 million people dying or emigrating.

1848                 Young Irelanders’ rebellion

1851                 Le Fanu publishes Ghost Stories and Tales of Mystery

1872                 Le Fanu publishes In A Glass Darkly (including Carmilla)

1891                 Wilde publishes The Picture of Dorian Gray

1897                 Bram Stoker publishes Dracula

1885 – 1907       Land Acts carve up the great estates and begin the slow crumble of the Great House in Ireland

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