loruaidhe. [I] A kingdom whose ruler possessed a hound whelp called Fail Inis, who was irresistible in battle. Any water it bathed in was turned to wine and it caught every wild beast it encountered. In reparation for killing Cian, Lugh's father, the sons of Tuireann had to bring it back to Ireland. They fought the king of loruaidhe, took him captive, and demanded the hound in return for his life and freedom.

Ir. [I] A son of Milesius. He was killed by a storm conjured by the De Danaan to prevent the Milesian landing in Ireland. Ireland. Eire in Irish. Unlike its neighbouring Celtic island, Britain, it did not become part of the Roman Empire, although the Romans, particularly Agricola, did plan to invade. Converted to Christianity in the fifth century, Ireland also escaped the sweep of the Huns, Goths, Vandals, and other Germanic peoples through Europe, which also destroyed Celtic Britain and established a number of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms there that eventually became England. While this was known as the Dark Ages in Europe, it' was for Ireland a "Golden Age" of learning and literacy. Irish Christian monks left Ireland to establish churches and monasteries as far east as Kiev, in the Ukraine, as far north as Iceland and the Faroes, and as far south as Taranto, in Italy. Ironically, in view of Ireland's later history, they brought literacy and Christianity to the English kingdoms. In the eighth century Ireland felt the brunt of attacks from the Vikings, and the Norse made settlements in the coastal regions. During this period, great Irish libraries, theIech Screpta. were destroyed in the raids. These Norse settlers tended to merge into the native culture, especially after the High King, Brian Boromha, defeated the Norse at Clontarf in A.D. 1014, turning the tide of the attempted Norse domination of the area. However, in 1167 the first of the Anglo-Norman attempts at conquest began. In 1175 the High King Ruraidh O Conchobhar signed the Treaty of Windsor, in which he recognised the emperor of the Angevin Empire, Henry II, as suzerain lord of Ireland. Ruraidh was to be the last High King, for the Normans began to carve out their own petty kingdoms and fiefdoms. These original conquerors also merged into the Irish nation so well that when Henry VIII sent an emissary to address the Anglo-Norman barons of Ireland, his speech had to be translated into Irish for them to understand. From the time of Mary Tudor, however, new colonisation pro- grammes were devised that led to full-scale warfare with the native population, including the eatly colonists, which resulted in the Irish defeat at Kinsale in 1601. English common law was now enforced throughout the country, and anew colonisation was at- tempted in Ulster. In 1641 the Irish rose up and were initially successful estab- lishing a Confederate Parliament in Kilkenny. In 1649 Oliver Cromwell began his campaign on behalf of the English Patliament to reconquer Ireland, and the Irish armies were eventually defeated. Then began the most notorious of the English colonisation programmes. By May 1, 1654, all the native Irish population were ordered to remove west of the River Shannon into a reservation consisting of Co. Clare and the province of Connacht, on pain of death. Any natives found east of the Shannon from that date on could be killed immediately. Their lands were to be taken over by English colonists. Thousands of Irish were massacred, thousands more rounded up and sent mainly to Barbados. Yet the scheme to eradicate the Irish nation failed. The Williamite Conquest of Ireland saw another colonisation scheme and the introduction of the Penal Laws, in which only members of the Anglican Church were given any form of civil rights. This caused a mass migration to the American colonies of Ulster Presbyterians, who played a leading role in the American War of Independence. Many returned, introducing into Ireland the new philosophy of "The Rights ofMan." They played a prominent role in the establishment of the Irish Republican movement and in the first major uprising in one hundred years against the English ad- ministration in 1798.
The English administration's answer to the demand for freedom was to curtail the Irish nation even more. On January 1, 1801, the colonial parliament (a body elected by the colonists in Ireland) was merged into the English parliament and the state of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland came into being. Even the colonists had to be heavily bribed to vote for the abolition of their Dublin parliament.  Abortive uprisings against the English administration also took place in 1803, 1848, and 1867. In the period 1844-1848, Ireland lost 2.5 million of its inhabitants, by death and migration, due to an artificially induced famine caused when absentee English land- lords insisted on the exportation of grain, cattle, and sheep out of the country at a time when the potato.crops had failed. This feudal system of landlordism was overthrown by the "Land War" of 1879- 1882. With the failure of the uprising of 1867, the Irish people turned to the "constitutional path" opened for them by the gradual repeal of the Penal Laws, by the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829, and by the Patliamentary Reform Act. An Irish Parry was established to achieve self-government. From 1870 for the next forry years they held four-fifths of all Irish seats within the British Patliament. Yet the majotity of English representatives refused to accept the demo cratically expressed wish of the Irish people. In 1910 the Irish Party held 84 seats out of the 105 seats, but attempts to secure selfgovernment were thwarted and shelved by the start ofWotld War I. On Apri124, 1916, the Itish rose again and declared an indepen- dent republic. This was militarily suppressed by England. In December 1918, the last all-Ireland general election ever held, of the 105 seats, 73 went to Sinn Fein, the Irish Republican party, 6 to the old Irish Parry, and 26 to the Unionists. In Januaty 1919, Ireland issued a Declaration of Independence. English troops were sent in and the elected Republican representatives were arrested when found. Thus began the War of Independence 1919-1921. The British government finally entered into negotiations and ~ xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Irish ! '\ succeeded in coercing Irish delegates into accepting the Partition of .. Ireland and establishment of a Free State. Of the nine counties of Ulster, Unionists had a clear majority in four counties. In spite of the ethical questions over democracy, Britain enforced Partition by taking two counties with Republican majorities and putting them with the four Unionist counties. The area was given a local parliament within the United Kingdom structure. To ensure a permanent Unionist rule, the state was set up on sectarian lines and the Unionist/Protestant majority was reinforced by the disenfranchisement of groups of Nationalists/ Catholics. A blind eye was turned by the British government to continued state endorsed civil rights violations. Born out of bloodshed and violence, the statelet was never at peace, and violence was endemic every decade until the advent of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association in the 1960s. Protest marches demanding "one man, one vote" were met by a sectarian Unionist/Protestant backlash.
British troops were once more sent into Northern Ireland to "keep the peace" but could not save the Unionist government, and the Stormont Parliament was abolished in 1972. But this did not stop the long campaign to reunify the country, which continues today. The reunification of Ireland is a cherished aspiration for the majority of Irish people. The Irish Free State became the Irish Republic on April 18, 1949.

Irgalach. [I] Son of tach. He commanded "three fifties" of elderly veteran warriors of Ulster. They volunteered to accompany Conchobhar Mac Nessa in the war against Ailill and Medb in order to give advice to the younger warriors.