D: Oh, hi guys, I haven't seen you for a while. How was your trip to Ireland?

O: Actually, it was really good. We learnt a lot of new things a saw new places.
D: And you Lukáš, did you like it?
L: It was new experience and some day I want to go there again.
D: Too bad I wasn't there
O: We thought you would be sad, so we prepared a short presentation for you.
D: Oh really? WOW!
L: Yes, you can learn a lot from our presentation about history and Galway hooker.
D: Oh, history sounds interesting, but what's Galway hooker?
O: We will talk about it later, let's talk about history now.
(presentation starts)
L: As you can see on this first slide, the first traces of advanced life began 6OOBC.
We call it Iron age.
O: Greek people named this population Keltoi, today we call them Celts.
D: Oh, Celts! I know them from our history lessons. Aren't they the Indo-European
population?
O: Exactly!
L: They had technology to work with iron and bronze. They made weapons and jewerly from
it.
D: And in what religion do they believed? Was it Christianity?
O: Not really. They were polythetic which means they believed in more gods. Most likely
they were some Irish gods.
D: And what gods?
O: For example, the Celtic Goddess Danu, she is one of the oldest Irish gods, commonly
associated with nature. Or the Morrigan. She is known as the Celtic Goddess of war, also
known as the “Phantom Queen” or the “Queen of Demons”.
L: But when Iron and Bronze age ended around 400AD, Christianity slowly started spreading.
I said slowly because people didn't really want to change their religion from day to day.
D: And do we know who brought Christianity to the territory of Ireland?
O: We can't be sure. It's because only a few pieces of evidence were found from this period.
D: Okay, and what happened after this?
O: 200 years later, the Vikings started to raid Ireland.
D: I know them from the tv series called Vikings. Aren’t those the big and masculine guys
from Scandinavia.
L: Yeah, you’re right. The chaos began by Vikings burning a church on Lambeg Island in
Dublin. Since there were no big towns, it was easy target for Vikings raids. As they were
raiding Ireland, they established settlements. These invades were driven out by the King of
Ireland but meanwhile the Norse rulers were reaching the zenith of their power.
D: When where they driven out?
O: It happened between 862 and 879. Norse rulers took Waterford in 914 and Limerick in
920
D: And what happened to the Vikings? Did they run away?
L; Actually, they became traders and cooperated with Irish people
D: And what about the Norse rulers?
O: The decline of their power began when they lost Limerick in 968 and in 1014 they were
defeated by the Irish king named Brian Boru. Although they removed the prospect of Norse
domination, it brought a period of political unsettlement.
D: And why is that?
L: Provincial kings didn’t acknowledged the High kings of Ireland because the Viking
invasions showed how weak was Ireland. By the 12. century Ireland was divided policaly into
shifting petty kingdoms and over kingdoms. Power was divided by the heads of a few
regional dynasties, fighting against each other over the whole Ireland.
D: And who won?
O: from Irish side no one, but England empire decided to invade island of Ireland.
D: Why did they invade them. Was it because of new territory or something else?
O: Obviously it was because they wanted new territory and more power with it. Although
they successfully invaded the territory of Ireland, it wasn’t enough to earn trust from people
of Ireland.
D: What did they do about it?
L: England had to send their propaganda to achieve that people will not have problem with
England government. It took them almost a century but at the end they achieved what they
wanted. The England empire also brought protestant Christianity to Ireland and everyone
who didn’t accept it was punished.
D: And what type of punishment did they get?
O: They were mostly tortured and burned. But majority of people of Ireland were catholic
and they were very poor and largely inert politically during the 18. Century.
D: Was the reason why people where politically inert because they were catholic?
O: Exactly.