~10,000 BCE - Earliest settlers arrived in Ireland, in the Mesolithic or Middle Stone Age period. They crossed by land bridge from Scotland. These people were mainly hunters.

~3000 BCE - Colonists of the neolithic, or new stone-age period, reached Ireland. These people were farmers. Remnants of their civilization have been excavated at Lough Gur in Co. Limerick. They traded in a limited form in products, such as axe-heads. One of their monuments, a megalithic tomb at Newgrange in County Meath, has survived.

~2000 BCE - Prospectors and metalworkers arrived. Metal deposits were discovered and soon bronze and gold objects were made. Items (such as axe-heads, pottery and jewelery) made by these bronze-age people, have been found.

1699 BCE - Beginning of the Milesian Genealogies

Early Ages - The time of legends.

~1200 BCE - More people reached Ireland, producing a greater variety of weapons and artifacts. A common dwelling of this period was the "crannog", an artificial island, constructed in the middle of a lake.

~600 BCE - Celts started arriving in Ireland, from central Europe. They continued to arrive, up to the time of Christianity. They soon began to dominate Ireland, and the earliet settlers. The Celts belonged linguistically to the Indo-European culture.

~200 BCE - The Celtic culture of the La Tene civilization (named after a Celtic site in Switzerland) reached Ireland. Celtic Ireland was not politically unified, only by culture and language. The country was divided into about 150 minitature kingdoms, each called a 'tuath.' The term tuath signified a clan or tribal family. In later times it came to mean a unit of territory namely the ancestral or patrimonial lands of a tribe or tribal grouping. The tuath could be described as the smallest unit of land over which a local taoiseach or clan chief exercised control. In terms of size its closest parallel is the parish, and in fact a remarkable coincidence will sometimes be seen in the boundaries of these two divisions.

A minor king ruled a 'tuath,' subject to a more powerful king who ruled a group of 'tuath,' who was in turn subject to one of the five provincial kings. (Early on there were five provinces, with Meath as a separate province.) This caused constant shifting in power, among the most important contenders. Celtic Ireland had a simple agrarian economy. No coins were used, and the cow was the unit of exchange. There were no towns. Society was stratified into classes, and was regulated by the Brehon Laws, based largely on the concepts of the 'tuath' as the political body, and the 'fine,' or extended family as the social unit.

~100 BCE - Arrival of the Gaels

200 CE - Beginnings of High Kingship at Tara, Co Meath

~300 CE - Ireland inhabited by tribes known as Scoti

377-405 CE - Naill of the Nine Hostages, High King

428-463 CE - King McNeill reigned

431 CE - Pope Celestine 1 sent Palladius to the Irish, as their first Bishop. Palladius died soon after.

432 CE - Arrival of St. Patrick to help convert pagan Gaelic Kings to Christianity.

550 CE onwards - Irish monks re-Christianize Europe

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Time of Written History