We take for granted today the boundary lines which divide countries. Those borders set in 1884 had little rationale but continue to have long-term consequences. 80 years after being divided, the new countries were provided with relative Independence. This was partially due to their struggles against colonial rule and partly due to the decision taken by the USA to have economic access to the world. They all kept the boundaries created during colonialism.

Many historians have detailed the long history of colonisation by the Irish in the Americas and later in India. In this blog, I summarise some of the key themes of the process of the colonisation of Ireland. If we are to understand colonisation in the Americas we must understand Britain’s first colony, that is, Ireland. Ireland has been unique in British history. Ireland has always been deeply foreign to the British despite her geographical closeness to the mainland of Britain.

Over 450 years from 1500 to 1945, the major European powers competed with one another over colonies. There were no established global rules until the 20th century. One of the purposes of the monopoly companies was to take colonies from other European powers, it is in this sense that European colonisation was a competitive process. The religious wars and conflicts between states within Europe were replicated across the globe. The Spanish and Portuguese were first off the block in the 15th century, invading and colonising the Americas.

The so-called National Charter companies were innovative at the time. They were financed from private sources, allowed to arm themselves for protection, and they set out to control the trade they could muster. The East India companies avoided the Ottomans, sailed around the Cape to India, and began to set up local agreements and build forts. Each of the new European companies rapidly discovered that the Indian and Chinese governments did not want to obtain what Europe had to offer, rather they felt themselves to be self-sufficient.

The many great empires in every continent, that spread across the world in 1492 when Drake first crossed the Atlantic Ocean had already been in existence for many hundreds and in some cases thousands of years. Between 1500 and 1918, all the existing ancient empires in the Americas, Asia Africa and Europe would be destroyed. First to go were the Aztecs and the Incas, in the 16th century. In Europe, the Holy Roman Empire disappeared in 1815, and the Austro/Hungarian empire 100 years later after the 1914/18 war.