Prehistory

The earliest settlers arrived around 7,000 BC in the Mesolithic or middle stone-age period. They arrived in the north across the narrow strait form Britain. These people were mainly hunters.

Colonists of the Neolithic, or new stone age, period reached Ireland around3,000 BC. These were farmers who raised animals and cultivated the soil. Many remnants of their civilization - houses, potter, and implements - have been excavated at Lough Gur in Co. Limerick and some can be seen at the folk park now developed around the lakeside site. The Neolithic colonists were largely self-sufficient but engaged in a limited form of trading in products such as axe-heads.

Many of their religious monuments have survived, the most impressive of which is the great megalithic tomb at Newgrange in Co. Meath.

Prospectors and metalworkers arrived about 2,000 BC. Metal deposits were discovered and soon bronze and gold objects were being manufactured. Many artifacts made by these bronze-age people have been found, among them axe-heads, pottery and jewelry. About1,200 BC another movement of people reached Ireland, producing an even greater variety of weapons and artifacts. A common type of dwelling in use at this time was the crannog, an artificial island, with palisades on all sides, constructed in the middle of a lake.