Ireland and California. One Timeline.
As I learn Irish history, I wonder what was happening in California.
So I made this dual timeline of events that interest me.
🌞California: 1509: The Amazon Queen Califia appears in a Spanish novel. She rules an island without men in the distant west.
☘️Ireland: 1509: While the Kings of England claim lordship over Irish aristocracy, the descendants of Norman invaders have long intermarried into prominent Irish families, and for the most part reject the authority of the English kings.
☘️Ireland: 1536-40: Law enacted by Irish Parliament declares King Henry VIII head of the Church. He orders the "Dissolution of the Monasteries," but Irish lords resist redistributing land and land use.
🌞California: 1533: Native people defeat Spanish invaders in Baja California.
☘️Ireland: 1542: The Irish parliament establishes a Kingdom of Ireland to be ruled by Henry VIII.
🌞California: 1542: Cabrillo lands in San Diego and continues north as far as what will be Fort Ross.
🌞California: 1565: Spain establishes the Manila Galleon trade route which brings luxury goods and cultural exchange to New Spain for 250 years. Ships sail along the California coast each summer, but never land due to heavy coastal fog.
☘️Ireland: 1570: Pope declares Elizabeth I a heretic and releases her subjects from any allegiance to her.
🌞California: 1579: Sir Francis Drake claims the San Francisco Bay for England and Elizabeth I.
☘️Ireland: 1586: Sir Francis Drake introduces the potato to England and Ireland after plundering Cartagena on the coast of Columbia (maybe) (Controversial.)
☘️Ireland: 1601: In the turning point of the Nine Year's War, Spain lands 3,000 soldiers at Kinsale, in support of rebellion lead by Hugh O'Neill. The Irish and Spanish are defeated.
🌞California: 1602: First contact between Spain and Essalen people of Monterey Bay. Spain doesn't return to Alta California for 170 years.
☘️Ireland: 1607: Defeated in war, ruling families of Ireland flee to Europe, in what is known as "The Flight of the Earls." Native Irish are left without political representation.
☘️Ireland: 1606: The Plantation system grants well-connected men thousands of acres of land. The highest concentrations of plantations are in Ulster, previously the "most gaelic" province.
🌞California: 1606: Native Californians live peacefully.
☘️Ireland: 1632: Charter of the City of Londonderry.
🌞California: 1632: Native Californians live peacefully.
☘️Ireland: 1649-52: Cromwellian conquest of Ireland.
🌞California: 1650: Native Californians live peacefully.
☘️Ireland: 1700: Penal Laws restrict civil liberties of Irish Catholics.
🌞California: 1700: Native Californians live peacefully.
🌞California: 1769: Portola expedition "rediscovers" Monterey and San Francisco Bay. Father Serra and five priests arrive in California. First Presidio at San Diego. Beginning of Native Californian genocide. (Although epidemic European diseases have been killing Native people for 200 years.)
☘️Ireland: 1776: Eight of the signatories of the US Declaration of Independence are Irish, albeit mostly from families of the Plantation, not Native Irish. Strabane-born John Dunlap prints the declaration in his Philadelphia shop.
🌞California: 1776: San Francisco Mission and Presidio established.
☘️Ireland: 1778: Kilkenny aristocrats Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby flee social convention and settle in Llangollen, Wales.
🌞California: 1791: Mission Santa Cruz established. Branciforte established 1797.
☘️Ireland: 1798: The first United Irishmen Rebellion, aided by revolutionary French troops, ends in defeat.
☘️Ireland: 1800: Act of Union ends the independent Anglo-Irish Parliament, and Ireland joins the United Kingdom. St. Patrick's red saltire is added to the Union Jack.
☘️Ireland: 1803: Second United Irishmen Rebellion. Leaders Robert Emmet and Thomas Russell executed. Bank of Ireland buys former Irish parliament building in Dublin. Still owns it.
🌞California: 1812: Russians establish Fort Ross.
🌞California: 1821: Treaty of Cordoba establishes Mexico's independence from Spain. Alta California is a territory of the new country, not a state, with little income or immigration.
🌞California: 1823: Last mission established at Solano.
☘️Ireland: 1829: Catholic Emancipation: The Catholic Relief Act 1829 is passed, allowing Catholics to sit in the UK Parliament.
☘️Ireland: 1830: First Catholics take their seats in the UK Parliament, including Daniel O’Connell.
☘️Ireland: 1831: Ralahine Commune established in Co. Clare. Prospers for two years until the legal owner gambles himself into bankruptcy and residents are evicted.
🌞California: 1834: Missions dissolved by Mexican government. The Rancho system (similar to Ulster Plantations) grants well-connected men thousands of acres of land. Attempts to give land to Native Californians are well intentioned, but ultimately fail.
🌞California: 1846: US invades Mexico. 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo gives half of Mexico to the US: California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico.
☘️Ireland: 1845-47: The Great Hunger. 1 million dead, 1 million emigrate. Massive transfer of land and land use to British ruling and merchant class.
🌞California: 1849-1854: California gold rush. Population grows by 300,000 immigrants, including many thousands from Ireland. State-sponsored genocide of Native Californians, especially in previously remote Sierra Nevada foothills.
☘️Ireland: 1850: Tara Brooch discovered in Co. Meath, one of the artifacts that inspires the Celtic Revival.
🌞California: 1850-71: Californian Indian Wars. Twenty-six different military actions against native Californians, and countless smaller attacks.
☘️Ireland: 1854: Oscar Wilde born in Dublin.
🌞California: 1856: Santa Cruz Sentinel first published.
☘️Ireland: 1859: Irish Times first published.
🌞California: 1860-64: US Civil War. California provides black powder, war materials, and gold to the Federal government. Southern secessionists attempt to create a Pacific Republic and other acts of rebellion.
☘️Ireland: 1861: Evictions at Derryveagh Co. Donegal by "Black" Jack Adair. He provides capital for the pre-railroad Texas cattle industry.
☘️Ireland: 1862: Among the many achievements of people who left Ireland in the famine, in this year Eliza Lynch becomes the defacto "First Lady of Paraguay."
🌞California: 1860-62: John G. Downey elected California governor. Native of Roscommon. Frank McCoppin elected mayor of San Francisco, 1867, native of Longford.
🌞California: 1864: President Lincoln signs legislation creating the first National Park at Yosemite.
☘️Ireland: 1866: The Great Eastern sets out from Valentia Island and lays the first transatlantic cable.
☘️Ireland: 1867: Fenian Rising, a rebellion organized by the Irish Republican Brotherhood. Fenians organized Irish people, as well as now-unemployed Irish Civil War veterans in the US.
☘️Ireland: 1886: Alexandra College: First college for women in Ireland.
☘️Ireland: 1868: My Irish ancestors Timothy Patrick O'Callaghan and Bridget Bedelia Bolton emigrate to Philadelphia from Co. Roscommon.
🌞California: 1872-80: Final stage of California Indian Wars, which were not wars, but a series of broken treaties, massacres, and pogroms.
☘️Ireland: 1870-90s: Irish Land War. In 1879 the Irish National Land League wins "fair rent, fixity of tenure, and free sale." Rent strikes, murders, boycotts. By the end of the century, legislation effectively ends absentee landlordism, breaks up the large estates, and distributes land ownership to rural tenants.
☘️Ireland: 1871: Church of Ireland disestablished. Catholics no longer required to pay tithes.
🌞California:1882: Chinese Exclusion Act is first Federal law proscribing immigration of a particular ethnic group, particularly aimed at immigration to California.
🌞California:1882: Oscar Wilde visits California, delivering lectures in Oakland, San Francisco, Sacramento, Stockton, and San Jose.
☘️Ireland: 1882: Irish Parliamentary party established with the aim of Irish Home Rule, which would have returned of an independent Parliament. This political structure would be called "devolution" today.
☘️Ireland: 1884: Dublin Castle scandal and public condemnation of the unspeakable crime of consensual male homosexuality.
🌞California:1888: After the Mussel Slough Tragedy in 1880—where farmers were evicted from their land by the Southern Pacific Railroad—Dinuba is founded for these displaced farmers on the east side of the Central Valley. I was born there.
☘️Ireland: 1891: Maud Gonne joins the Order of the Golden Dawn to which her friend W. B. Yeats also belongs. She never marries him, thus remaining the muse of much of his poetry. She later joins the Irish revolution and women's movement.
☘️Ireland: 1893: Gaelic League founded.
🌞California: 1906: The Nethertons build my house in Santa Cruz.
🌞California: 1911: Men of California narrowly pass a law allowing women to vote.
☘️Ireland: 1916: Easter Rising declares the Irish Republic.
☘️Ireland: 1917: UK postpones Home Rule for Ireland due to World War I.
☘️Ireland: 1918: Women with property and over age 30 allowed to vote. Universal suffrage for women in 1922.
☘️Ireland: 1919: The First Dáil of the Irish Republic issues a Declaration of Independence from the UK.
🌞California: 1920s: 2 Million Americans migrate to California, more than half of them to Los Angeles. Petroleum, manufacturing, aviation, and entertainment industries boom.
☘️Ireland: 1921-23: Irish War of Independence followed by Irish Civil War.
☘️Ireland: 1921 Northern Ireland established.
🌞California: 1922: Ku Klux Klan organizes secret groups in Santa Cruz, Watsonville, and Live Oak, targeting Catholics, Immigrants, and African Americans. By 1924, national membership is at 6 million.
🌞California: 1937: Republic of Ireland established. Complete independence from Great Britain and a new constitution.
🌞California: 1945: UN established in San Francisco
☘️Ireland: 1955: Ireland joins UN as a sovereign nation.
🌞California: 1961: I am born.
☘️Ireland: 1969: The Troubles begin in Northern Ireland.
🌞California: 1969: Native Americans occupy Alcatraz Island.
☘️Ireland: 1998: Good Friday Agreement signed by Ireland, Great Britain, and eight political parties of Northern Ireland.
🌞☘️California: 2008: I visit Ireland for the first time.