Iron arrives, and with it the world the sagas remember. Emain Macha, Cruachan, Dún Ailinne and Tara rise as ceremonial capitals. La Tène spirals curl across the Turoe Stone and the little gold boat from Broighter. This is the Ireland of hillforts, bog roads and king-making ritual. The tales that remember it were written down centuries afterwards.
A tiny golden boat with oars, perhaps an offering to the sea-god Manannán, is buried near Lough Foyle.
AD 82
Rome looks across
Agricola muses that Ireland could be taken 'with one legion and auxiliaries'; finds at Drumanagh show busy Roman trade instead.
Quick answersWhen was the Iron Age in Ireland?
The Iron Age spans 500 BC to AD 99 in this atlas. Iron arrives, and with it the world the sagas remember.
Who ruled Ireland during the Iron Age?
Iron Age Ireland held the whole island in this atlas's reckoning. The centuries of the royal sites (Emain Macha, Cruachan, Dún Ailinne, Tara) and of La Tène art curling across stone and bronze. The world remembered in the sagas.
What is a lesser-known fact about the Iron Age?
Around 148 BC, someone built an oak road at least a kilometre long across a Longford bog, the Corlea trackway, using some three hundred great oaks, and the bog swallowed it whole within a decade. Archaeologists still debate whether it was for wheels, for kings, or for the gods.
↗ links go to the relevant Wikipedia article for each event and ruler (sources & further reading).