1920s: In 1923, Yeats wins the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Today: The Irish poet Seamus Heaney wins a Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995. The 1998 Nobel Peace Prize is awarded to two Irishmen seeking to find a solution to the violence still besetting their homeland. The Nobel Prize Committee describes Roman Catholic co-winner John Hume, leader and one of the founders of the moderate Social Democratic and Labour Party, as "the clearest and most consistent of Northern Ireland's political leaders." The prize's other recipient, David Trimble, Protestant head of the Ulster Unionist Party, "showed great political courage when, at a critical stage of the process, he advocated solutions which led to the peace agreement," according to the Nobel Prize Committee.

1920s: Ireland suffers through the Anglo-Irish War, three years of guerrilla warfare between the Irish Republican Army supporting Ireland's independence from Britain. The Anglo-Irish Treaty creates the...