The easy answer is that Ireland did not become English, but it became part of Great Britain.
Famous people from Ireland, in Irish Literature etc. for a long time were regarded as being 'British' as opposed to being Irish. Which partly explains why people think that it is British culture, rather than the culture of English speaking peoples.
But at some point Ireland must have become English speaking?
"By this time, (1261), most of Ireland was ruled by Anglo-French lords with the exception of the north, the midlands and several areas of the west coast."
http://www.wesleyjohnston.com/users/ireland/past/history/summary5.htm
"Administration of Ireland evolved slowly, and it became a Kingdom in 1199 with Papal approval and all English laws were extended to Ireland in 1210."
King Henry 2nd of England in 1166
"King Henry met Mac Murchada, but was reluctant to help him. He had just become King, and his hold over England was still weak and he did not wish to start an expensive war. Nevertheless, he had been given permission by the Pope shortly before to claim Ireland as part of his kingdom in order to reform the Church."
1014
"Nevertheless, the power of the Vikings was broken for good at Clontarf, and the future of Dubhlinn was now definitely in Irish hands."
"From its golden era before the Vikings, the Christian Church in Ireland had slowly been secularised and, in many ways, corrupted."
"The Archbishop of Canterbury in England wanted to assert control over the Irish church, and set about establishing links with the church in the influential former Viking city of Dublin. However, when the Irish church was reformed, over the course of three synods at Cashel (1101), Ráth Breasail (1111) and Kells-Mellifont (1152), ..."
"A triumph because the church was now much less corrupt, but a disaster because it destroyed the basis of Irish learning, poetry and script."
"Only under the leadership of Alfred the Great, King of Wessex, did the English manage to stop the advance of the Vikings. It was Alfred who persuaded the individual kingdoms to unite and, in 927, his grandson Aethelstan was crowned "King of all the English" in the city of London, essentially England's first 'High King'. This was the foundation of the Kingdom of England. Over the next 150 years, the two regions merged to form a more coherent Anglo-Norse England, ruled mostly by Danish Kings."
1066 King William 1st of England, although he is better known as William the Conqueror.
"Bordered to the north by the newly-united kingdom of Scotland, the King of England instead penetrated into Celtic Wales and, though inter-marriage and other means, controlled half of France by the mid 1100s. It is no surprise, therefore, that when the opportunity arose to spread his royal rule across the sea to Ireland, the English king took it."
Famous people from Ireland, in Irish Literature etc. for a long time were regarded as being 'British' as opposed to being Irish. Which partly explains why people think that it is British culture, rather than the culture of English speaking peoples.
But at some point Ireland must have become English speaking?
"By this time, (1261), most of Ireland was ruled by Anglo-French lords with the exception of the north, the midlands and several areas of the west coast."
http://www.wesleyjohnston.com/users/ireland/past/history/summary5.htm
"Administration of Ireland evolved slowly, and it became a Kingdom in 1199 with Papal approval and all English laws were extended to Ireland in 1210."
King Henry 2nd of England in 1166
"King Henry met Mac Murchada, but was reluctant to help him. He had just become King, and his hold over England was still weak and he did not wish to start an expensive war. Nevertheless, he had been given permission by the Pope shortly before to claim Ireland as part of his kingdom in order to reform the Church."
1014
"Nevertheless, the power of the Vikings was broken for good at Clontarf, and the future of Dubhlinn was now definitely in Irish hands."
"From its golden era before the Vikings, the Christian Church in Ireland had slowly been secularised and, in many ways, corrupted."
"The Archbishop of Canterbury in England wanted to assert control over the Irish church, and set about establishing links with the church in the influential former Viking city of Dublin. However, when the Irish church was reformed, over the course of three synods at Cashel (1101), Ráth Breasail (1111) and Kells-Mellifont (1152), ..."
"A triumph because the church was now much less corrupt, but a disaster because it destroyed the basis of Irish learning, poetry and script."
"Only under the leadership of Alfred the Great, King of Wessex, did the English manage to stop the advance of the Vikings. It was Alfred who persuaded the individual kingdoms to unite and, in 927, his grandson Aethelstan was crowned "King of all the English" in the city of London, essentially England's first 'High King'. This was the foundation of the Kingdom of England. Over the next 150 years, the two regions merged to form a more coherent Anglo-Norse England, ruled mostly by Danish Kings."
1066 King William 1st of England, although he is better known as William the Conqueror.
"Bordered to the north by the newly-united kingdom of Scotland, the King of England instead penetrated into Celtic Wales and, though inter-marriage and other means, controlled half of France by the mid 1100s. It is no surprise, therefore, that when the opportunity arose to spread his royal rule across the sea to Ireland, the English king took it."