School of History and Social Anthropology
2014-15
Topics in Irish History
MHY7081
James Wyld, A Map of Ireland divided into Provinces and Counties… (1853)
Convenor: Professor S.J. Connolly (s.connolly@qub.ac.uk)
Dr Stuart Aveyard (s.aveyard@qub.ac.uk)
Dr Elaine Farrell (e.farrell@qub.ac.uk) )
Prof Peter Gray (p.h.gray@qub.ac.uk)
Dr Andrew Holmes (a.holmes@qub.ac.uk)
Dr Fearghal McGarry (f.mcgarry@qub.ac.uk )
2
About the module
Topics in Irish History is designed to introduce you to the study of Irish history at an
advanced level, through an exploration of selected topics spanning the period from the late
middle ages to the present day. The topics chosen are deliberately diverse, taking in issues in
politics, religion, culture, gender and migration, as well as a critical examination of the role
of history itself as a cultural and political instrument. The reading lists give you an
opportunity to engage with primary as well as secondary sources. The assessment scheme
allows you to focus on a selected area, negotiating an essay topic relevant to your historical
interests. At the same time you are expected, in seminar discussion and in a course
assignment, to think about wider questions concerning the Irish past and the way it should be
studied.
General information about the School and Assessments can be found in the History
Postgraduate (Masters) Handbook, which may be accessed through the ‘Shared Students
Resources’ and amongst the resources on Queen’s Online for this module. It is your
responsibility to download a copy of this and to ensure that you are familiar with the
regulations.
Teaching methods
All students are required to attend and contribute to a weekly two-hour seminar. This will be
in 12 University Square, Room G01, between 4 and 6pm every Thursday.
Assignments and Assessment
Assessment of the module has three components.
1. Assessed essay (70%)
You will write an assessed essays of around 4,500 words in length. This will be on a topic
relating to one of the seminars (but not the one for which you have given a presentation).
The exact title must be negotiated with the relevant seminar tutor. You can do this either in
person or by email. Titles must be finalised at least one week before the submission date, but
discussion should commence well before this. We encourage you to identify topics that also
relate to your own particular research interests.
The deadlines for the submission of the essay is Monday 20 April.
2.
Seminar presentation (10%)
Each student will deliver a presentation introducing one of the seminars. Topics will be
assigned at the beginning of the semester. Presentations should be accompanied by a
powerpoint. Copies of the powerpoint slides and of any handouts should be submitted to the
module tutor immediately after the seminar.
3
For advice on this part of the assessment see below, p. 20.
3.
Course assignment (20%)
This should be a short paper (1,500 – 2,000 words) on the topic “What is so special about
Irish history?”. Here you should address the question of what, if anything, distinguishes the
Irish historical experience from that of other western European societies. The central issues
will be addressed directly in the week 9 seminar on ‘crisis’ and ‘normalcy’. But you should
also drawn on material from other parts of the module. For example, is there anything
distinctive about the role of religion (weeks 4 and 5), emigration (week 6), gender (week 10),
or political violence (week 12).
The deadline for submission of the assignment is Monday 18 May.
Seminar Programme Overview
Week 1 (5 February) Introductory meeting
What is Irish history about? The issue of periodisation (Professor
Connolly)
Week 2 (12 February) Identity and politics: ‘Irish’, ‘Old English’ and ‘New English’ in early
modern Ireland (Professor Connolly)
Week 3 (19 February) Patriotism, Jacobitism and the search for the origins of nationalism
(Professor Connolly)
Week 4 (26 February)Presbyterians, radicalism and the 1798 rebellion (Dr Holmes)
Week 5 (5 March)
Religion and identity, 1790-1914 (Dr Holmes)
Week 6 (12 March)
Emigration and diaspora (Professor Connolly)
Week 7 (19 March)
The culture and popular politics of O’Connellism (Professor Gray)
Week 8 (26 March)
Young Ireland and the politics of culture (Professor Gray)
Week 9 (23 April)
Crisis and “normalcy” (Professor Connolly)
Week 10 (30 April)
Gender and sexuality (Dr Farrell)
Week 11 (7 May)
Easter 1916: Remembering the Future (Dr McGarry)
Week 12 (14 May)
The troubles in Northern Ireland (Dr Aveyard)
4
Seminar Programme and Reading Lists
The readings each week are divided into two sections, Core and Recommended. Everybody
must read the Core readings, and as much of the Recommended reading as is practicable.
Material marked QOL is available in the Resources folder for this module on Queen’s
Online.
Week 1 (5 February): What is Irish history about? The issue of periodisation (Professor
Connolly)
This opening seminar will look at an important but neglected aspect of how historians
approach the task of writing history: periodisation. What do we mean when we talk of
‘medieval’ or ‘modern’ (or ‘early modern’) Irish history? When does Ireland become a
‘modern society’? What are the implications of starting a history of Ireland in 1660 rather
than in 1691, or in 1800 rather than 1845?
In preparation for this seminar all students should undertake a simple exercise. Imagine that
have been commissioned to edit a comprehensive four-volume history of Ireland for a
university press. What period would each of your four volumes cover? Come along with a
set of dates, and be prepared to explain why you have chosen them.
Week 2 (12 February) Identity and politics: ‘Irish’, ‘Old English’ and ‘New English’ in
early modern Ireland (Professor Connolly)
Questions
 How useful is the concept of 'gaelicization' in late medieval and early modern Ireland?
 Who were the Old English, and what was the basis of their identity?
Core Reading
S.G. Ellis, 'Nationalist historiography and the English and Gaelic worlds in the late middle
ages' in Irish Historical Studies, 25 (1986) JStor
K.W. Nicholls, ‘Worlds apart? The Ellis two-nation theory on late medieval Ireland’ in
History Ireland, 7/2 (1999) Jstor
Vincent Carey, '”Neither good English nor good Irish: bi-lingualism and identity formation in
sixteenth-century Ireland' in Hiram Morgan (ed), Political ideology in Ireland 15411641 (Dublin, 1999) QOL
Primary sources
Sir William Darcy, ‘The decay of Ireland’ in Calendar of the Carew Mss, vol. 1, 15151574QOL
Thomas Davis, ‘The Geraldines’, QOL
Other Reading
Brendan Bradshaw, The Irish constitutional revolution of the sixteenth century (Cambridge,
1979), chap. 1.
----, ‘Geoffrey Keating, apologist of Irish Ireland’, in Bradshaw et al (ed), Representing
Ireland: literature and the origins of conflict (Cambridge, 1993)
S.J. Connolly, Contested island: Ireland 1460-1630 (Oxford, 2007), chap. 2 E Book
Art Cosgrove, 'Hiberniores ipsis Hibernis' in Art Cosgrove & Donal MacCartney (eds),
5
Studies in Irish history (Naas, 1979)
Bernadette Cunningham, The world of Geoffrey Keating: history, myth and religion in
seventeenth-century Ireland (Dublin, 2000)
S.G. Ellis, Ireland in the age of the Tudors (London, 1998), chap. 5
-----, Tudor frontiers and noble power: the making of the British state (Oxford, 1995)
-----, 'Representations of the past in Ireland: whose past and whose present?' in Irish
Historical Studies, 27 (1991) JStor
-----, ‘More Irish than the Irish themselves? The Anglo-Irish in Tudor Ireland’ in History
Ireland, 7/1 (1999) JStor
Colm Lennon, 'Richard Stanihurst (1547-1618) and Old English identity' in Irish Historical
Studies, 21 (1978-9) JStor
Valerie McGowen-Doyle, The Book of Howth: The Elizabethan re-conquest of Ireland and
the Old English (Cork, 2011).
James Muldoon, identity on the medieval Irish frontier: degenerate Englishmen, wild
Irishmen, middle nations (Gainesville, 2003)
Patricia Palmer, Language and conquest in Early Modern Ireland (Cambridge, 2001) E Book
Katharine Simm, 'Bards and barons: the Anglo-Irish aristocracy and the native culture' in
Robert Bartlett & Angus MacKay, Medieval frontier societies (Oxford, 1989)QOL
Week 3 (19 February)
Patriotism, Jacobitism and the search for the origins of
nationalism (Professor Connolly)
Questions
 Where does Jacobitism fit into the history of Irish nationalism?
 How valid is the term ‘colonial nationalism’ as a description of Irish Protestant
politics in the eighteenth century?
Core Reading:
J. Th. Leerssen, 'Anglo-Irish patriotism and its European context: notes towards a
reassessment' in Eighteenth-Century Ireland, 3 (1988) Jstor
Breandán Ó Buachalla, ‘Irish Jacobite poetry’ in Irish Review, 12 (1992) Jstor
Norman Vance, 'Celts, Carthaginians and constitutions: Anglo-Irish literary relations
1780-1820' in Irish Historical Studies (1981) JStor
Primary source
Jonathan Swift, ‘On barbarous denominations in Irish’ (Full text in Google books)
Other Reading: Jacobitism
S.J. Connolly, ‘Jacobites, Whteboys and republicans: varieties of disaffection in eighteenthcentury Ireland’ in Eighteenth-Century Ireland, 18 (2003) Jstor
David Dickson, ‘Jacobitism in eighteenth-century Ireland: a Munster perspective’ in ÉireIreland, 34/3-4 (2004)
Vincent Morley, Irish opinion and the American revolution, 1760-83 (2002)
----, ‘The continuity of disaffection in eighteenth-century Ireland’ in Eighteenth-Century
Ireland, 22 (2007) Jstor
Breandán Ó Buachalla, ‘From Jacobite to Jacobin’ in Thomas Bartlett et all (eds), 1798: a
bicentenary perspective (2003)
Éamonn Ó Ciardha, Ireland and the Jacobite cause 1685-1766: a fatal attachment (2002)
6
Murray Pittock, ‘Jacobite literature and national identities’ in David Baker and Willy Maley
(eds), British identities and English renaissance literature (2002).
Other Reading: patriotism
Barra Boydell, 'The United Irishmen, music, harps and national identity' in Eighteenth
Century Ireland, 13 (1998) Jstor
J. A. Downie, Jonathan Swift: political writer (London, 1984)
D. W. Hayton, 'Anglo-Irish attitudes: changing perceptions of national identity among the
Protestant ascendancy in Ireland. ca. 1690-1750' in Studies in Eighteenth-Century
Culture, 17 (1987)
D.W. Hayton, 'From barbarian to burlesque: English images of the Irish, c. 1660-1750' in
Irish Economic & Social History, 15 (1988)
Colin Kidd, 'Gaelic antiquity and national identity in Enlightenment Ireland and Scotland' in
English Historical Review, 109 (1994) EJournal
J.Th. Leerssen, Mere Irish and fior Gael: studies in the idea of Irish nationality, its
development and literaryexpression prior to the nineteenth century (Cork, 1996)
Clare O’Halloran, Golden ages and barbarous nations: antiquarian debate and cultural
politics in Ireland, c. 1 750-1800 (Cork, 2004)
Stephen Small, Political thought in Ireland 1776–1798: republicanism, patriotism and
radicalism (Oxford, 2002)
Jim Smyth, "Like amphibious animals": Irish protestants, ancient Britons, 1691-1707', in
Historical Journal, 36 (1993) E-journal
A.T. Q. Stewart, 'The harp new strung; nationalism, culture and the United Irishmen' in
Oliver McDonagh et al. Ireland and Irish-Australia (London, 1986)
Mary H. Thuente, The harp new strung: the United Irishmen and the rise of Irish literary
nationalism (Syracuse, 1994)
Week 4 (26 February) Presbyterians, radicalism, and the 1798 rebellion (Dr Holmes)
Questions
 Why were Presbyterians at the forefront of political reform and radicalism in the last
quarter of the eighteenth century?
 Why and how were the United Irishmen transformed from ‘middle-class reformers into
militant revolutionaries’ (N.J. Curtin)?
 Why were so many Presbyterians not involved in radicalism and revolution during the
1790s?
Core reading
S.J. Connolly, Divided kingdom: Ireland, 1630-1800 (Oxford, 2008), chs. 10-11 E-Book
I.R. McBride, ‘When Ulster joined Ireland: anti-popery, Presbyterian radicalism, and the
origins of Irish republicanism’, Past and Present, no. 157 (1997), 63-93 E-Journal
Pieter Tesch, ‘Presbyterian radicalism’, in David Dickson, Daíre Keogh and Kevin Whelan
(eds.), The United Irishmen: republicanism, radicalism and rebellion (Dublin, 1993), 3348 QOL
A selection of primary sources are available on QOL
Other reading
W.D. Bailie, ‘Presbyterian clergymen and the County Down rebellion of 1798’, in Myrtle
Hill, Brian Turner and Kenneth Dawson (eds.), 1798 Rebellion in County Down
7
(Newtownards, 1998), 162-86
Thomas Bartlett, David Dickson, Dáire Keogh and Kevin Whelan (eds), 1798: a bicentenary
perspective (Dublin, 2003)
N.J. Curtin, ‘The transformation of the Society of United Irishmen into a mass-based
revolutionary organization’, Irish Historical Studies, 24 (1985), 463-92 E-Journal
----The United Irishmen: popular politics in Ulster and Dublin, 1791–1798 (Oxford, 1994).
----‘Rebels and radicals: the United Irishmen in County Down’ in Lindsay Proudfoot (ed.),
Down: history and society (Dublin, 1997), 267-96
David Dickson, Daíre Keogh and Kevin Whelan (eds.), The United Irishmen: republicanism,
radicalism and rebellion (Dublin, 1993)
Marianne Elliott, Partners in revolution: the United Irishmen and France (New Haven,
Conn., 1982).
----Wolfe Tone: prophet of Irish independence (New Haven, Conn., 1989).
Myrtle Hill, ‘Watchmen in Zion: millennial expectancy in late eighteenth-century Ulster’ in
Crawford Gribben and A.R. Holmes (eds), Protestant Millennialism, Evangelicalism, and
Irish Society, 1790-2005 (Basingstoke, 2006), 31-51
I.R. McBride, Scripture politics: Ulster Presbyterians and Irish radicalism in the late
eighteenth century (Oxford,1998) E-Book
D.W. Miller, ‘Presbyterianism and “modernization” in Ulster’, Past and Present, no. 80
(1978), 66-90 E-Journal
James Seery, Finlay Holmes, and A.T.Q. Stewart, Presbyterians, The United Irishmen and
1798 (Belfast, 2000)
Jim Smyth, The men of no property: Irish radicals and popular politics in the late eighteenth
century (Dublin, 1992).
----(ed.), Revolution, counter-revolution and Union: Ireland in the 1790s (Cambridge, 2000)
A.T.Q. Stewart, ‘“A stable unseen power”: Dr William Drennan and the origins of the United
Irishmen’, in J. Bossy and P.J. Jupp (eds.), Essays presented to Michael Roberts (Belfast,
1976), 80-92
----The narrow ground: aspects of Ulster, 1609–1969 (London, 1977)
----A deeper silence: the hidden roots of the United Irish movement (London, 1993).
----The summer soldiers: the 1798 rebellion in Antrim and Down (Belfast, 1995).
Maureen Wall, ‘The United Irish movement’, in J.L. McCracken (ed.), Historical Studies V
(London, 1965), 122-40
Week 5 (5 March) Religion and identity, 1790-1914 (Dr Holmes)
This seminar examines the relationship between religion and identity in Ireland between 1790
and the outbreak of the Great War in 1914. In particular, it will consider when and why the
polarisation of political identity into protestant unionist and Catholic-nationalist became
irreversible. The class will divided into two parts.
The first part will focus on the relationship between evangelical Protestantism and unionism.
 How could Ulster Presbyterians be United Irishmen in the 1790s yet unionists by
1886?
 To what extent did Henry Cooke represent the religious and political identity of
nineteenth-century Presbyterians?
 What impact did evangelicalism have on protestant politics in Ulster during the
nineteenth century?
8
The second part will examine Catholicism and Irish nationalism.
 When and why did Irish nationalism and Catholicism become synonymous?
 What considerations shaped the response of the leadership of the Catholic Church in
Ireland to political nationalism and republicanism?
 What was the relationship between religious change and socio-economic
developments? Was the ‘devotional revolution’ a part of the modernization of Irish
society after 1850?
Core reading
S.J. Connolly, Religion and society in nineteenth-century Ireland (Dundalk, 1985)
Sheridan Gilley, ‘Catholicism in Ireland’, in Hugh McLeod and Werner Ustorf (eds.), The
decline of Christendom in Western Europe, 1750-2000 (Cambridge, 2003), 99-112 QOL
David Hempton and Myrtle Hill, Evangelical Protestantism in Ulster society 1740-1890
(London, 1992), chs 5 & 9 E-Book
Other reading
Colin Barr, ‘“Imperium in imperio”: Irish Episcopal imperialism in the nineteenth century’,
English Historical Review, 123 (2008), 611-50 Electronic Journal
Desmond Bowen, Paul Cullen and the shaping of modern Irish Catholicism (Dublin, 1983)
S.J. Brown, Providence and empire: religion, politics and society in the United Kingdom,
1815-1914 (Harlow, 2008)
Kevin Collins, Catholic churchmen and the Celtic revival in Ireland 1848-1916 (Dublin,
2002)
S.J. Connolly, ‘The moving statue and the turtle dove: approaches to the history of Irish
religion’, Irish Economic and Social History, 31 (2004), 1-22 Queen’s Online
----‘Religion and Society, 1600-1914’, in Liam Kennedy and Philip Ollerenshaw (eds), Ulster
since 1600 : politics, economy, and society (Oxford, 2013), 74-89 E-Book
P.J. Corish (ed.), A history of Irish Catholicism, 6 vols. (Dublin, 1967-72)
----The Irish Catholic experience: a historical survey (Dublin, 1985)
----‘The radical face of Paul Cullen’, in P.J. Corish (eds), Radicals, rebels and
establishments, Historical Studies 15 (Belfast, 1985), 171-84
Marianne Elliott, The Catholics of Ulster: a history (London, 2000)
----When God took sides: religion and identity in Ireland (Oxford, 2009)
----‘Faith in Ireland, 1600-2000’ in Alvin Jackson (ed.), The Oxford handbook of modern
Irish history (Oxford, 2014), 168-92
Sean Farrell, Rituals and riots: sectarian violence and political culture in Ulster, 1784-1886
(Lexington: KY, 2000)
Sheridan Gilley, ‘The Roman Catholic Church and the nineteenth century Irish diaspora’,
Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 35 (1984), 199-207 E-Journal
David Hempton, Religion and political culture in Great Britain and Ireland from the
Glorious Revolution to the decline of empire (Cambridge, 1996), chs 4&5
A.C. Hepburn, Catholic Belfast and nationalist Ireland in the era of Joe Devlin 1871-1934
(Oxford, 2008)
Catherine Hirst, Religion, politics and violence in nineteenth- century Belfast: the Pound and
Sandy Row (Dublin, 2002)
A.R. Holmes, ‘Covenanter politics: evangelicalism, political liberalism and Ulster
Presbyterians, 1798-1914’, English Historical Review, 125 (2010), 340-69 Electronic
Journal
----‘Religious conflict in Ulster, c. 1780-1886’, in John Wolffe (ed.), Protestant-Catholic
9
conflict from the Reformation to the 21st century: the dynamics of religious difference
(Basingstoke, 2013), 101-31 QOL
R.F.G. Holmes, Henry Cooke (Belfast, 1981).
----‘“Ulster will fight and Ulster will be right”: the protestant churches and Ulster’s resistance
to Home Rule, 1912-14’, in W. J. Shiels (ed.), The church and war, Studies in Church
History, 20 (Oxford, 1983), 321-35
----‘United Irishmen and Unionists: Irish Presbyterians, 1791 and 1886’, in W.J. Sheils and
Diana Wood (eds.), The Churches, Ireland and the Irish, Studies in Church History, 25
(Oxford, 1989), 171-89 QOL
D.A. Kerr, Peel, priests and politics: Sir Robert Peel’s administration and the Roman
Catholic Church in Ireland 1841-1846 (Oxford, 1982)
----‘Under the Union flag: the Catholic Church in Ireland, 1800-1870’, in Ireland after the
Union: proceedings of the second joint meeting of the Royal Irish Academy and the British
Academy (Oxford, 1989), 23-43
----‘Priests, pikes and patriots: the Irish Catholic church and political violence from the
Whiteboys to the Fenians’, in S.J. Brown and D.W. Miller (eds.), Piety and power in
Ireland 1760-1960: essays in honour of Emmet Larkin (Belfast, 2000), 16-42
Emmet Larkin, The making of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, 1850-1860 (Chapel
Hill, North Carolina, 1980)
----The consolidation of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, 1860-1870 (Chapel Hill,
1987)
----The Roman Catholic Church and the Home Rule movement in Ireland, 1870-1874 (Chapel
Hill, 1990)
I.R. McBride, Scripture politics: Ulster Presbyterians and Irish radicalism in the late
eighteenth century (Oxford, 1998), 207-31 E-Book
J. R. B. McMinn, ‘Presbyterianism and politics in Ulster, 1871-1906’, Studia Hibernica, 21
(1981), 127-46 Electronic Journal
Alan Megahey, ‘“God will defend the right”: the protestant churches and opposition to home
rule’, in D. G. Boyce and Alan O’Day (eds.), Defenders of the Union: a survey of British
and Irish Unionism since 1801 (London, 2001), 159-75
O.P. Rafferty, Catholicism in Ulster 1603-1983: an interpretive history (London, 1994)
----The Catholic church and the protestant state: nineteenth-century Irish realities (Dublin,
2008)
Andrew Scholes, The Church of Ireland and the Third Home Rule Bill (Dublin, 2009)
W.J. Sheils and Diana Wood (eds.), The churches, Ireland and the Irish, Studies in Church
History, 25 (Oxford, 1989)
E.D. Steele, ‘Cardinal Cullen and Irish nationality’. Irish Historical Studies, 19 (1975), 23960 Electronic Journal
Week 6 (12 March) Emigration and diaspora (Professor Connolly)
Questions
 What was special about emigration from Ireland in the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries?
 How do we explain the different histories of the Irish in Australia and in the United
10

States?
What does the concept of ‘diaspora’ contribute to an understanding of Irish
emigration?

Core reading
David Fitzpatrick, ‘Irish emigration in the later nineteenth century’ in Irish Historical
Studies, 22 (1980) Jstor
Kevin Kenny, ‘Diaspora and Comparison: The Global Irish as a Case Study’ in Journal of
American History, 90 (2003), 134-62 JStor
Adam McKeown, ‘Global migration, 1846-1940’ in Journal of World History, 15/2 (2004)
E-Journal
Other reading
D.H. Akenson, The Irish Diaspora: A Primer (Toronto, 1993)
Andy Bielenberg (ed.), The Irish Diaspora (Harlow, 2000)
Malcolm Campbell, Ireland’s new worlds: immigrants, politics and society in the United
States and Australia 1815-1922 (Madison, 2008)
Enda Delaney, Demography, state and society: Irish migration to Britain 1921-1971
(Liverpool, 2000)
---, Irish emigration since 1921 (Dundalk, 2002)
Enda Delaney, Kevin Kenny and D.M. MacRaild, ‘Symposium: perspectives on the Irish
Diaspora’ in Irish Economic and Social History, 33 (2006), 35-58
Diner, Hasia R. Erin’s daughters in America: Irish immigrant women in the nineteenth
century (Baltimore, 1983)
D.N. Doyle, ‘Cohesion and diversity in the Irish diaspora’ in Irish Historical Studies, 21
(1999), 411-34 JStor
David Fitzpatrick, Irish emigration 1801-1921 (Dundalk, 1984)
---, Oceans of consolation: personal accounts of Irish migration to Australia (Cork, 1995)
---, ‘”A share of the honeycomb”: education, emigration and Irishwomen’ in Mary Daly and
David Dickson (eds), The origins of popular literacy in Ireland (Dublin, 1990)
Bruce Elliott, Irish migrants in the Canadas: a new approach (Toronto, 2004)
Patrick Fitzgerald and Brian Lambkin, Migration in Irish history 1607-2007 (Basingstoke,
2008)
Breda Gray, Women and the Irish Diaspora (London, 2004)
Alvin Jackson (ed), The Oxford handbook of Irish history (Oxford, 2014), chapters by
Delaney, Canny, Bric and Macraild)
Kevin Kenny, The American Irish: a history (Harlow, 2000)
J.J. Lee, ‘The Irish Diaspora in the Nineteenth Century’, in L. Geary and M. Kelleher, (eds),
Nineteenth-Century Ireland: A Guide to Recent Research, (Dublin, 2005), 182-222
D.M. Macraild, The Irish diaspora in Britain 1750-1939 (Basingstoke, 2010)
-----, Irish migrants in modern Britain 1750-1922 (Basingstoke,1999)
K.A. Miller, Emigrants and exiles: Ireland and the Irish exodus to North America (New
York, 1985)
Walter Nugent, Crossings: the great transatlantic migrations 1870-194 (Bloomington, 1992)
Alan O’Day, ‘Revising the Diaspora’ in D.G. Boyce and Alan O’Day (eds.), The Making of
Modern Irish History (London, 1996), 188-215
W.E. Vaughan (ed), New History of Ireland, vol. V: Ireland under the Union 1: 1800-1870
(Oxford, 1989), chapters by Fitzpatrick, Doyle and O’Farrell
11
W.E. Vaughan (ed), New History of Ireland, vol. VI, Ireland under the Union II: 1870-1921
(Oxford, 1996), chapters by Fitzpatrick, O’Farrell and Doyle
Week 7 (19 March): The culture and popular politics of O’Connellism (Peter Gray)
Questions
 What were the defining characteristics of the political culture of O’Connellism?
 What was the relationship between O’Connellite politics and Irish literature and folk
culture?
Core reading
D.G. Boyce, Nationalism in Ireland (London, 1995), ch. 5
Laurent Colantonio, ‘"Democracy" and the Irish People, 1830-1848’, and Sean Connolly, ‘The
Limits of Democracy: Ireland 1778–1848’ in J. Innes and M. Philp (eds), Re-imagining
Democracy in the Age of Revolutions. America, France, Britain, Ireland, 1750-1850,
(Oxford, 2013) E-book
Tom Garvin, ‘O’Connell and the making of Irish political culture’, in M. R. O'Connell (ed.),
Daniel O'Connell: Political Pioneer (Dublin, 1991)
Brian Girvin, ‘Making nations: O’Connell, religion and the creation of political identity’, in M.
R. O’Connell (ed.), Daniel O’Connell: Political Pioneer (Dublin, 1991) QOL
K.T. Hoppen, ‘Riding a tiger: Daniel O’Connell, Reform, and popular politics in Ireland 180047’, Proceedings of the British Academy, 100 (1999)
Gary Owens, ‘Visualizing the Liberator: self-fashioning, dramaturgy, and the construction of
Daniel O’Connell’, Éire-Ireland, 33: 3-4 (1998-9) QOL
Gary Owens, ‘Hedge Schools of politics: O’Connell’s monster meetings’, History Ireland, 2:1
(1994) E-Journal
Other reading
Laurent Colantonio, ‘Exploring Daniel O’Connell’s Political Ideology’, in O. Coquelin, P.
Galliou and T. Robin (eds), Political Ideology in Ireland. From the Enlightenment to the
Present. (Cambridge, 2009)
Pauline Colombier-Lakeman, ‘Daniel O’Connell and India’, in Etudes Irlandaises, 38:1 (2013)
Fergus D’Arcy, ‘The artisans of Dublin and Daniel O’Connell: an unquiet liaison’, Irish
Historical Studies, 17 (1970) E-Journal
Richard Davis, ‘The violence of poetry: O’Connell, Davis and Moore’, Threshold 37 (1986-7)
J.S. Donnelly and K.A. Miller (eds), Irish popular culture 1650-1850 (Dublin, 1998), intro., chs
9-10
Patrick Geoghegan, King Dan: the rise of Daniel O’Connell, 1775-1829 (Dublin, 2008)
----Liberator: the life and death of Daniel O’Connell, 1830-1845 (Dublin, 2010)
Peter Gray, ‘Hints and Hits: Irish caricature and the trial of Daniel O’Connell, 1843-4’, History
Ireland, 12:4 (2004) E-Journal
J.E. Guilfoyle, ‘The religious development of Daniel O’Connell, II: the making of a devotional
Catholic’, New Hibernia Review, 2:4 (1998) E-Journal
Ronan Kelly, Bard of Erin: the Life of Thomas Moore (Dublin, 2008)
----‘Another side of Thomas Moore’, History Ireland, 11:3 (2003) E-Journal
Joep Leerssen, Remembrance and imagination: patterns in the historical and literary
representation of Ireland in the nineteenth century (Cork, 1996)
12
L.J. McCaffrey, Daniel O’Connell and the Repeal Year, 1843 (Lexington, 1966)
Oliver MacDonagh, The Hereditary Bondsman: Daniel O'Connell 1775-1829 (London, 1988)
----The Emancipist: Daniel O’Connell 1830-47 (London, 1989)
----O’Connell: the life of Daniel O’Connell 1775-1847 (1991)
----‘O’Connell’s ideology’, in L. Brockliss and D. Eastwood (eds), A Union of multiple identities
(Manchester, 1997)
S. McGraw, K. Whelan, ‘Daniel O’Connell in comparative perspective, 1800-50’, Eire-Ireland,
40:1 (2005) E-Journal
Angus Macintyre, The Liberator: Daniel O’Connell and the Irish Party 1830-47 (London, 1965)
Elizabeth Malcolm, ‘Temperance and Irish nationalism’, in F.S.L. Lyons and R.A.J. Hawkins
(eds), Ireland under the Union: varieties of tension (Oxford, 1980)
J.H. Murphy, Ireland: A social, cultural and literary history 1791-1891 (Dublin, 2003), chs 2-6.
J.A. Murphy, ‘O’Connell and the Gaelic world’, in K.B. Nowlan and M.R. O'Connell (eds),
Daniel O'Connell: Portrait of a Radical. (Belfast, 1984)
Bruce Nelson, ‘“Come out of Such a Land, You Irishmen": Daniel O’Connell, American
slavery, and the making of the “Irish Race”’, Eire-Ireland, 42:1-2 (2007) E-Journal
K.B. Nowlan, The politics of Repeal: a study of the relations between Great Britain and Ireland,
1841-50 (London, 1965)
M.R. O’Connell, ‘O’Connell, Young Ireland and violence’, in Daniel O’Connell: the Man and
his Politics (Dublin, 1990)
Fergus O’Ferrall, Daniel O’Connell (Dublin, 1998)
----Catholic Emancipation: Daniel O’Connell and the Birth of Irish Democracy 1820-30
(Dublin, 1985)
----‘Daniel O’Connell, the “Liberator”: changing images’, in R. Gillespie and B.P. Kennedy
(eds), Ireland: Art into History (Dublin, 1994)
----‘Liberty and Catholic politics 1790-1990’, in M.R. O'Connell (ed.), Daniel O’Connell:
Political Pioneer (Dublin, 1991)
Diarmaid Ó Muirithe, ‘O’Connell in Irish folk tradition’, M.R. O’Connell (ed.) Daniel
O'Connell: Political Pioneer (Dublin, 1991)
Gary Owens, ‘Constructing the image of Daniel O’Connell’, History Ireland, 7:1 (1999) EJournal
P.A. Pickering, ‘“Irish First”: Daniel O’Connell, the native manufacture campaign, and
economic nationalism, 1840-44’, Albion, 32:4 (2000) E-Journal
D.C. Riach, ‘Daniel O’Connell and American anti-slavery’, Irish Historical Studies, 20 (1976)
E-Journal
Paul Townend, Father Mathew, Temperance and Irish Identity (Dublin, 2002)
Norman Vance, Irish literature: a social history (Oxford, 1990), ch. 3
Primary texts
William Fagan, Life and Times of Daniel O’Connell (2 vols, 1847-8) [full text on Google Books]
Daniel O’Connell, Memoir on Ireland: Native and Saxon (1843)
Thomas Moore, Memoirs of Captain Rock (1824) [full text on Google Books]
Thomas Moore, Irish Melodies (1821 edn) [full text on Google Books]
G.D. Zimmermann (ed.) Songs of Irish rebellion: Irish political street ballads and rebel songs,
1780-1900 (Dublin, 1966; 2002)
Week 8 (26 March): Young Ireland and the politics of culture (Peter Gray)
Questions
13


To what extent was Young Ireland a new departure in Irish nationalism?
How coherent was Young Ireland’s conception of Irish cultural identity?
Core Reading
D.G. Boyce, Nationalism in Ireland (London, 1995), ch. 6
Richard Davis, The Young Ireland movement (Dublin, 1986)
Thomas Flanagan, ‘Literature in English, 1801-91’, in W.E. Vaughan (ed.), A new history of
Ireland, V: Ireland under the union, I, 1801-70 (Oxford, 1989)
Gerry Kearns, ‘Time and some citizenship: nationalism and Thomas Davis’, Bullán, 5:2
(2001)
Seán Oliver, ‘Young Ireland and European romanticism 1843-9’, in M.R. O’Connell (ed.),
Decentralisation of government (Dublin, 1994) QOL
Paul Townend, ‘"Academies of nationality": the reading room and Irish national movements,
1838-1905’ in L.W. McBride (ed.), Reading Irish histories (Dublin, 2003)
Other reading
Colin Barr, ‘Giuseppe Mazzini and Irish nationalism, 1845-70’, Proceedings of the British
Academy, 152 (2008).
Malcolm Brown, The Politics of Irish literature from Thomas Davis to W.B. Yeats (Dublin,
1972)
Jan Cannavan, 'Romantic revolutionary Irishwomen: women, Young Ireland and 1848', in M.
Kelleher and J.H. Murphy, (eds), Gender perspectives in nineteenth-century Ireland
(Blackrock, 1997)
Tony Crowley, Wars of words: the politics of language in Ireland 1537-2004 (Oxford,
2005), ch. 5
Richard Davis, ‘The violence of poetry: O’Connell, Davis and Moore’, Threshold, 37 (19867)
Richard English, Irish freedom (London, 2006), ch.3
R.F. Foster, ‘The first romantics: Young Irelands between Catholic Emancipation and the
Famine’, in Words Alone (Oxford, 2011)
Gerry Kearns, ‘“Educate that holy hatred”: place, trauma and identity in the Irish nationalism
of John Mitchel’, Political Geography, 20:7 (2001) E-Journal
Joep Leerssen, ‘Irish cultural nationalism and its European context’, in Bruce Stewart (ed),
Hearts and minds: Irish culture and society under the Act of Union (2002)
----Remembrance and imagination: patterns in the historical and literary representation of
Ireland in the nineteenth century (Cork, 1996)
----Hidden Ireland, public sphere (Galway, 2002)
David Lloyd, Nationalism and minor literature: James Clarence Mangan and the emergence
of Irish cultural nationalism (Stanford, 1987)
Niamh Lynch, ‘Defining Irish nationalist anti-imperialism: Thomas Davis and John Mitchel’,
Eire-Ireland, 42 (2007) E-Journal
Robert Mahony, ‘Historicizing the Famine: John Mitchel and the prophetic voice of Swift’, in
Chris Morash and Richard Hayes (ed.). Fearful realities: new perspectives on the Famine
(Blackrock, 1996)
John Morrow, ‘Thomas Carlyle, “Young Ireland”, and the “Condition of Ireland Question”’,
Historical Journal, 51 (2008) E-Journal
J.H. Murphy, Ireland: A social, cultural and literary history 1791-1891 (Dublin, 2003), chs
7-8 QOL
J.A. Molony, A soul came into Ireland: Thomas Davis 1814-45 (Dublin, 1995)
T.W. Moody, ‘Thomas Davis and the Irish nation’, Hermathena, 103 (1966)
14
H.F. Mulvey, Thomas Davis and Ireland: a biographical study (Washington, 2003)
Gerard O'Brien, 'Charles Gavan Duffy, 1816-1903: rebel and statesman', in G. O'Brien, P.
Roebuck (eds), Nine Ulster lives (Belfast, 1992)
Brendan O’Cathaoir, John Blake Dillon, Young Irelander (Dublin, 1990)
Gary Owens, ‘Popular mobilisation and the rising of 1848: the clubs of the Irish
Confederation’, in L.M. Geary (ed.), Rebellion and remembrance in modern Ireland
(Dublin, 2001)
James Quinn, John Mitchel (Dublin, 2008)
----‘John Mitchel and the rejection of the nineteenth century’, Éire Ireland 38 (2003)
Seán Ryder, ‘Young Ireland and the 1798 rebellion’, in L.M. Geary (ed.), Rebellion and
remembrance in modern Ireland (Dublin, 2001)
Robert Sloan, William Smith O'Brien and the Young Ireland rebellion of 1848 (Dublin, 2000)
E. Stotter, ‘“Grimmige Zeiten”: the influence of Lessing, Herder and the Grimm brothers on
the nationalism of the Young Irelanders’, in T. Foley and S. Ryder (eds), Ideology and
Ireland in the nineteenth century (Dublin, 1998)
D.A. Wilson, Thomas D’Arcy McGee, Vol. I: passion, reason and politics (Montreal, 2008)
Primary texts
Thomas Davis (ed.) The Spirit of the Nation (1845)
Thomas Davis, Literary and historical essays (1846 and later edns) [Google books]
Charles Gavan Duffy, Young Ireland: a fragment of Irish history (1880) [Google books]
T.F. Meagher, Speeches on the legislative independence of Ireland (1853) [Google books]
John Mitchel, The Life and Times of Aodh O’Neill (1845) [Google books]; The History of
Ireland, from the Treaty of Limerick to the Present Time (1869) [Google books]
Week 9 (23 April)
Crisis and normalcy (Professor Connolly)
Questions
 What features of Ireland’s historical development set it apart from the European
mainstream?
 How important is political violence in Irish history?
 How useful are interpretations of Ireland as a colonial and postcolonial society?
Core Reading
Brendan Bradshaw, ‘Nationalism and historical scholarship in nineteenth-century Ireland’ in
Irish Historical Studies, 26 (1989) Jstor, reprinted in Ciaran Brady (ed), Intepreting
Irish history (Dublin, 1994)
Liam Kennedy, ‘Out of history: Ireland, that “most distressful country”’ in Liam Kennedy,
Colonialism, religion and nationalism in Ireland (Belfast, 1996) QOL
Gearóid Ó Tuathaigh, ‘Nineteenth-century Irish politics: the case of “normalcy”’ in P.J.
Drudy (ed), Anglo-Irish Studies, I (Cambridge, 1975) QOL
Other reading
Thomas Bartlett, ‘An end to moral economy: the Irish militia disturbances of 1793’ in Past
and Present, 99 (1983), 41-64 E-Journal
R.V. Comerford, ‘Ireland 1850-70: post-Famine and mid-Victorian’, in W.E. Vaughan (ed),
New History of Ireland, vol. V: Ireland under the Union 1: 1800-1870 (Oxford, 1989)
C.A. Conley, Melancholy accidents; the meaning of violence in post-Famine Ireland (New
York/Oxford, 1999)
15
-----‘The agreeable recreation of fighting’ in Journal of Social History, 33 (1999), 57-72 EJournal
---- ‘War among savages: homicide and ethnicity in the Victorian United Kingdom’ in
Journal of British Studies, 44 (2005), 775-95 E-Journal
S.J. Connolly, ‘Unnatural death in four nations: contrasts and comparisons’ in S.J. Connolly
(ed), Kingdoms united?Great Britain and Ireland since 1500 (Dublin, 1999)
David Edwards, Padraig Lenihan, Clodagh Tait (eds), Age of atrocity: violence and political
conflict in early modern Ireland (Dublin, 2007)
Neal Garnham, ‘How violent was eighteenth-century Ireland?’ in Irish Historical Studies, 30
(1997), 377-92 JStor
K.T. Hoppen, ‘National politics and local realities in mid-nineteenth-century Ireland’, in Art
Cosgrove and Donal Macartney (eds), Studies in Irish History (Naas, 1979)
Richard McMahon, Homicide in Famine and Pre-Famine Ireland (Liverpool, 2013)
Richard McMahon, ‘A violent society? Homicide rates in Ireland 1831-1850’ in Irish
Economic and Social History, 36 (2009), 1-20 E-Journal
W.J Lowe and Elizabeth Malcolm, 'The Domestication of the Royal Irish Constabulary,
1836-1922' in Irish Economic and Social History, 19 (1992), 27-48 QOL
Ian O’Donnell, ‘Unlawful killing, past and present’ in Irish Jurist, 37 (2002), 56-90
----‘Lethal violence in Ireland, 1841-2003: famine, celibacy and parental pacification’ in
British Journal of Criminology, 45 (2005), 671-95 E-Journal
----‘Killing in Ireland at the turn of the centuries: contexts, consequences and civilizing
processes’, in Irish Economic and Social History, 37 (2010), 53-74 E-Journal
W.E. Vaughan, Murder trials in Ireland 1836-1914 (Dublin, 2009)
Charles Townshend, Political violence in Ireland: Government and resistance since 1848
(Oxford, 1983)
S.H. Palmer, Police and protest in England and Ireland 1780-1850 (Cambridge, 1988), ch. 2.
Week 10 (30 April) Gender and sexuality (Dr Farrell)
Questions:
 How did the Catholic Church and Irish Free State act ‘as the self-appointed guardians of
the nation’s moral climate’ in the 1920s and 1930s?1
 Do you agree with Diarmaid Ferriter that Irish governments of the 1960s and 1970s ‘did
not initiate, but reacted – to the courts, to the EEC, or to the volume of female protest
when it became loud enough’?2
 Account for the media interest in the Ann Lovett case in Granard, County Longford.
 Why was the Kerry Babies case so divisive and what underlying tensions did it expose?
 To what extent would you agree with the view that Irish inhabitants were ignorant on
matters of sexual health, contraception and homosexuality?
 Account for changing attitudes towards sexuality in the twentieth century.
-
Core reading:
Diarmaid Ferriter, ‘Women and political change in Ireland since 1960’ in Éire-Ireland, xliii,
no 1 & 2 (2008), pp 179-204. [E-Journal]
James M. Smith, ‘The politics of sexual knowledge: the origins of Ireland’s containment culture and the Carrigan Report
(1931)’ in Journal of the History of Sexuality, xiii, no. 2 (2004), pp 208-33.
2
Diarmaid Ferriter, ‘Women and political change in Ireland’ in Éire-Ireland, xliii, no 1 & 2 (2008), p. 191.
1
16
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Chrystel Hug, ‘Moral order and the liberal agenda in Ireland’ in New Hibernia Review, v, no.
4 (2001), pp 22-41. [E-Journal]
Moira J. Maguire, ‘The changing face of Catholic Ireland: conservatism and liberalism in the
Ann Lovett and Kerry Babies scandals’ in Feminist Studies, xxvii, no. 2 (2001), pp 335-58.
[E-Journal]
Sandra McAvoy, ‘“Its effect on public morality is vicious in the extreme’: defining birth
control as obscene and unethical, 1926-32’ in Elaine Farrell (ed.), ‘She said she was in the
family way’: pregnancy and infancy in modern Ireland (London, 2012), pp 35-52. [QOL]
Paul Ryan, Asking Angela Macnamara: an intimate history of Irish lives (Dublin, 2012).
[QOL]
Other reading:
Jenny Beale, Women in Ireland: voices of change (Dublin, 1986), Ch. 6.
Sarah-Anne Buckley, ‘Family and power: incest in Ireland, 1880-1950’ in Ciara Breathnach,
Liam Chambers, Catherine Lawless and Anthony McElligott (eds), Power in history: from
Medieval Ireland to the post-modern world (Dublin, 2011), pp 185-206.
Mary E. Daly, ‘“Oh Kathleen Ni Houlihan, your way’s a thorny way!”: the condition of
women in twentieth century Ireland’ in Anthony Bradley and Maryann Valiulis (eds), Gender
and sexuality in modern Ireland (Amherst, 1997), pp 102-19.
Mary E. Daly, ‘Women in the Irish Free State, 1922-39: the interaction between economics
and ideology’ in Journal of Women’s History, vi, no. 4 & vii, no. 1 (1995), pp 99-116.
Diarmaid Ferriter, Occasions of sin: sex in modern Ireland (London, 2009).
Joanne Hayes, My Story (Dingle, 1985).
Tom Hesketh, The second partitioning of Ireland: the abortion referendum of 1983 (Dublin,
1990). [QOL]
Joan Hoff, ‘Comparative analysis of abortion in Ireland, Poland and the United States, in
Mary O’Dowd and Sabine Wichert (eds), Chattel, servant or citizen: women’s status in
church, state and society (Belfast, 1995), pp 254-67. [QOL]
Philip Howell, ‘Venereal disease and the politics of prostitution in the Irish Free State’ in
Irish Historical Studies, xxxiii, no. 131 (2003), pp 320-4. [E-Journal]
Philip Howell, ‘The politics of prostitution and the politics of public health in the Irish Free
State: a response to Susannah Riordan’ in Irish Historical Studies, xxxv, 140 (2007), pp 54152. [E-Journal]
Tom Inglis, Truth, power and lies: Irish society and the case of the Kerry babies (Dublin,
2003).
Gene Kerrigan, ‘The Kerry babies case: an analysis of Mr Justice Lynch’s report’ in Magill
(1985), pp 16-34.
Gene Kerrigan, ‘We still say the judge got it wrong’ in Magill (1986), pp 35-41.
Maria Luddy, Prostitution in Irish society, 1800-1940 (Cambridge, 2007).
Kevin Lynch, ‘“I have had to endure totally unwarranted and snide attacks”: Judge Kevin
Lynch replies to his critics’ in Magill (1986), pp 21-7.
Moira J. Maguire, Precarious childhood in post-independence Ireland (Manchester, 2009).
Sandra McAvoy, ‘Sexual crime and Irish women’s campaign for a Criminal Law
Amendment Act, 1912-35’ in Maryann Gialanella Valiulis (ed.) Gender and power in Irish
history (Dublin, 2008), pp 84-99.
Sandra McAvoy, ‘The regulation of sexuality in the Irish Free State, 1929-1935’, in Greta
Jones and Elizabeth Malcolm (eds), Medicine, disease and the state in Ireland, 1650-1940
(Cork, 1998), pp 253-66.
17
-
-
-
-
Sandra McAvoy, ‘Before Cadden: abortion in mid-twentieth century Ireland’ in Dermot
Keogh and Carmel Quinlan (eds), Ireland in the 1950s: the lost decade (Cork, 2003), pp 14763.
Nell McCafferty, A woman to blame: the Kerry babies case (Dublin, 1985).
Nell McCafferty, ‘The death of Ann Lovett’ in Ailbhe Smyth (ed.), The abortion papers,
Ireland (Dublin, 1992), pp 99-105.
Leanne McCormick, ‘“The scarlet woman in person”: the establishment of a family planning
service in Northern Ireland, 1950-1974’ in Social History of Medicine, xxi, no. 2 (2008) pp
345–60.
Barry O’Halloran, Lost innocence: the inside story of the Kerry babies mystery (Dublin,
1985).
Paul O’Mahony, ‘The psychology of police interrogation: the Kerry babies case’ in Paul
O’Mahony (ed.), Criminal justice in Ireland (Dublin, 2003), pp 520-42.
Fintan O’Toole, ‘Reject the Kerry babies report’ in Magill, ix, no. 2 (1985), pp 4-5.
Clíona Rattigan, ‘“Crimes of passion of the worst character”: abortion cases and gender in
Ireland, 1925-60’ in Maryann Gialanella Valiulis (ed.) Gender and power in Irish history
(Dublin, 2008), pp 115-39.
Susannah Riordan, ‘Venereal disease in the Irish Free State: the politics of public health’ in
Irish Historical Studies, xxxv, no. 139 (2007), pp 345-64. [E-Journal]
James M. Smith, ‘The politics of sexual knowledge: the origins of Ireland's containment
culture and the Carrigan Report (1931)’ in Journal of the History of Sexuality, xiii, no. 2
(2004), pp 208-33. [QOL]
Week 11 (7 May): Easter 1916 – remembering the future (Fearghal McGarry)
The first part of this seminar will consider the relationship between history, collective memory
and commemoration. The second part will focus on commemoration of the Easter Rising as a
case study to explore this relationship.
Is commemoration primarily concerned with the present rather than the past? How do
the functions and practices of commemoration and history differ? Is commemoration informed
by collective memory (and amnesia) rather than scholarly history? What role should historians
play in commemorative processes? Should they facilitate conciliatory narratives (‘our shared
past’), or is their only obligation to record the past as objectively as possible?
How and why has commemoration of the Easter Rising in Ireland changed over time?
How significant has the role of historians (as opposed to contemporary political factors) and
greater understanding of the complexities of the past proved in the evolution of popular
attitudes? Do historians have any wider public responsibility in how they engage with the
centenary in 2016 given the potential for conflict? How should/will 2016 be commemorated?
Presentation
Compare and contrast the 50th, 75th and 90th commemorations of the Easter Rising.
Core reading
Ian McBride, ‘Introduction’ in idem (ed.), History and memory in modern Ireland
(Cambridge, 2001), 1-42 QOL
Mary Daly and Margaret O’Callaghan, ‘Introduction’, in 1916 in 1966: Commemorating the
Easter Rising (Dublin, 2007), 1-17
18
Roisín Higgins, Transforming 1916: meaning, memory and the fiftieth anniversary of the
Easter Rising (Cork, 2012), ch. 1.
Fintan O’Toole, ‘Beyond amnesia and piety’, in John Horne and Edward Madigan (eds),
Towards commemoration: Ireland in war and revolution 1912-23 (Dublin, 2013), 154-61
QOL
Declan Kiberd, ‘The elephant of revolutionary forgetfulness’, in Máirín Ní Dhonnchadha and
Theo Dorgan (eds), Revising the Rising (Derry, 1991), 1-21.
Fearghal McGarry et al, ‘Anniversaries’, German History, 1 (2014)
Clair Wills, Dublin 1916. The siege of the GPO (London, 2009), ch. 5.
Other reading
Guy Beiner, ‘Between trauma and triumphalism: The Easter Rising, the Somme, and the crux
of deep memory in modern Ireland’, Journal of British Studies, 46 (2007), 366–89 EJournal
----Remembering the Year of the French: Irish folk history and social memory (Madison,
2006)
Mary Daly, ‘History a la carte?’ in Eberhard Bort (ed), Historical commemoration and
modern Ireland’ in Commemorating Ireland: history, politics, culture (Dublin, 2004)
QOL
Gabriel Doherty, ‘The commemoration of the ninetieth anniversary of the Easter Rising’, in
Gabriel Doherty and Dermot Keogh (eds), 1916. The long revolution (Dublin, 2007), 376407.
R.F. Foster, The Irish Story: telling tales and making it up in Ireland, (Oxford, 2004), chs 2
and 12 E-Book
L.M. Geary (ed.), Rebellion and remembrance in modern Ireland (Dublin, 2000)
Keith Jeffery, Ireland and the Great War (Cambridge, 2000), esp ch. 4
Mark McCarthy, Ireland’s 1916 Rising. Explorations of history-making, commemoration and
heritage in modern times (Farnham, 2012).
Ewan Morris, Our own devices: national symbols and political conflict in twentieth-century
Ireland (Dublin, 2003)
Rory O’Dwyer, ‘The golden jubilee of the 1916 Easter Rising’, in Gabriel Doherty and
Dermot Keogh (eds) 1916. The Long Revolution (Dublin, 2007), 352-75.
Brian Walker, Dancing to history's tune: history, myth and politics in Ireland (Belfast, 1996)
Suggested essay titles:
What factors have most shaped the meaning and memory of the Easter Rising as manifested
through commemorative processes over the past century?
To what extent has commemoration of the Easter Rising by the Southern Irish state over the
past century sought to construct a conservative vision of the Irish revolution?
Week 12 (14 May): The Troubles in Northern Ireland (Stuart Aveyard)
Questions
 Why did the Northern Ireland conflict last so long?
 How far is it possible to treat the conflict as a historical subject?
19
Core reading
Rogelio Alonso, The IRA and armed struggle (Abingdon, 2003), ch. 1 [QOL]
Henry Patterson, Ireland since 1939: the persistence of conflict (Dublin, 2006), ch. 8 [QOL]
Richard English, Armed struggle: the history of the IRA (London, 2003), ch. 8 [QOL]
Peter Neumann, Britain's long war: British strategy in the Northern Ireland conflict
(Basingstoke, 2003), ch. 4 [Ebook]
Stuart Aveyard, ‘“We couldn’t do a Prague”: British government responses to loyalist strikes
inNorthern Ireland 1974-77’, Irish Historical Studies, vol. 42, no. 1 (2014) [QOL]
Graham Walker, A history of the Ulster Unionist Party: protest, pragmatism and pessimism
(Manchester, 2004), ch. 6 [QOL]
Other reading
Paul Arthur, Special relationships: Britain, Ireland and the Northern Ireland problem
(Belfast, 2000).
Stuart Aveyard, ‘The “English Disease” is to look for a “Solution of the Irish Problem”’:
Britishconstitutional policy in Northern Ireland after Sunningdale 1974-76’ in
Contemporary British History, vol. 26, no. 4 (2012), pp 529-49
John Bew, Martyn Frampton and Iñigo Gurruchuga, Talking to terrorists: making peace in
Northern Ireland and the Basque Country (London, 2009).
Paul Bew and Henry Patterson, The British state and the Ulster crisis: from Wilson to
Thatcher (London, 1985)
Paul Dixon, ‘“A House Divided Cannot Stand”: Britain, bipartisanship and Northern Ireland’
in Contemporary Record, vol. ix, no. 1 (1995), pp 147-87.
Graham Ellison and Jim Smyth, The crowned harp: policing Northern Ireland (London,
2000).
Martyn Frampton, The long march: the political strategy of Sinn Féin, 1981-2007
(Basingstoke, 2007).
Gordon Gillespie, ‘The Sunningdale Agreement: lost opportunity or an agreement too far?’ in
IrishPolitical Studies, vol. xiii (1998), pp 100-114.
Thomas Hennessey, The origins of the Troubles (Dublin, 2005).
Thomas Hennessey, The evolution of the Troubles, 1970-72 (Dublin, 2007).
Michael Kerr, Imposing power-sharing (Dublin, 2005).
Michael Kerr, The destructors: the story of Northern Ireland’s lost peace process (Dublin,
2011).
Shaun McDaid, Template for peace: Northern Ireland, 1972-75 (Manchester, 2013).
Cillian McGrattan, ‘Learning from the past or laundering history? Consociational narratives
and state intervention in Northern Ireland’ in British Politics, vol. v (2010), pp 92113.
Cillian McGrattan, Northern Ireland 1968-2008: the politics of entrenchment (Basingstoke,
2010).
Anthony McIntyre, ‘Modern Irish republicanism: The product of British state strategies’ in
Irish Political Studies, vol. x (1995), pp 97-122.
Peter Neumann, ‘The Myth of Ulsterization in British Security Policy in Northern Ireland’ in
Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, vol. xxvi (2003), pp 365-77.
Peter Neumann, ‘Winning the “war on terror”? Roy Mason’s contribution to counterterrorism in Northern Ireland’ in Small Wars & Insurgencies, vol. xiv, no. 3 (2003),
pp 45-64.
Henry Patterson, The politics of illusion: a political history of the IRA (London, 1997).
Henry Patterson, Ireland since 1939: the persistence of conflict (Dublin, 2006).
20
Jon Tonge, ‘From Sunningdale to the Good Friday Agreement: creating devolved
government in Northern Ireland’ in Contemporary British History, vol. xiv, no. 3
(2000), pp 39-60.
John Whyte, Interpreting Northern Ireland (Oxford, 1990).
Advice on the seminar presentation
Effective presentation has now become an essential skill, not only in academic life, but across
the whole range of potential graduate occupations. No doubt you have all done numerous
presentations during your undergraduate careers. But here is an opportunity to bring your
practise up to a new level.
a)
When giving a presentation, neither you nor your audience will be much enlightened
by a mass of information and long quotations. The best presentations pose questions and
discuss alternative ways of answering them rather than impose solutions. A presentation
should be clearly and audibly delivered, using handouts and PowerPoint to focus attention on
the key concepts and issues. Remember that you are delivering a presentation not reading an
essay to the class: making eye-contact with your audience and speaking from PPT notes
rather than reading a text out are key to success. Valuable guidelines on oral communication
may be found on the ‘Key Skills’ website (http://www.qub.ac.uk/keyskills)
b)






Preparation and delivery
Students delivering the presentation should arrange to meet the seminar tutor to
discuss their presentation at least one week in advance of the seminar (but, preferably,
sooner).
The presentation should take between 8-10 minutes.
You should use PowerPoint to deliver and structure your presentation.
You should summarise your presentation at the outset, explaining how you have
structured the presentation.
You should prepare a brief PowerPoint presentation hand-out for each student and the
tutor (i.e. about 10 copies)
Presentations are not only about summarising relevant information: you will be
assessed by how effectively you convey this information to an audience, and an
important part of the presentation (that will be reflected in your grade) will be your
ability to master the skills required for effective presentation.
c)
Participation
Those listening to presentations should come prepared to ask questions. The object is not to
“trip up” the speaker, but to help. If something in the presentation is not clear, say so. Simple
questions such as ‘I was interested in what you said about x. Could you say a bit more about
the y aspect of it, please?’ can be illuminating for all concerned. Better still: ‘What you said
about x is similar to what I read about y… What do you think explains this similarity?’ Or:
‘What you said about x contrasts with what I read about y… What do you think explains the
differences?’ A question which challenges a generalisation is: ‘Can the case of y be fitted into
your general explanation of x’s account?’ Responses to such questions should be rational
rather than emotional. The object is not to win points aggressively but to enhance
understanding. However, you should not accept criticism passively.