COURSE TITLE: Modern Ireland: History, Memory, and Identity
COURSE NUMBER: HIST 446/IRST 498
SECTION TIMES/DAYS: TR 1050-1205
INSTRUCTOR: Dr. Amy Woodson-Boulton
COURSE DESCRIPTION/PRINCIPAL TOPICS
Was the Great Famine genocide or ignorance and mismanagement? Was there an idyllic Celtic past before
English colonization? Can the conflict in Northern Ireland ever be “solved”? These are some of the questions that
students will address in this course. We will begin with an overview of the Celtic history of the island as well as
the development of British rule, but will focus on the history of Ireland since the 1801 Act of Union. Students will
study the key events in modern Irish history, including the Great Rebellion of 1798, the Act of Union, the move for
Catholic Emancipation, the Great Famine, the Fenian movement and Land Wars, the Home Rule debates, the
development of Irish Nationalism, the Gaelic Revival, the impact of World War I and the Easter Rising of 1916,
Independence, and the long terrorist war and struggle for civil rights in Northern Ireland. Each subject covered in
this course will involve textbook readings and lectures as well as interpretive essays and, where possible, primary
documents. Thus, students will also use Ireland as a way of entering debates about the uses of history and
memory, the formation of national identity, and the politics of nostalgia, paying particular attention to revisionism
and the revisionist controversy. (If you don’t know what any of those are, you should take this class!)
STUDENT LEARNING OUTCOMES
Moving beyond a simple narrative of events and dates, this course aims to introduce students to history as a
process of telling and re-telling. As well as being able to recall the history of Ireland, students will also be able to
discuss the idea of “Ireland” and “the Irish,” from the standpoint of both the colonizers and the nationalists.
After taking this course you will have a good understanding of the issues and events of the period covered, and
you will also have improved your abilities to read efficiently, write effectively, present your ideas clearly, and
synthesize a large amount of material coherently. History offers students an excellent opportunity to analyze a
variety of materials, including texts, buildings, and art. This course will help you to interpret and approach critically
a wide range of evidence, and to put together and support strong arguments. Class discussions and
presentations will give students a chance to hone their public speaking skills and their abilities to summarize and
debate complex material.
PREREQUISITES/RECOMMENDED BACKGROUND
None.
REQUIRED TEXTS
Joseph Coohill, Ireland: A Short History (London: Oneworld Publications, Ltd, 2000).
James Joyce, Dubliners
W.B. Yeats, Easter 1916 and Other Poems
Martin McDonagh, The Cripple of Inishmaan
Additional texts provided online through MyLMUConnect/Blackboard
COURSE WORK/EXPECTATIONS
Short response papers 20%
Midterm examination
20%
Research paper
25%
Final examination
25%
Class participation
10%
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