| Unit name | Contested Pasts: The Writing of Irish History |
|---|---|
| Unit code | HISTM0095 |
| Credit points | 20 |
| Level of study | M/7 |
| Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 1 (weeks 1 - 12) |
| Unit director | Professor. Martyn Powell |
| Open unit status | Not open |
| Pre-requisites |
None |
| Co-requisites |
None |
| School/department | Department of History (Historical Studies) |
| Faculty | Faculty of Arts |
This unit explores the writing of Irish history from the medieval period to the Troubles. Although historiography is frequently an area of contestation in the development of any polity, the work produced in the Irish context is particularly charged. The process by which Ireland – never conquered by the Romans – accepted Christianity, and the extent to which the Vikings destroyed a ‘Golden Age’ are topics that have divided early medieval scholars. Ireland’s status as a colonial society after the English conquest of 1171 colours the writing of its history in the medieval period, and the legacy of plantation and then partition ensures that historical-writing remains a subject-area characterised by ideological and theoretical schisms.
Although broadly chronological the unit takes as its focus a number of episodes in the history of Ireland that have seen contested interpretations of Ireland’s past, including: the balance between native and foreign influence on the vibrant artistic culture of the early Middle Ages; the idea that medieval English colonists eventually became ‘more Irish than the Irish themselves’; the island’s ‘colonial’ status in the early modern period; the impact of the French Revolution and the 1798 Rebellion; the Great Famine; the Anglo-Irish war and the civil war; the history of the ‘Free State’, and the ‘Troubles’. In most of these cases historians seeking to ‘professionalise’ the writing of Irish history - ‘revisionists’ - come into conflict with alternative historiographical movements – either from established ‘nationalist’ writers, or, later, from ‘post-revsionists’, some of whom were influenced by poststructuralism.
The aims of the unit are to
1) provide students with an historical understanding of the ways in which Irish history has been written from the medieval period to the Troubles;
2) to allow students to understand not only the contexts that have provided for new modes of approaching the past, but also the theoretical models that have influenced historiography;
3) to enable students to investigate and understand the ‘Revisionism Controversy’;
4) to make students aware of the way in which the development of Anglo-Irish politics has forged different kinds of historical writing.
Although certain historiographical controversies will always comprise a part of this unit ‘The Famine’, ‘The Troubles’, it is envisaged that there will be flexibility in teaching content to ensure a viable teaching team in most academic years.
Upon successful completion of this unit, students will be able to:
Judge the extent to which historical narratives are a product of shifting socio-political contexts.
One two-hour weekly seminar.
One 5000-word essay (100%). [ILOs 1-5].
Brendan Bradshaw, ‘Nationalism and Historical Scholarship in Modern Ireland, Irish Historical Studies, 26:104 (1989)
Kim McCone and Katharine Simms, Progress in Medieval Irish Studies (Maynooth, 1996)
D. George Boyce and Alan O’Day, The Making of Modern Irish History; Revisionism and the Revisionist Controversy (Routledge, 1996)
Nancy J. Curtin, ‘“Varieties of Irishness” Historical Revisionism, Irish Style’, Journal of British Studies, 35:2 (1996)
Evi Gkotzaridis, Trials of Irish History: Genesis and 'Evolution of a Reappraisal (Routledge 2006)
Stephen Howe, Ireland and Empire: Colonial Legacies in Irish History and Culture (Oxford, 2000)
