Subject Area: History
This course can also be studied in the following specialisation: European Studies

Political violence has cast a long shadow over modern Irish history. This course begins in 1800, when the Act of Union reinforced British rule in Ireland by abolishing the Irish parliament. For over a century, Irish men and women—from the Young Irelanders to the Fenians to the IRA—resisted and rebelled, until independence for the South was won through violent revolution and the Republic later established. The partitioned North, on the other hand, still joined to the United Kingdom, continued to be a hotbed of conflict and ethnic tension until very recent times. With the Good Friday Agreement and the Queen’s visit, hope has arisen that Ireland has at last emerged from the shadow of a gunman.

Lectures will provide students with a chronological narrative, covering milestone events and movements in modern Ireland: the emergence of ‘national’ politics, the Great Famine, demands for Home Rule, cultural revival, War and Revolution, independence and ‘modern’ Ireland, Ireland in Europe, the Northern Ireland Troubles, economic transformation and the collapse of the Celtic Tiger. Seminars will facilitate debate on key themes that traverse this formative and still contentious period: radicalism, religion and the Church, land ownership, and gender relations.