WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT IRELAND?

1. WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT IRELAND?

2. Beginning to take a closer look at the course content. Learning outcomes… Connect the learning… • to share our knowledge of Ireland.

3. Task: Colour the 4 provinces of Ireland in different colours on your map. Go over the Northern Irish boundary in pen to make it more visible. What can you notice about this boundary? Can you think of any reasons for this?

5. Task: SOURCE A These late dangerous altercations in Ireland… yet we receive naught else but news of fresh losses and calamities… We will not suffer our subjects any longer to be oppressed by those vile rebels…. SOURCE B Ireland is subject to great and deplorable evils which have a deep root, for they lie in the situation of the country itself – in the present character, manners and habits of the inhabitants – in their want of intelligence, or in other words their ignorance… in its religious distinctions, in the rancour which bigotry engenders and which superstition rears and cherishes. SOURCE C Her Majesty’s Government have found that in four or five counties in Ireland… there have been for several successive years outrages so grievous and dangerous to life and property , so alarming, that those who lived in those countries were prepared to give their allegiance to their sovereign, have not received that which they have a right to expect in return – protection from the law and institutions of their country. Her Majesty’s Government have found not only that life is in danger, not only that the free liberty of action is controlled by grievous tyranny, but they found that the law has been paralysed, that evidence cannot be procured, that repeated murders are committed, and that no trace can be discovered of the murderers…. SOURCE D We say that the Irish question is the curse of this House. It is the great and standing impediment to the effective performance of its duties… You have not got in Ireland a state of contentment. What are the similarities and differences between these sources?

6. Task: SOURCE B Ireland is subject to great and deplorable evils which have a deep root, for they lie in the situation of the country itself – in the present character, manners and habits of the inhabitants – in their want of intelligence, or in other words their ignorance… in its religious distinctions, in the rancour which bigotry engenders and which superstition rears and cherishes. SOURCE A These late dangerous altercations in Ireland… yet we receive naught else but news of fresh losses and calamities… We will not suffer our subjects any longer to be oppressed by those vile rebels…. SOURCE D We say that the Irish question is the curse of this House. It is the great and standing impediment to the effective performance of its duties… You have not got in Ireland a state of contentment. SOURCE C Her Majesty’s Government have found that in four or five counties in Ireland… there have been for several successive years outrages so grievous and dangerous to life and property , so alarming, that those who lived in those countries were prepared to give their allegiance to their sovereign, have not received that which they have a right to expect in return – protection from the law and institutions of their country. Her Majesty’s Government have found not only that life is in danger, not only that the free liberty of action is controlled by grievous tyranny, but they found that the law has been paralysed, that evidence cannot be procured, that repeated murders are committed, and that no trace can be discovered of the murderers….

7. “… a knowledge of the truth is never dangerous, though ignorance may be so; and still more so is that half knowledge of history which enables political intriguers to influence the passions of their dupes, misleading them with garbled accounts of the past.” Dr A.G. Richey