Irish history for kids

Nhead

later10 wrote: »

When I was in primary school I believed that all of this sh1t started with Dermot McMurrough and his slutty daughter, who everybody hated for being blackguards, that Irelands biggest misfortune was its huge population of spies and traitors.
I understood that Oliver Cromwell was the spawn of the devil, which is pretty much standard fare in an Irish primary school history context.
I believed that Robert Emmett and Daniel O Connell were noble heroes (my mind had not yet opened wide enough to ask why their methods opposed one another, and ask if both causes could simultaneously be noble. Parents and teachers didnt help).
As the curriculum progressed, I understood that Parnell was alright but that there was always something vaguely untrustworthy about him, and that the Irish were generally enslaved from the period 1169 to 1916 (the period between 1916 and 1921 was a grey area at that time, despite actually being one of the most crucial)

Later I started reading comprehensive biographies of some of these men, most particularly Oliver Cromwell, Wolfe Tone, Robert Emmett, Parnell and John Redmond, and I began to realise that my education, both primary and secondary had left out vast chapters on who these men really were, and failed to provide adequate balance. Having said that, the only curriculum which could have provided some reasonable level of balance, the leaving certificate, had up until recently ignored Irish history prior to 1870.

I learned things I had never once heard, despite all of the romantic bed time stories and passionate history lessons - how many people learned in school that Wolfe Tone was said to have died as a result of suicide? We had always been taught that he was hanged. Reading accounts of the late nineteenth century, or FSL Lyons biography of Parnell, I became aware of just how free Irish people really were, even in late Victorian Ireland. It just didnt fit with what I had learned, and much of it still doesnt.

I hope that children today are receiving a more balanced education, instead of Irish = good, English = bad sort of tripe that has been served up in the past. I know in my case the primary school teacher who taught us that, and whose views have informed many of my classmates from that time, is still teaching in the same school and I wonder if his teaching has become any way more considered at all.

I was told about Wolfe Tone and his suicide in primary school and that was in the 1980s so it depends on the teacher. However, it also depends on the student, you went and looked up topics that you were interested in and found a differing opinion which is fantastic. Like all subjects at both primary and secondary level there is room for improvement in the way subjects are taught and an onus on the teacher to teach the syllabus in an as unbiased manner as is humanly possible.

Elmo

Kojak wrote: »

There is another section of the LC syllabus that is focused on European history (i.e. World War I and II).

Are The Russian Revolutions and The Cold War not also cover, and British, French, German Histories.

I always felt that US history was missing from that syllabus, in particular WWII in the Pacific.

We were told Wolfe Tone committed suicide also.

Duckworth_Luas

later10 wrote: »

how many people learned in school that Wolfe Tone was said to have died as a result of suicide?

Everybody. Find me a textbook, or any written account, where it says he was hanged.

Elmo

Duckworth_Luas wrote: »

Everybody. Find me a textbook, or any written account, where it says he was hung.

Well he had a big nose so perhaps they just assumed!

Duckworth_Luas

Elmo wrote: »

Well he had a big nose so perhaps they just assumed!

Niles

Elmo wrote: »

Are The Russian Revolutions and The Cold War not also cover, and British, French, German Histories.

I always felt that US history was missing from that syllabus, in particular WWII in the Pacific.

They're covered alright (I've always hated Russian history for some reason!). US history is catered for on the current LC course, it actually has its own module. But its involvement in WWII doesn't really come up much from memory. Students have to do two Irish modules and two "Europe and the Wider world" modules. Thing is though it's not possible to all the modules available (6 Irish, 6 "Wider World" ones), I think it really depends on the teacher as to what ones are chosen (apart from the question on the document, which is set to one particular module, changing from year to year). There's even a specific Northern Ireland module. My school didn't cover this or the American one though.

gigino

later10 wrote: »

I understood that Oliver Cromwell was the spawn of the devil, which is pretty much standard fare in an Irish primary school history context..

later10 wrote: »

Reading accounts of the late nineteenth century, or FSL Lyons biography of Parnell, I became aware of just how free Irish people really were, even in late Victorian Ireland. It just didnt fit with what I had learned, and much of it still doesnt.

I hope that children today are receiving a more balanced education, instead of Irish = good, English = bad sort of tripe that has been served up in the past. I know in my case the primary school teacher who taught us that, and whose views have informed many of my classmates from that time, is still teaching in the same school and I wonder if his teaching has become any way more considered at all.

+1. I often wondered if history was not so indoctrinated in to some people in the 70's 80's etc, would we have had as much paramilitary violence ?
Some Irish history teachers have a lot to answer for.

later12

Duckworth_Luas wrote: »

Everybody. Find me a textbook, or any written account, where it says he was hanged.

Have you never heard the theory that says he was shot and his throat was slit to cover up the injury? We were only given the plain old vanilla version that he was hanged, but I am sure if my schoolteacher had thought of the conspiracy theory version, we would have been fed that instead. No mention of Wolfe Tone and suicide for our class, in any event.

No mention of the Sandwich Islands either.

Elmo

Niles wrote: »

They're covered alright (I've always hated Russian history for some reason!). US history is catered for on the current LC course, it actually has its own module. But its involvement in WWII doesn't really come up much from memory. Students have to do two Irish modules and two "Europe and the Wider world" modules. Thing is though it's not possible to all the modules available (6 Irish, 6 "Wider World" ones), I think it really depends on the teacher as to what ones are chosen (apart from the question on the document, which is set to one particular module, changing from year to year). There's even a specific Northern Ireland module. My school didn't cover this or the American one though.

Really cuts it down, but in fairness I knew my 4 essay title for the leaving cert. I think I had 8 essays going in but just in case ones and the specialist topic on Noel Browne. I liked Russian History found British Political history boring. We had a full course though

Ireland Since 1870 and Europe Since 1870 where the books used.

Duckworth_Luas

gigino wrote: »

+1. I often wondered if history was not so indoctrinated in to some people in the 70's 80's etc, would we have had as much paramilitary violence ?
Some Irish history teachers have a lot to answer for.

That is an absolutely ridiculous statement. If you're not a troll then hang your head in shame.

Elmo

gigino wrote: »

+1. I often wondered if history was not so indoctrinated in to some people in the 70's 80's etc, would we have had as much paramilitary violence ?
Some Irish history teachers have a lot to answer for.

So the lack of Rights given to Catholics/Nationalist in the North had nothing really to do with it at all just the violent Republicans from the south taught about the bad guys in England?

Duckworth_Luas

later10 wrote: »

Have you never heard the theory that says he was shot and his throat was slit to cover up the injury? We were only given the plain old vanilla version that he was hanged, but I am sure if my schoolteacher had thought of the conspiracy theory version, we would have been fed that instead. No mention of Wolfe Tone and suicide for our class, in any event.

No mention of the Sandwich Islands either.

No you weren't. For that to have happened would require your teacher having to dispute the facts as outlined in the prescribed textbooks.

later12

Duckworth_Luas wrote: »

No you weren't. For that to have happened would require your teacher having to dispute the facts as outlined in the prescribed textbooks.

Is that outlined in the prescribed textbooks? I dont recall there even being 'prescribed' textbooks in the 1990s, I seem to recall they were quite optional and varied. These textbooks were often frustratingly ambiguous, I would imagine many of them simply state that he was sentenced to death without going into the debate about suicide vs assasination.

Anyway, don't be so faithful of history teachers fidelity to truth, the same teacher believed in giving tremendously one sided, black and white accounts of men like Cromwell, Tone, the Irregulars and PH Pearse, all I am saying is that in my personal experience, historical education was unbalanced, I am not attempting to speak for everybody else.

gigino

later10 wrote: »

Anyway, don't be so faithful of history teachers fidelity to truth, the same teacher believed in giving tremendously one sided, black and white accounts of men like Cromwell, Tone, the Irregulars and PH Pearse, all I am saying is that in my personal experience, historical education was unbalanced, I am not attempting to speak for everybody else.

+1. Some teachers - not all - instilled in us a hatred of the English. I remember one of my teachers in particular having a soft spot for " the lads" as he called the provos + IRA. I suppose some of these teachers grew up in stricter, earlier times when they themselves were indoctrinated.

Niles

Personally speaking I don't recall any of my teachers being particularly vitriolic when it came to discussing the Brits in Irish history. I went to a County Wexford primary school so our view of 1798 may have been a somewhat romantic one but not exactly one which motivated it us all to join the 'Ra. I even recall my primary school principal telling us how wrong and anti-Christian it was that up North people were blowing each other up based on their religion.

Muck Jack

The Celts, The Vikings and The Normans. Loved learning about them. Most of the history I learned about at home would have been family history. I remember doing a primary school project on The Famine and I've been reading more in-depth books on it lately, it seems that people just wanted to psychologically block the memory of it, but The Irish Folklore Commission did a special study on it in the 1930's I think. Some of the stories people had from then included how people who were dieing but not yet dead were buried alive in the mass graves, and a story of a mother found dead at the side of the road with a baby who was still alive and trying to eat her breast, the child was starving. Our forebears were the lucky ones to survive, we tend to forget that.

El Siglo

None of my teachers were ever negative when it came to the issue of the British, probably because I finished school in 2006 and there wasn't as much of a need to counter the threat of militant republicanism. Also, people seem to forget that history (like other arts and human sciences disciplines) is prone to changing fashion. The usual "800 years and the fearless gallantry of the volunteers" was a fashion trend in historiography much as the same as the revisionism people are talking about here, which in some cases has bordered on the point of absolute ridiculousness (e.g. Cormac Ó'Gráda* and Joel Mokyr* did a great article in the early 80's on the revisionism surrounding the Irish Famine, where in the study they critqued the author grossly underestimated the death toll statistics). So I would say to be as careful when reading some of the revisionist stuff as it can be just as dodge as the ardent republican stuff (don't think I've ever read an ardent republican article outside of save An Phoblacht).







*Both authors are actually economists but they look at economic history.