Learning Outcomes:
At the end of this course you should:
- Understand the factors shaping the Irish experience and involvement in regional, national and global conflicts in the twentieth century
-Be familiar with the key concepts and methodologies which historians use to approach the history of warfare from social, military, and cultural perspectives
-Have developed your skills in analysing primary and secondary sources
-Have strengthened your skills in written analysis
-Gained experience of class discussion
Indicative Module Content:
1. Introduction: methodologies and approaches to the Irish at war
2. Propaganda, recruitment and military service 1914-1916
3. Radicalisation and re-mobilisation on the home front 1916-1918
4. Waging war at home 1919-1923
5. Northern Ireland, the British Army and the threat from republican and loyalist paramilitaries, 1920-1923
6. Volunteers and dissidents in neutral Ireland: Eire 1939-45
7. The Belfast Blitz and life in wartime Northern Ireland
8. Keeping (and enforcing) the peace: Ireland and UN, EU and NATO-led peace support operations
9. The strategies of republican and loyalist violence during the Northern Ireland Troubles, 1968-1998
10. Counter-insurgency, collusion and peacebuilding: The British and Irish States and the Northern Ireland Troubles, 1969-1998
11. Conclusion: The Irish and military service today