| Unit name | Building Modern Ireland, c. 1850-Present |
|---|---|
| Unit code | HIST20139 |
| Credit points | 20 |
| Level of study | I/5 |
| Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24) |
| Unit director | Dr. Hanna |
| Open unit status | Not open |
| Units you must take before you take this one (pre-requisite units) |
N/A |
| Units you must take alongside this one (co-requisite units) |
N/A |
| Units you may not take alongside this one |
N/A |
| School/department | Department of History (Historical Studies) |
| Faculty | Faculty of Arts |
Why is this unit important?
Our Special Fields give you the opportunity to work at an advanced level alongside a single academic and a specialist area of research. Intensively taught through seminars only, they are designed to provide you with hands-on experience of how knowledge is produced in the discipline of History.
How does this unit fit into your programme of study?
Our Special Fields involve the application of the full spectrum of core historical competencies within a narrower field of study. In this sense, they are designed to prepare you to undertake independent research for yourself by showing you how practicing historians work with sources, historiographies, methodologies, and concepts within a particular specialism.
An overview of content:
An image of the Irish landscape, of green rolling hills, peppered with ruins and round towers is well known around the world. But Ireland’s landscape has always changed, and conflicts over land and place have been central to modern Irish history. Victorian map makers renamed streams and hills, translating local Irish place names and often dramatically changing the meaning. During the revolutionary period, flying columns hid in the hills, and benefitted from knowing the land much better than the army stationed in the barracks. But when the southern twenty-six counties gained independence, the state’s failure to provide for its citizens meant that many left the land, leaving behind an archaeology of ruined cottages that is a testament to the disappearance of a community and a way of life. From the 1970s, the construction of a landscape of security and defence across Ireland’s northern counties again shifted the meaning of landscape, as have the construction of and abandonment of housing estates during the global financial crash of 2009, creating Ireland’s famous ‘ghost estates’.
This Special Field explores this story. It examines how Ireland’s landscape has changed in the period 1850-present, and examines the sources and methods we can use to understand the history of landscape. Throughout this unit we will try to make sense of the overlapping influences of conflict, economic change, and social life on the making of the landscape and explore the impact that place and land has had on the creation of modern Ireland.
How will you be different as a result of this unit?
Special Field units will enhance your capacity to build arguments with primary sources, properly located within appropriate theories, concepts, methods, and historiographies.
Learning Outcomes:
On successful completion of this unit, students will be able to:
How you will learn:
Classes will involve a combination of class discussion, investigative activities, and practical activities. Students will be expected to engage with readings and participate on a weekly basis. This will be further supported with drop-in sessions.
Tasks which count towards your unit mark (summative):
Essay 3,500-word (50%) [ILOs 1-5].
Timed Assessment (50%) [ILOs 1-5].
When assessment does not go to plan
When required by the Board of Examiners, you will normally complete reassessments in the same formats as those outlined above. However, the Board reserves the right to modify the format or number of reassessments required. Details of reassessments are confirmed by the School/Centre shortly after the notification of your results at the end of the year.
If this unit has a Resource List, you will normally find a link to it in the Blackboard area for the unit. Sometimes there will be a separate link for each weekly topic.
If you are unable to access a list through Blackboard, you can also find it via the Resource Lists homepage. Search for the list by the unit name or code (e.g. HIST20139).
How much time the unit requires
Each credit equates to 10 hours of total student input. For example a 20 credit unit will take you 200 hours
of study to complete. Your total learning time is made up of contact time, directed learning tasks,
independent learning and assessment activity.
See the University Workload statement relating to this unit for more information.
Assessment
The Board of Examiners will consider all cases where students have failed or not completed the assessments required for credit.
The Board considers each student's outcomes across all the units which contribute to each year's programme of study. For appropriate assessments, if you have self-certificated your absence, you will normally be required to complete it the next time it runs (for assessments at the end of TB1 and TB2 this is usually in the next re-assessment period).
The Board of Examiners will take into account any exceptional circumstances and operates
within the Regulations and Code of Practice for Taught Programmes.
