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Towards the end of the interview the discussion returned to perceptions of anti-racism and
Empire and they said that their interest in both arose from attempts to identify how Ireland
fitted into this. However, they felt that it was necessary to avoid assumptions that the degree
of racism was the same in different historical contexts. For example they felt that the abuses
in Northern Ireland did not equate with the abuses which have taken place against black
people in the United States or South Africa. At the same time they felt that events could be
reduced to slogans, or claims of victim-hood, such as blaming the English for the Famine
whereas the reality was more complex.
The interviewee provided a range of contexts in which they had developed an Irish dimension.
The most significant example of this was a textbook which they produced for the School
History Project Modern World Study (Walsh, 2000). The textbook consisted of eight
chapters. Given the focus of the examination requirements, the textbook emphasised recent
and contemporary events. However, a strong thread throughout the book was the link between
past and present, together with an attempt to show two sides to the conflict. The interviewee
said that their publisher provided them with a great deal of freedom when writing textbooks.
They used this freedom to identify what teachers required:
The initial thinking was to address the main problem in school reporting back which was
essentially … tension that in order to assess an issue in any meaningful way you need a
certain depth of knowledge. On the other hand, if you haven’t got time, how can you do
that? And I think the other problem is, how do you stop it becoming one damn thing after
another? And so we combined a pedagogical and content type approach … For many of
them league tables and results and OFSTED are the driving forces … and so I don’t blame
the school for trying to get through the thing in six weeks if that is the way their course is
set up.
However, the approach, which they used to write the textbook went beyond a pragmatic
response to the needs of the examination. When writing texts they explored recent revisionist