View - eTheses Repository - University of Birmingham

Different interpretations and
versions of Ireland’s past
should be understood rather
than relying on Anglocentric
notions of the past.
Significant themes and
events should be seen within
broader spatial and
chronological overviews and
hinterlands.
Key Stage 1 – Include images related to Ireland and topics,
which go beyond stereotypes.
Key Stage 2 – Explore different representations/
interpretations of people and events (eg Brian Boru, the
Famine/Hunger)
Key Stage 3 – Explore different interpretations of events,
reasons for them and their wider significance (eg Cromwell,
the Famine/Hunger).
Key Stage 1 – Explore appropriate historical and spatial
contexts, eg the life histories of Irish migrants including
early life before they left Ireland, journey to their new home
and experiences there.
Key Stage 2 – Explore events and developments in a wider
context, eg compare the impact of the Romans, Saxons and
Vikings in Ireland with other parts of Britain and beyond;
look at the long and short-term causes of the Irish
Hunger/Famine and compare it with conditions in urban
Britain.
Key Stage 3 – Explore controversial events in historical,
spatial and comparative context, eg Cromwell and
Drogheda in the context of the Reformation, Tudor
Plantations and the Civil War, subsequent impact.
The above considerations are based on the history curriculum in operation between 2002-7.
What may change the situation after 2007? David Sharrock, the Ireland Correspondent for
The Times, has encapsulated the changing political situation in Northern Ireland that coincides
with the period of this research project, on the day that devolved government was returned to
Stormont:
Northern Ireland is awash with strange coincidences. It was six years ago to the day
that Peter Robinson, the deputy leader of Mr Paisley’s Democratic Unionists, his
likeliest political heir … used parliamentary privilege in the House of Commons to
name Mr Keenan and Mr Gillen as members of the Provisional IRA’s seven–man
ruling army. Mr Adams and Mr McGuiness were also on the list, as was Pat Doherty,
who was sitting on the Sinn Fein benches yesterday … It was Mr Keenan who said in
2001, ‘Those who say the war is over: I don’t know what they are talking about. The
revolution can never be over until we have our country, until we have British
imperialism where it belongs. Yet here he was sitting seven seats away from Tony
Blair. (Sharrock, 2007, p.30)