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HIST 1124:
Course Syllabus Class # 12922 Spring 2124 Please read "Dedication" for the Course
This is an upper level History course designed for those with both a cursory and strong interest in Irish History and the “Troubles.” You should be confident in your writing skills and possess a willingness to read and to critically analyze historical material. You will also need computer, Internet skills as the course materials will be online, and I will keep in touch with you by email.
The University of Pittsburgh e-mail Policy 09-10-01 states:
Each student is issued a University e-mail address (username@pitt.edu) upon admittance. This e-mail address may be used by the University for official communication with students. Students are expected to read e-mail sent to this account on a regular basis. Failure to read and react to University communications in a timely manner does not absolve the student from knowing and complying with the content of the communications. The University provides an e-mail forwarding service that allows students to read their e-mail via other service providers (e.g., Hotmail, AOL, Yahoo). Students that choose to forward their e-mail from their pitt.edu address to another address do so at their own risk. If e-mail is lost as a result of forwarding, it does not absolve the student from responding to official communications sent to their University e-mail address.
The link to this policy is located at: http://www.bc.pitt.edu/policies/policy/09/09-10-01.html
Cell Phone and Texting Policy: When you enter this class you are to put away your cell phone and turn it off. For each time that I see any student using a cell phone to text in the class, I will take off 5 points on your next assignment for ALL students in the class. So, it is your collective responsibility to make sure that there is no texting in the class.
Location: 11 January through 22 February - 205 David Lawrence Hall 14 March through 18 April 117 Victoria Building (Nursing School) Time: 6:00 pm to 8:30 pm
There are 10 "Official" Workshops. On the Wednesdays we do not have official classes, I will run “discussion sessions” in the History Department lounge in Posvar Hall to discuss information from the class and answer any questions. When possible, we will also have people from Northern Ireland talk directly to you over the Internet by Skype. I will announce these during the term. Although, not mandatory, I highly recommend attending all 10 classes throughout the term.
Official Meeting Days: NOTE: Make sure you note the different classrooms in the term.
Dates & Descriptions: These classes are subject to change, as well as change of
topics. Class Schedule In the classes, we have the plays we will either have discussions with people from Northern Ireland or deal with the readings for that week and/or any other issues that come up based on your questions. If we have discussions with people from Northern Ireland then we will do the plays at the end of the class. In each class that we do not have the discussions with the people from Northern Ireland we will open the class with your questions you emailed me and have a discussion around them.
01/11/2012: In this class, we will deal with all the requirements of the course and then do an open discussion of the pre-History of the conflict up through Partition.
01/18/2012: In this class, we will do an overview of Northern Ireland from Partition through 1966 focusing on the nature of the Northern Ireland state and the origins of this phase of the Irish conflict.
01/25/2012: There we will continue our discussion from the first two classes and examine the descent into violence that took place in 1969 and culminated in the worst year of the conflict where nearly 500 people died as a result of the violence.
02/8/2012 In this class, we will view segments from different BBC NI documentaries on 1966-1971. This will enable us to understand and discuss the outbreak of violence epitomized by the Battle of the Bogside in 1969, the split in the IRA and the rise of paramilitary violence on both sides. We also will focus on the period from 1969 to1974 and the conflict that took place between the IRA and the UVF and the UDA, and the conflict between the security forces and the various paramilitary groups in this period. In particular, we will be looking at what motivated ordinary men and women of both communities to become “soldiers” in the war to “Unite Ireland” or to “Preserve the Union.”
02/22/2012
In this workshop, we will discuss the situation in Northern Ireland after Bloody Friday and the different initiatives taken by the British Government to end the violence.
03/14/2012
In this workshop, we will begin to examine the peace process, beginning with Sunningdale and its failure and examining the changes that begin to take place within the Republican movement. At the same time we will examine UVF and UDA policies to understand what they tried to do politically in this period and how their political movement failed.
03/28/2012
Play #1 It is August 1969, after the Battle of the Bogside and the burnings of Catholic and Protestant homes in Belfast. Construct a play where remnants of the Civil Rights Association and those who defended the Bogside and Catholic areas in Belfast debate what happened, what it means for the future of the Civil Rights movement and what the response should be from the Catholic/Nationalist community. Your characters are:
In this class we will deal with movement of the Republican Movement towards politics and how that eventually led to the IRA Ceasefire in 1994. In this class we will discuss the Hunger Strikes, how they ld to the rise of Sinn Fein and the controversy that now surrounds the Hunger Strikes within the Republican movement.
04/04/2012
In the second half of the class we will deal with Loyalism's movement towards politics and political compromise and why this failed. We will examine "Spence University," the development of politics within the UVF/RHC and the UDA in the 1970s. We will also examine why their move towards politics failed in this period. 04/11/2012
Play #3 It is December 1977 and there is a secret meeting held between the Provisional IRA and the Ulster Volunteer Force leaderships and finding "common ground" and a way out of the conflict. Using Units 12 and 13 as your guides, along with the readings and primary documents from those sections construct the discussion that took place in this meeting as each side tried to find common ground, but also convince the other side of the rightness of their political vision. There are 5 characters in this, 2 from each organization and 1 person who is the chair. To get more on the PIRA position do searches on Sinn Fein's Website or reference some books on their politics in the 1970s.
In the second half of the class we we will begin to examine the 1981-1987 period especially dealing with the impact of the Anglo-Irish Accord. We will also talk more about Sinn Fein's movement towards politics.
04/18/2012
Play #4 T he scene is the John Hewitt Bar (Named after a Protestant and Socialist Poet from Northern Ireland) on a Friday afternoon in Belfast. The regular Friday afternoon crowd comes in at 3 pm for a few pints and to just catch up with each other. Soon, as it always does, the talk turns to politics, in particular the situation in Northern Ireland. Using "The Pints of Peace" play under course documents on Courseweb as a guide, construct the discussion that takes place as they deal with. This group will also meet with me before you do this play to discuss how to handle this. This is based on something that goes on every Friday Afternoon at the Hewitt.
The characters in this play are:
In the second half of this workshop we will deal with the violence of the 1988-1993 period and the political actions that took place to try and bring and end to the violence. We will discuss the emergence of Loyalism as a political force in 1991, while also examining Sinn Fein's acknowledgement that the conflict would end in a compromise peace. In this final workshop we will finish in 1994 at the Ceasefires and then review what we have learned throughout the term. In this class you will be expected to not only learn the history of
this period, but also to think about and analyze it in depth; while
attempting to do this as objectively as possible. There will also be a significant amount of
reading in this class and I expect that you keep up with it. In the Workshops, we will supplement the
readings, watch, and discuss documentary footage concerning the
“Troubles.” You will come to your own
conclusions in the Workshops and on the papers. I do not want you to repeat what I or the
readings say. Grading and Requirements for the Course:
Assignment Descriptions:
i. After Add-Drop I will break you into groups of 4 or 5students each. ii. On Courseweb, I will create your groups and you will be able to collaborate online with your group, sharing files and use the discussion board in your group to discuss the Project. iii. I will then assign each group their topic for their play and when you will perform it. iv. We will have the plays over the last 4 weeks of the term.
i. Each group will write a play based on an event, period or process from the period we are studying. 1. You will do this according to rubric you receive at the start of the term. 2. Each group must turn in the full script to me the day of the play. ii. The play will be no more than 15 minutes in length. iii. You will perform the play in class at your designated time during the term. iv. At the end of the play, you will then have a Question and Answer session with the audience, i.e. your fellow students. In this session you should be able to: 1. Explain why you chose to do the play the way you did. 2. Explain the motivations and thinking of the characters. 3. Explain the politics surrounding the topic of your performance and how they influenced the way you wrote this play. 4. Answer any questions from the audience dealing with any facet of the play and the history and politics.
Course Materials – ALL ARE REQUIRED
Textbooks:
McKittrick and McVea, take a very even-handed approach and provide a solid analysis of the period under study. Edwards' and McGratttan's work is brand new and at times very controversial, see pages 22 and 24, but is a very good overview of the conflict and its "resolution." I chose Peter Taylor’s books because his two works provide the view “from the street,” so to speak, as we read how the Loyalists (all the Loyalist groupings) and the Republicans (mainly Provisional IRA) viewed the conflict, why they fought, and how they eventually moved from the military struggle to the political struggle. Students should read these two books in their entirety. McKittrick/McVea is very good for providing an understanding of the “Troubles,” but Taylor’s works take us directly into the lives of those who fought the war. Course Materials - STRONGLY RECOMMENDED - Documentaries We are using Peter Taylor's work on the IRA, the British and the Loyalists for this class. His books were done in conjunction with a series of documentaries. You can watch the documentaries in full here: CourseWeb - REQUIRED
This is a web-based
course; therefore, you will be actively using the course site as well as
links to other related web-based sites. To access the online portion of the
course:
I have also
linked many primary documents, video and audio files into the course. They are all located on Courseweb:
courseweb.pitt.edu
There are many audio
and video files on Courseweb. To access them and the primary documents you will need to access the
Courseweb through the Pitt Portal. Go to my.pitt.edu
I divided the Online Study Guide into three sections and one
extra section on the Good Friday Agreement.
The Section on the Good Friday Agreement is for your own information and
for further study.
The course is structured with the following
components in each of the three major sections.
·
Introduction
·
Objectives
·
Units: Including Commentary, Readings, and
Study Questions
·
Activities
·
Conclusion
Course Rationale and Methodology: Rationale
"The Irish want their History like they want a Chinese carryout. They want it fast, hot and to their taste." Harry Donaghy - 2009
The historical and political situation in Northern Ireland is “loaded”
emotionally for many Americans of Irish descent and for those who see the
conflict in terms of Imperialism and Colonialism and the fight of a “small
nation to be free and united.” However, what our investigation will show is
that this conflict was/is much more complicated than the simple slogans one
hears about it or in simple terms, such as “Brits Out” or “No Surrender.”
What this class will attempt to do is take the emotion and the preconceived
notions out of the discussion and instead analyze this period and its actors
in all their complexity.
Consequently, the way in which we approach this subject is going to be very different from what you might expect. As, I stated above, we will not examine this period in the, in my view, simplistic terms of a conflict between the IRA and the British state, or as part of an anti-imperialist struggle. Both are legitimate methods of analysis but do not go far enough or deep enough in explaining the protracted and very violent struggle in Northern Ireland. Nor do they help us understand why, after not achieving their aims, the IRA ended the armed struggle and why the Loyalists, who fought the war with the IRA, were willing to bargain with the IRA and accept the fact that 50 years of Unionist rule had been 50 years of Unionist misrule.
The class will also not "romanticize" revolutionary and/or counter-revolutionary violence. Violence, regardless of its purpose, claims real and often innocent victims leaving behind a "ruthless deposit of hatred and hurt" that is hard, if not impossible, to overcome. This class will investigate where this violence comes from and the nature of it, but will not romanticize it nor "heroicize" it.
To see what Revolutionary and Counter-Revolutionary violence really means to those who suffer it, read Susan McKay's book Bear in Mind These Dead and view the following video.
Injured...on that day from Northern Visions/NvTv on Vimeo.
Methodology
Our methodology in this class will take a twin-track approach.
To accomplish this task using this methodology we will
spend much of Section 2, Section 3 focusing on and examining the paramilitaries
on both sides rather than focusing on the political actions of the various
governments and constitutional political parties in Northern Ireland. Although this may seem strange, there is a
very simple reason for this approach.
What we will discover is that it did not matter what the governments
and constitutional parties tried to do in terms of ending the conflict. Those efforts were doomed to failure if the
paramilitaries did not want them to work.
The failures of all the peace initiatives from 1972 to 1994 are clear
evidence of that. As author
Padraig O’Malley (1997) argues,
“Britain could not impose a
solution; she could not impose either majority rule on the Nationalists or an
Irish Dimension on the Unionists.”
(p. 379). Throughout this period, the IRA had the
ability to sabotage any effort at a settlement if that settlement did not fit
into their final goal of a United Ireland.
On the other hand, as we will see, the Loyalists in alliance, at times,
with the Unionist constitutional parties had the
ability to make Northern Ireland ungovernable if the settlement or policies
did not take into account the Loyalist fears, concerns and desires, in
particular the security of the Union. Therefore, the most Britain could do
was impose or propose a framework that would establish the "reference
points for a satisfactory agreement" (p. 379). Therefore, in
Sections 2 and 3 our examination will focus on the actions and changes within
Republicanism and Loyalism, both militarily and politically, to understand
how, within the framework for peace the political elites, as studied in Dixon
and McKittrick-McVea, tried to create, Loyalism and
Republicanism, nearly simultaneously, moved towards the transformation of the
military struggle into a political struggle.
Utilizing the above mentioned methodology, this class
will examine and analyze, as objectively as is possible in dealing with such
a volatile subject, the three main periods of the “Troubles” to understand
how the “Troubles” began; why the period 1969-1994 became so violent; and how
the peace process finally began and to some extent has succeeded. 1. The
first goal is to provide you with an understanding of how and why the
“Troubles” began in the 1960s. Here we
will examine the history of the “The Static Society,” as McKittrick and
McVea call it, in creating the basis of the “Troubles.” 2. The
second goal is to understand how and why many ordinary people on both sides
of the sectarian divide took up arms to fight what they each saw as a “just
war.” Within this study, we will
examine how those on all sides gradually came to the realization that the
conflict had to end someday with a political solution, not a military one. 3. The
third goal is to analyze and understand how Northern Ireland moved away from
the 25 years of military conflict and examine how the transformation of the
military conflict into a political one took place.
Course Objectives:
When you complete this course, you will:
Before you begin the readings for this
course, use the Resources listed below to familiarize yourself with Northern
Ireland, the terminology that we will use throughout the course and the
timeline that will keep you "located" in the proper period
throughout the course. Refer to them
often.
Many students take Hybrid courses and do not
avail themselves of the professor/s when they need help. Do not do that! I am on campus most days of the week. I am also available on the weekends and
would be happy to meet, talk, Skype or email you at anytime. So, if you are having problems or are
struggling with your paper of the readings or anything contact me IMMEDIATELY! Simply contact me through the information
listed on the syllabus.
How to Study for this Course:
1. Make
sure you read the objectives listed at the beginning of each section. These
are crucial for what you should get out of each section and the course as a
whole. 2. Read
commentary and background provided in the Study Guide. Then do the required
readings assigned for each section. 3. Click
on the hyperlinks I have created for individuals, parties
and events to take you directly to explanations and/or definitions of each. 4. Answer
the study questions at the end of each unit on your own. Make sure you can do
these before you move on. If you have problems or questions, contact me ASAP. 5. Study
the review terms in the Study Guide. If you are unsure of the review terms,
do not proceed to the next unit without either referring to one of the
recommended general texts or contacting to me. 6. Remember, to do well in this class you should put yourself on a tight study schedule, keep up with the reading, contact me when you need help and come to the Workshops.
Students are expected
to complete course work during the term in which they are enrolled.
For
this course, a G-Grade will be granted only with the
consent of the instructor and only in extenuating circumstances. The G-Grade
for this class only allows one additional term to complete the course work.
If it is not completed then, I will convert your
grade to the letter grade you earned with an F given for the uncompleted
work. This G-Grade requirement supersedes any other printed statement in the
Study Guide for students enrolled this term.
Disability Resources and Services:
If you have a disability for which you are or may be requesting an
accommodation, you
Academic Integrity
Guidelines:
All Hybrid (UESP) course students are expected to observe the
same code of academic honesty required of all University of Pittsburgh
Students. The conduct below constitutes a violation of this code.
Taking of Information
Tendering of Information
Plagiarism
Honors Pledge You will complete all work for this course according to an "Honor System." Your signature, electronically (Typing it in) or written on your paper verifies that this is your work. You may collaborate with anyone on your paper, but it must be your original work.
Terminology:
You will run into a great number of acronyms and
confusing terms. Please refer to the back of McKittrick-McVea
(pp. 331-337) if the terms become confusing. One important point needs to
be made about the terminology used in this Study Guide. I will be using the terms Nationalists,
Republicans, Unionists, and Loyalists throughout the Study Guide. Be aware
that:
1. Nationalists
and Republicans are Catholic, for the most part. 2. Unionists
and Loyalists are Protestant, for the most part. 3. Nationalists
support the reunification of Ireland through constitutional political means. 4. In
the period under study - Republicans support the reunification of Ireland
through the armed struggle. 5. Unionists,
for the most part, support the maintenance of the Union with Britain though
Constitutional and political means. 6. In
the period under study - Loyalists, who are 100% working class support the maintenance of the Union with
Britain through the armed struggle.
These are generalizations, but they tend to hold for the
purposes of our study.
Important and Helpful
Websites for the Course -
I
have created this list for you to use and refer to throughout the course.
Please use them as you will find them extremely
helpful throughout this course.
Newspapers
-Newspapers that are online that can be of great help to you in your
research and studies:
Below are listed a number of books, by no means exhaustive, that I would
recommend that you eventually read, or browse through. They are all very good in dealing with
their particular subjects. I will be
quoting from many of them and using them during the term. Books I STRONGLY RECOMMEND for all of you to buy for yourself is:
Recommended Books:
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