Flashpoints
Ireland’s history is full of those flashpoint periods when conflicting ideologies meet
and when conflicting loyalties are tested.
Its past and its complex relationship with Britain pose 'big questions' of interpretation,
change and continuity, and cause and effect, which have no easy answers.
Moreover, the richness and diversity of source material and of cross-curricular link
make finding the answers fun as well as challenging.
- Irish dimensions enrich the History curriculum; and
- extend the place of History in the curriculum by providing fruitful links with
subjects.
Two such flashpoints, which make learning fun and challenging are the
Irish Famine of the 1840s and
events in Dublin and on the Western Front in 1916.