Index
Introduction to the Course
Video: "When Ireland Starved"
Book: This Great Calamity
Video: "Famine"
Book: The End of Hidden Ireland
Primary Sources
Video: "Out of Ireland"
Electronic Data
Web Resources
Spring Break
Research Questions
WWW Reports
Research Paper Reports
Final
22 January
Introduction to the Course
This initial meeting will enable students and the
instructor to get to know each other. Along with introducing ourselves,
we shall discuss the requirements of the course and examine the
syllabus. For the purpose of allocating work assignments, I shall
also use this time to divide the class into two groups, "A"
and "B."
Once we have taken care of administrative matters,
we shall turn to substantive matters. In particular, we shall
carefully examine some maps of Ireland. If time allows, we shall also begin viewing the Radharc
Films production, "When Ireland Starved."
29 January
Video: "When Ireland Starved"
We shall spend most of the class viewing the remainder
of "When Ireland Starved." The video provides a four-part
narrative about the causes of the famine, the accompanying death
and destruction, the efforts to relief suffering, and emigration
from Ireland in the 1840s and 1850s. Based on responsible scholarship,
the video's interpretation of events expresses, nevertheless,
a strong moral and political point of view.
I intend to divide Group A into four sub-groups,
each of which will have the assignment of paying particularly
close attention to a specific part of the film. Each student in
Group A will be responsible for writing a three-page report about
the portion of the film assigned to his or her sub-group. Those
reports will be due by 12 February.
5 February
Book: This Great Calamity
Christine Kinealy's This Great Calamity: The Irish
Famine, 1845-52 is a recent, comprehensive study. It examines
Irish society at the time of the Famine, the potato blight, and emigration. The
focus of the book, however, is on English relief policy during the crisis. Maps of poor law unions, public works projects, and sites affected by cholera may prove useful adjuncts to your reading.
All students must read Kinealy's This Great Calamity
by 5 February, when we shall discuss it. Students in Group A will lead the discussion of the book. Each student in the group will be responsible for making a brief presentation about a specific sub-section. Students in Group B will write five-page reports on the book. Those essays will be due by 12 February.
12 February
Video: "Famine"
"Famine," by Louis Marcus Productions,
is a recent video on the Great Hunger and its aftermath. Its four
parts focus on the interpretation of the Famine in Irish history,
the potato failure, relief efforts, and the aftermath of the catastrophe.
The video features many well-known scholars of the Famine. Compelling
in its presentation, the video is also consciously academic in
its analysis of the components of Famine historiography. As students
watch this video, they be on the lookout for difference in tone
and interpretation between it and "When Ireland Starved."
I intend to divide Group B into four sub-groups,
each of which will have the assignment of paying particularly
close attention to a specific part of the film. Each student in
Group B will be responsible for writing a three-page report about
the portion of the film assigned to his or her sub-group. Those
reports will be due by 26 February.
19 February
Book: The End of Hidden Ireland: Rebellion,
Famine, and Emigration
Robert James Scally's The End of Hidden Ireland:
Rebellion, Famine, and Emigration closely examines life during
the Famine era in the townland of Ballykilcline. The community
is located near Strokestown, County Roscommon, where the Irish
government opened a Famine Museum in 1994. The museum is located
in the stable yards of Strokestown Park. The landlord of that
estate, Major Denis Mahon, attempted to clear 8,000 of his destitute
tenants through eviction and assisted emigration. He was assassinated
in 1847.
When reading The End of Hidden Ireland, students
should try to place it in the context of the historiographical
issues raised in the Marcus video. Students in Group B will lead
the discussion of the book. Each student in the group will be
responsible for making a brief presentation about a specific sub-section
of it. Students in Group A will write five-page reports on the
Scally book. Those reports will be due by 26 February.
26 February
Primary Sources
Books, like those by Kinealy and Scally, are largelybased in their authors' analyses of documents and statistics produced
at the time of the Famine by participants in and observers of
the events. British Parliamentary Papers collected and generated
in the 1840s and 1850s contain thousands of pages of such primary
sources. Working with them can provide a realistic insight into
the historian's enterprise.
This semester Memorial Library will keep on reserve
eight volumes of British Parliamentary Papers pertaining to the
Famine. I shall direct your attention within the volumes to sets
of documents relevant to events in various geographic districts
in western Ireland, where the crisis was most severe. Students
will use the sets of documents to reconstruct what happened in
those poor law unions. Each student will write a five-page paper
presenting her or his findings regarding one of the unions.
The five-page papers are due on 19 March, which is
the last class before Spring Break. I hope to return them by 2
April. Students must submit revised versions of their papers no
later than 16 April.
During this meeting, we shall also look at a World
Wide Web site called "Views of the Famine." Steve Taylor
has complied at this site a selection of contemporary reports
about the tragedy. Included are articles and art work from The
Illustrated London News, The Pictorial Times, Punch,
and the Cork Examiner.
5 March
Video: "Out of Ireland"
"Out of Ireland" is a PBS video produced
in 1994 by Paul Wagner and Ellen Casey Wagner. It examines the
history of Irish emigration to the United States from the eighteenth
century to the final decades of the twentieth. Emigration during
and immediately after the Famine is, of course, central to the
story. Kelly McGillis, the star of several well-regarded movies,
provides the narration, and Kerby Miller, a noted American scholar
of Irish immigration, supplies insights.
12 March
Electronic Data
From the late 18th century through the late 19th,
British authorities used transportation to Australia as a form
of punishment for various offenses. The National Archives of Ireland
has made those Transportation Records available through the World
Wide Web. The Archives has also made available, in searchable form, portions of the Relief Commission Papers, which contain reports from locales affected by the Famine. We shall connect with the archives and use both sets of records
to ask a number of questions about the numbers and social characteristics
of Irish people transported during the Famine years, the distribution
of those persons among the 32 countiesand the conditions therein, and the crimes for which they were sent to Australia.
Between 1831 and 1916, the Boston Pilot, a newspaper
concerned with Irish and Irish-American affairs, published a column
entitled "Missing Friends." It served as an outlet for
people seeking information about loved ones and associates with
whom they had lost contact during the process of emigration. Ruth-Ann
Harris has been culling from that column information about thousands
of Irish men and women. The project continues, but in the meantime,
she and B. Emmer O'Keeffe have compiled information gathered for
the years up to 1860 in four volumes entitled The Search for
Missing Friends. Dr. Harris has allowed the Data Programming
and Library Service of the University of Wisconsin - Madison to
put on line data for the year 1847. We shall connect with the
DPLS archives and use the "Missing Friends" data set [15 Feb. '97: NOT YET READY] to ask a number of questions about characteristics of Irish immigrants
being sought during the early Famine years.
Students will be assigned small research projects
based on the Transportation and Relief CommissionRecords and on the Missing Friends data.
These will extend the introductory analyses done in class. Each
student will produce a three-page paper reporting his or her findings.
Those papers will be due on 9 April.
19 March
Web Resources
Although the contribution of the World Wide Web to
scholarship today is "over-hyped," researchers are increasingly
using it to discover and disseminate valuable materials. The WWW,
however, differs from most academic media, in that it involves
no process of peer review. Whoever has a web page has, in effect,
his or her own publishing company. That feature is democratic
and liberating, but it places at risk the unwary consumer of information
encountered on the WWW.
We shall discuss some of the issues involved in using
the Web as a research tool. Our efforts will be easier thanks
to the work of Jan Alexander and Marsha Tate, Reference Librarians
at the Wolfgram Memorial Library of Widener University, Chester,
Pennsylvania. Their web page, "Teaching Critical Evaluation
Skills for World Wide Web Resources," offers valuable lessons
on developing critical thinking skills which can be applied to
assessing information found on other pages.
Each student will be expected to find and visit a
WWW site that deals seriously with the Famine or with some aspect
of past or contemporary Irish politics and society. Following
the Tate and Alexander guidelines, each student will analyze the
contents of the site, its political orientation, and - where applicable
- its use of Famine history. Please consult, in person, with me
about your choice of sites and your assessment. During the meetings
of 9 and 16 April, each student will make a presentation about
what he or she has found.
2 April
Research Questions
The single most important assignment of the term involves the production of ten-page research papers on well-focused topics that have generated debate among historians of the Famine and its aftermath. I shall provide a list of topics suitable for this ten-page project. Students may also suggest alternative projects, but I reserve the right to approve or disapprove those substitutes. Examples of potential topics include:
Each student should read and critically review the
secondary literature pertaining to his or her issue. The student's
paper should contain a clear statement of the historical problem,
an evaluation of why it is important to a general understanding
of the Famine and its aftermath, and an analysis of how historians
have divided in their treatment of the issue. The paper should
also include the student's assessment of the evidence - as seen
through the secondary sources - and his or her judgment of the
state of current scholarship.
Building a bibliography of appropriate sources is
an essential step in the project. During this meeting of the seminar,
members of the Reference Department at Memorial Library will introduce
students to the most important search tools available to historians.
They will discuss, in particular, the use of electronic reference
materials.
The initial versions of the ten-page research papers
are due on 23 April. During the weeks between 2 and 23 April,
each students should consult, in person, with me, about the progress
she or he is making on the project. I shall try to return the
papers by 30 April. The revised versions of the final essays will
be due no later than 11 May at 2:45 P.M., the date and time scheduled for the
end-term examination.
9 and 16 April
WWW Reports
Students will present their reports on Famine-related
sources encountered on the WWW.
23 and 30 April, 7 May
Research Paper Reports
Students will present reports based on their ten-page
research papers.
11 May
Final
Revised ten-page papers due by 2:45 P.M.
