Hist of Modern Ireland, 1690-1923

(4 Credits)

Early-modern Irish history is an epic tale of conflict, subjugation, and the struggle for national identity. In the roughly two and a half centuries covered by this course, Ireland was transformed from a mysterious and remote island on the periphery of Europe to a quasi-autonomous state fully caught up in the sweeping economic, political, and social transformations that defined the late eighteenth century. Among the topics covered in History I are the Tudor conquest and colonization; Gaelic pushback; Ireland under the Stuarts; the Williamite War and formation of the Protestant Ascendancy; the emergence of Irish nationalism; Ireland and the Enlightenment; 18th-century political, economic, and societal transformations; and Ireland in the Age of Revolutions. The struggles and frustrations of this period define the agenda for Ireland’s tumultuous passage through the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.