The thesis is a study of the relationship between Ireland and England as portrayed in Irish post-primary history school textbooks, dealing with the period 1800 to the present day, and published or in use since 1922. The thesis identifies two distinct categories of texts and these are referred to as purist texts and moderate texts. The purist texts are characterised by their strong pro-Irish, and anti-English biases in their presentation of Irish history. The moderate texts, by contrast, are generally without such biases and present more neutral accounts of Irish history. The central thesis of the work is that the relationship between Ireland and England as portrayed in the purist texts is fundamentally different from the relationship portrayed in the moderate texts. Close examination of the texts revealed that the presentation of Irish history fell into three large divisions, military and revolutionary history, political history and social history. For this reason the thesis, apart from introductory and concluding chapters, is comprised of three large central chapters, dealing in turn with each of these three aspects of Irish history. Thus, Chapter II looks at the treatment of the military and revolutionary history in the texts. Chapter III deals with the political history of Ireland and Chapter IV treats of the social history of Ireland. Each of these three chapters elaborates on how the topics dealt with contribute to the overall portrayal of the relationship between Ireland and England, as presented in the texts. The thesis concludes that the relationship between Ireland and England portrayed by the purist texts is a negative and hostile one, while the relationship portrayed by the moderate texts is a positive one. Hence, a fundamental difference in the portrayal of the relationship between the purist and moderate texts is established.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:264563 |
| Date | January 1988 |
| Creators | Mulcahy, Brian J. |
| Publisher | University of Hull |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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