Ireland Uncovered

This module is specifically for International Students and is very popular with study abroad students. What made Ireland the country that it is today? This module looks to answer that question by examining Irish history, culture and society in an interdisciplinary and interactive manner. Students are introduced to key themes, debates, personalities, influences and events that help to provide a greater understanding of how Ireland evolved into the country it is today. Commencing with the arrival of Christianity in Ireland, attention is focused throughout on fundamental questions such as the role and place of religion, the relationship with England, gender, sexuality, language, literature, nationalism and unionism. The module is structured around fifteen topics which address a series of key issues relating to Ireland. Each topic is addressed in individual online packages hosted on Blackboard which provide extracts from key readings, debates and overviews, with set associated tasks such as web searches, information retrieval, and critical assessment. Each topic is also addressed in an associated lecture by a leading expert in that particular field. Students also attend five seminars for small-group work. Seminars convene every second week. Each seminar focuses upon the topics covered in the previous three lectures and in the associated online packages and set tasks. There is also one Dublin field trip, for which students are required to prepare a short oral presentation as part of their assessable seminar work. At the end of the module students take an online MCQ exam as the final stage of assessment.