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You are here Undergraduate > Single Honors History > HIU34011 Power and People: State and Society in Ireland, 1689-1783

HIU34059-60 Power and People: State and Society in Ireland 1689-1783 I and II

Was there a state in eighteenth century Ireland? What type of state was it? In whose interests did it operate? How did it impact on Irish economic and social development? What was the role of war in shaping it? How did ordinary Irishmen and women react to and negotiate with the agencies of new and more pervasive state structures? How can Irish developments be located within wider British and imperial contexts?
  • Module Coordinator:
    • Dr Patrick Walsh
  • Duration:
    • All year 
  • Contact Hours:
    • 3 hours per week
  • Weighting:
    • 20 ECTS
  • Assessment:
    • Michaelmas term source analysis 40%, essay 60%; Hilary term essay 50%, exam 50%.

These are some of the questions explored in this module, which seeks to investigate the contested processes of Irish state formation in the decades between the Williamite revolution and the American war. Together we will investigate how state power gradually and unevenly traversed the religious, economic and linguistic frontiers of eighteenth-century Ireland. At the heart of this module will be an investigation of the sites and spaces of contestation as well as areas of negotiation, cooperation and collaboration between various interests within Irish society. Drawing on a wide variety of primary sources, including official documents, Irish language poetry, pamphlets, newspapers and visual sources, students will be encouraged to explore how power was exercised by the people as well as by the state looking at riots, popular protest, public celebrations as well as the role of the military, the tax collectors and the law. Frameworks of gender, class and local as well as supra-national identities will be utilised to better understand Irish developments in a comparative context allowing students by the end of the module to assess just how exceptional the Irish experience of state formation really was.