Description

For students of Politics, Ireland is perhaps one of the most fascinating examples of a territory that has undergone, and continues to undergo dramatic transformations in its governing structures, its passionate struggles for freedom, civil wars, colonial resistance and modern nationalism. This class will study the political history of Ireland before and during its time as a part of the United Kingdom, through the partition of the island into two states, and up to the modern politics of both the Republic of Ireland and the British state of Northern Ireland. We will examine the results of the 1998 "Good Friday Agreement". Then we will dissect and evaluate modern Irish institutions of government, in the Republic and in the North. Students will research the competing ideologies and present arguments supporting the parties and organizations that propound these ideologies, like Sinn Fein, the IRA, the Uster Unionist Party and Unionist paramilitaries in the North; the Fine Gael and Fianna Fail in the South.