A Modern Student of Ancient Ireland
At Scoil Iósaif, students study History at both Junior Cycle and Senior Cycle. The aim of the History department is to encourage students to develop an interest in the History which took place around them and in the wider world. Through studying History students will get a better understanding of the world they live in and their identity as a young person growing up in Ireland.
Students spend three hour-long class periods studying History each week. The aim of Senior Cycle History is to develop students’ understanding of human activity in the past by analysing information and developing critical thinking skills.
The syllabus consists of two interlinking parts:
I: Working with evidence
a) Introduction: History and the historian
b) A documents-based study
c) A research study.
Students will be given a preliminary introduction to the nature of History and the work of the historian. This will form the basis for future work on the topics, on the documents-based study and on the research study.
• Students will undertake a documents-based study of one of the topics as the primary means of developing their skills in working with evidence.
• Students will undertake a research study of a significant historical subject as a means of developing their skills in working with evidence and as the primary means of developing their research skills
II: Topics for study
The topics are arranged in two discrete fields of study:
Early Modern, 1492-1815;
Later Modern, 1815-1993.
• Students will study topics from one of the fields of study. Within each field of study, there are six topics from Irish history and six from the history of Europe and the wider world.
• Students will study two topics from Irish history and two from the history of Europe and the wider world from the selected field of study. Two topics will be prescribed for documents-based study: one from the Early Modern field of study and one from the Later Modern field of study.
• Students will engage in a documents-based study of the prescribed topic from their selected field of study.