Hist 250 The Irish Sea

Hunt Tooley * History 250 * Fall Semester * 2022

Hunt Tooley   108 Sherman Hall, 2292 Office: MWF 12-12:30 in my office and via Zoom 1:45-2:30
                                                                                   TTh 4:30-5 in my office
                                                                                    and by appointment or serendipity

Zoom link for the MWF meetings:

https://austincollege.zoom.us/j/85981527575

SCHEDULE

Course Objectives

This course will be an examination of a particular region, a sweeping examination from the origins of settlement up to the twenty-first century. In spite of repeated waves of immigration, climate change, domination from afar, and other upheavals, the basin of the Irish Sea has retained a kind of commonality, a loose unity which stretches across both political states and modern "nations." To put it plainly, the course will encompass the history of the areas we now call Wales, Western England, Western Scotland, the Western Islands, the Isle of Man, and Ireland. From the neolithic to the twenty-first century, we will have to take a macro-historical approach for the most part, and we will be as interested in cultural and economic aspects of this region's history as we will be interested in its politics.

Links of Interest, Documentary Resources, and Some Other Generally Cool Stuff

    Documents

History of the United Kingdom: Primary Documents A large online collection, searchable for "Wales," "Cumbria" etc.
History of Ireland: Primary Documents A large online collection
Táin Bó Cuailnge The Tain Legend--"The Great Cattle Raid" (one of many sites devoted to it)
Writings of St. Patrick
A Manx Notebook Francis Coakley's "Eclectic Compendium of Matters Past and Present Connected with the Isle of Man"
             There are many documents at this really useful site.
History of Scotland: Primary Documents   A large online collection.
Following the Famine Excellent site with documents and commentaries on the Irish Famine
1916--The Provisional Government of the Irish Republic to the People of Ireland
Sir John Maxwell reporting on the Easter Rising, 1916

    Miscellaneous

Wikipedia on Robert Burns A Famous Irish Sea Poet!
Wikipedia on William Butler Yeats Another Famous Irish Sea Poet!
Wikipedia on William Wordsworth Another Famous Irish Sea Poet!

     Music

Mactullagh Vannin, a great Manx band, plays traditional music on Youtube The whistle player is Cinzia Yates, whose channel includes more good traditional Manx music.
Gerry and the Pacemakers play a very famous rock classic, "Ferry Cross the Mersey" A song about home, region, etc. Very Irish Sea.
The Chieftains and Sinead O'Connor play "The Foggy Dew" A song about some famous events of 1916 in the Irish Sea city called Dublin.
Ryan Duns playing two Jigs and a Reel This is basic, wonderful whistle-playing by a young man who has been teaching tin whistle in the Irish Studies program at Fordham.
The legendary Scottish fiddler Aly Bain plays St. Anne's Reel in a modern folk version with some friends    Bain is from Shetland Island. There is much more of Bain on Youtube.
The Bothy Band plays "The Streets of Derry" Accompanied by images of Derry, this is another evocation of home and region in an Irish Sea place.
The Great Welsh Singer Tom Jones and the Treorchy Male Choir   Male choirs are part of a long tradition in Wales. So is Tom Jones, better known for other songs.
Cerys Matthews singing the Welsh hymn "Calon Lan" She was at one time lead singer with the Cardiff band Catatonia.
The Corrs playing "Toss the Feathers" A traditional piece from the early work of this cool and wildly popular family band from the town of Dundalk, an ancient town on the Irish Sea.
                                                Note the bodhran (Irish drum) playing by Caroline Corrs.
Interview with and Songs from Merdydd Evans About the legendary recordings of Welsh folk songs made by Evans in 1954. The interview is wonderful.
Another song about hometown, region, and human connections by a Liverpool band Released in 1967 on the flipside of "Strawberry Fields Forever"

Elements of the Course

There will be one midterm exam (each accounting for 15 % of the course grade) and a final (25 %). The exams will be partly objective, partly essay. There will be three map quizzes, each counting 5%.

The grading breaks down as follows.

        1 Midterm                          15%
        1 Final                                   25%
        2 short papers @ 10%        20%
        2 map quizzes @ 5%            10%
        Reading Quizzes ave.           15%
        Special Pres. Project            15%
                    --------------------------------
        Course Grade                100 %

In this course, 80 to 82.5 is a B-, 82.5 to 87 is a B, 87 to 89.9 is a B+ etc.

Academic Integrity, Attendance, and Late Project/Paper Penalties

    This course will be run on the basis of the Austin College Academic Integrity Policies. Group studying is of course fine. But all students are required to do their own work on tests and papers. By being enrolled in this course, each student agrees to abide by the Academic Integrity principles found in the most recent version of the Environment or in other official college publications. All sources used in preparation of the papers should be acknowledged appropriately. This means that direct quotations, specific information, and specific ideas should be attributed in the text or in a footnote to their source. A sentence taken from someone else and slightly altered still constitutes plagiarism, which the Environment specifically names an honor offense. In terms of our journal assignments for this course, the passing off of cut-and-paste material from electronic sources is considered a major academic integrity violation. I will respond to all violations with appropriate penalties, including losing the whole 15 percent for the paper, and in the case of cheating on a test, issuing an F for the course. All violations of, any kind will be reported to the Vice-President for Academic Affairs.
    Excessive absences will lead not only to deterioration of the class participation grade, but also potentially to faculty-initiated withdrawal from the class if the absences amount to more than 5. The calculation of WP or WF in such a case will be make strictly on the basis of the grades already recorded at the time of withdrawal. After the open period for student-initiated dropping without a grade, student-initiated withdrawals are generally not approved.
    For much more on the definition and characteristics of plagiarism, see the excellent and useful website, Plagiarism.org. In particular, read the page linked at the top right, "What is Plagiarism?"

The Two Papers and a Special Project--Instructions to follow

Since this is an FW writing course, we will take special care to work on some basic aspects of writing. The two papers form a part of this plan. But writing on the tests and the reading quizzes will also be a part of our approach to working on basics of writing.

Instructions for the Papers

Books to Acquire

Thomas Cahill. How the Irish Saved Civilization (Hinges of History) [Paperback]
ISBN-10: 0385418493
ISBN-13: 978-0385418492

Arthur Herman, How the Scots Invented the Modern World: The True Story of How Western Europe's Poorest Nation Created Our World & Everything in It
ISBN-10: 0609809997
ISBN-13: 978-0609809990

Andrew Phelan, Turning Tides: A Voyage Around the Irish Sea

ISBN-10: 0863279082
ISBN-13: 978-0863279089

Map Study Materials

Map Study List for Map Quiz 1

Movie Suggestions for the Irish Sea