0346 - Understanding Ulster The North of Ireland from Plantation to Brexit
Course Description
Henry McNally, MA, Fordham, Irish historian, recipient of the 2019 Eoin McKiernan award
In the early 1600s, England “Planted” tens of thousands of God-Fearing Protestants across the North of Ireland, forcing the native Irish Catholics off land they had farmed for centuries. It is known in history books as The Ulster Plantation. It was the same basic plan used in the colonization of the “New World.” The indigenous Irish mattered no more than the indigenous Americans. In Ulster, Plantation created animosities that would fester across more than 400 years, animosities that even today have not disappeared. Examine the Ulster Plantation, the demographic changes that followed, the gradual development of a Protestant hegemony that culminated in the creation of the political entity known as Northern Ireland, infamously described as “A Protestant State for a Protestant People.” The history of that political entity will be covered from its creation in 1921, through the struggle by Catholics for civil rights, through the bloody turmoil known as “The Troubles,” through Hunger Strikes, political bargaining and treachery and a tenuous peace accord known as The Good Friday Agreement. We’ll end with a consideration of Northern Ireland today, the continuing absence of a governing assembly and the complications following Brexit. 5 SESSIONS (No Class August 8)