Reading and revising

Use this blog as your primary resource, in combination with the material on icampus.

The blog entries and the slides on icampus are the course outline. For further detail on any specific topic, make full use of the links provided, and be sure not to neglect the audiovisual material (particularly the Schama and Marr documentaries).

Specimen exam questions are available on icampus.

Any questions can be addressed to me by email, but if the answer is likely to be of interest to others a better place might be on the forum in icampus, or in the comments box on the blog.

Good luck with your revision and with your exams.

Don't neglect to sleep and eat regularly and sufficiently. A plate of roast beef and a good night's sleep is worth an extra day's revision.

British governments 1937-1997

• 1937-1940: Conservative and Unionist government under Neville Chamberlain
  
• 1940-1945: Wartime government of “national unity” under Winston Churchill
• 1945: Conservative “caretaker” government under Winston Churchill
• 1945-1951: Labour governments under Clement Attlee (general elections 1945, 1950)
• 1951-1964: Conservative governments under Winston Churchill, 1951-1955; Anthony Eden, 1955-1957; Harold Macmillan, 1957-1963; Alec Douglas-Home, 1963-1964 (general elections 1951, 1955, 1959)
• 1964-1970: Labour governments under Harold Wilson (general elections 1964, 1966)
• 1970-1974: Conservative government under Edward Heath (general elections 1970)
• 1974-1979: Labour governments under Harold Wilson, 1974-1976; James Callaghan, 1976-1979 (general elections Feb. 1974, Oct. 1974)
• 1979-1997: Conservative governments under Margaret Thatcher, 1979-1990; John Major, 1990-1997 (general elections 1979, 1983, 1987, 1992)

Suez Crisis

When President Nasser of Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal, the French and British response was to plot with Israel to got to war against Egypt. American threats to sell their sterling reserves, and Arab threats of oil embargo, forced a hasty and shamefaced British withdrawal, and a rethink about Britain's imperial future.

The newsreel used in class:


Further images and information, from a recent BBC documentary:

Elizabeth II

George VI, at his coronation in 1936, was styled "By the Grace of God, of Great Britain, Ireland and the British Dominions beyond the Seas King, Defender of the Faith, Emperor of India".

Elizabeth II, at her coronation in 1953, was styled "By the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith".

This already indicates major changes, all of which took place in the late 1940s: the independence of India and Pakistan; the establishment of the Republic of Ireland; and the replacement of imperial claims with headship of the Commonwealth. The two unchanging elements are being king or queen of Great Britain, and Defender of the Faith.

Nevertheless, the coronation was the occasion for much celebratory propaganda about a "second Elizabethan age", in which Britain would, by courage and ingenuity, (again) carve out a place for itself in a world dominated by much stronger global powers.





Pay close attention to the Queen's words in her first televised Christmas broadcast, the year after Suez.

The Fifties

Most of the notes for class 4 seem to have vanished into cyberspace, leaving only the powerpoint slides (on icampus). Fortunately, this is a period extremely well covered by Andrew Marr (as you will all be aware, but here it is again).

The main events outlined in class were:

• the coronation: a moment of jubilation, the first mass ceremony of the television age (Princess Diana's funeral, at the end of our period, makes a nice complement), and a time for new hopes of British "greatness" emerging from wartime deprivation and postwar austerity.
• British achievements in science and technology (the first jetliner, the first nuclear facility for non-military purposes, an independent atomic bomb, describing the structure of DNA, etc.), giving science-fiction writers the impression that Britain would stand at the forefront of the future
• the attempts to maintain some independent standing in world affairs, and to reassert British power in Malaya and Kenya
• the Suez Crisis, for which follow this link (it's important, so do click), revealing the illusory nature of any hopes for Britain being an independent world force; two of the films used in class are here
• a long period of economic growth and prosperity, despite on-going inefficiencies in British industry
• the "Profumo Affair" (covered in detail by Marr)
  

Eamon de Valera

Eamon de Valera was the single most influential individual on the course of Irish history in the 20th century.

Born in New York, and holding American citizenship, he was the only one of the leaders of the Easter Rising of 1916 to escape execution.

He went on to lead the (unrecognised) Irish Republic of 1918-1921, and to lead Republican forces against the army of the Irish Free State in the Civil War of 1921-1922. Increasingly marginalized from politics after 1922, having taken an oath as a member of Sinn Fein not to take a seat in the assembly until all of Ireland was united and independent, he founded Fianna Fail in 1926 as a way back into the political mainstream, and went on to become head of the Irish government as President of the Executive Council 1932-1937, and (after the Constitution of 1937) Taoiseach 1937-1948, 1951-1954, 1957-1959; and head of state as President 1959-1973. He died in 1973.

He pursued policies of economic self-sufficiency (once telling a journalist that a "higher standard of living" should really be thought of as a "costlier standard of living"), and a moderate form of corporatism with "social partners". Despite his own leadership of Republican forces in the Civil War, he came down heavily on the IRA during the Emergency (1940-1946) and during the Border Campaign (1956-1962), effectively ending that body's influence until it was reinvigorated by the events of 1969.

Below, De Valera speaking on the Easter Rising.

The Uprising of 1916 was an assertion in arms of the right of the Irish People to be free. Freedom has been secured now over more than five-sixths of the national territory. We constantly hope that it will not be long until the whole country is united.

Modern Ireland

The main dates in 20th-century Irish history are:

1916: unsuccessful Easter Rising in Dublin proclaims independent Irish Republic
1918: the Republican party Sinn Fein ("Ourselves Alone") won 73 of 105 Irish seats in the general election, but refused to take seats in the Westminster Parliament and organized their own assembly in Dublin
1919-1921: War of Independence; Ireland given independence as the Irish Free State, still nominally part of the British Empire; Ireland partitioned when the 6 counties of Northern Ireland elected to remain part of the United Kingdom
1921-1922: Civil War between those (led by Michael Collins) willing to accept 26-county independence with nominal British sovereignty, and those (led by Eamon de Valera) who saw anything short of a republic encompassing all of Ireland as a betrayal
1923: Irish Free State joins League of Nations
1926: foundation of Fianna Fail (described by one of its founders, Seán Lemass, as a "slightly constitutional" party), to get around Sinn Fein oath not to take part in politics until ireland reunited
1932: Fianna Fail in power under Eamon de Valera: policies of economic "self-sufficiency" instituted, intended to reduce economic dependence on Britain
1933: foundation of Fine Gael, uniting the strands of nationalism closer to the vision of Michael Collins than of De Valera
1937: Irish Constitution, perhaps the most liberal and democratic new constitution drafted anywhere in Europe in the 1930s (Irish Free State renamed Eire; the "whole island of Ireland" claimed as the national territory; the "special position" of the Catholic Church in Irish life given constitutional recognition)
1938: Royal Navy withdrawn from Irish ports and coastal defences
1940-1946: "the Emergency": Ireland neutral in the Second World War, but governed under a State of Emergency; IRA activists interned for undermining the state's neutrality towards Britain
1949: Republic established (Eire renamed Ireland)
1956: IRA launches "Border Campaign" (carrying out cross-border attacks from the Republic into Northern Ireland)
1957: De Valera orders internment without trial of IRA and Sinn Fein activists at Curragh Camp, Kildare
1958: Seán Lemass replaces De Valera as head of government; launches First Programme for Economic Expansion (moving away from protectionism)
1961-1963: unsuccessful bid for membership of the European Community
1969: beginning of "The Troubles" in Northern Ireland
1970: Dublin Arms Trial: rogue elements of the Irish government and armed forces had been supplying guns to Northern Irish Republicans
1972: 30 January "Bloody Sunday" (paratroopers shoot 27 civil rights protesters in Derry, killing 13); 2 February British embassy burned down in Dublin; constitution modified to drop the "special position" clause relating to the Catholic Church
1973: membership of the European Community
Over the next 30 years, Ireland went from being one of the poorest countries in Western Europe to being one of the richest (the "Celtic Tiger" phenomenon), thanks in part to European structural funds and American investment, but also to a clear policy of making Ireland an attractive place for outside investment, and to the lack of post-industrial problems (due to a lack of older industry)
1998: Good Friday Agreement: Ireland agrees to drop a territorial claim to the whole island of Ireland from its constitution, in response for a voice in the affairs of Northern Ireland

Below, the beginning of the RTE documentary "Ireland in the Seventies", part of the "Seven Ages" series on the history of the Irish state.



For those interested:
Part 2 here
Part 3 here
Part 4 here
Part 5 here
Part 6 here