Seanad debates

Wednesday, 17 June 2015

10:30 am

Photo of Paschal MooneyPaschal Mooney (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Senator Jim D’Arcy would be a good full-back or goalkeeper.

We in Fianna Fáil believe history must be a key component of the junior certificate education. We should all be deeply concerned at any syllabus changes that could result in a sharp reduction in the numbers studying history as a core subject in post-primary schools. History, it is clear from these proposals, is not going to be taught under this curriculum in a systematic, thorough or meaningful way and can be ignored if that is the choice of the school. We need to ensure history as a subject is not diluted and downgraded and that it continues to form part of the core curriculum.We believe the Minister should issue guidelines to schools instructing that history should continue to be prioritised as a core subject, but this is not in keeping with the proposed amendment to the motion, which speaks about acknowledging the dedicated cohort of history teachers, expresses confidence that the position of history as a subject is secure and states that despite its not being a compulsory subject for all students at junior cycle, more than 90% of students continue to study history at this level. Whoever wrote it did not have his or her heart in it. I cannot understand why we, particularly in this country, should downgrade history, because this is effectively what is happening.

Senator Marie-Louise O'Donnell brought her usual passion to the debate, but within the passion was a very strong argument. I could not help but reflect on the Jewish experience in the Holocaust, and why there is a Holocaust industry in terms of books and reminiscences, some of which came very late in life from people in their 70s and 80s who stored up their experiences and would not even reveal to their own families the horrors they had endured in concentration camps under the Nazi regime. The common thread running throughout all of the motivation behind their putting it down on paper was the desire to ensure that people would not forget and, in not forgetting, not repeat it. It brings us to the cliché that those who ignore history are condemned to repeat it.

There are many examples in international politics of history repeating itself. I am reading a book by a distinguished historian, Margaret MacMillan, called The War That Ended Peace: The Road to 1914, which gives the reasons as she puts them forward, very coherently and well argued, as to why the First World War happened. I was attracted to the book because of the period of commemoration we are in, but also because there has been a deep understanding, bordering on affection, for history in our family. My late uncle, Fr. Canice Mooney, was a distinguished Franciscan historian who wrote many books on Franciscan experiences in Europe and beyond. My cousin is the best-selling author of What Niall Saw, which sold very well when it was published approximately 20 years ago. There has always been an understanding and appreciation of history. My children all took history at second level and enjoyed it as a subject. This must be true of all the others who have taken part in the history curriculum. The subject is mandatory in more than half of schools, but in practice more than 90% of children study it at junior level. History teachers and historians state that changes will result in the downgrading of the subject, and I cannot but agree. They also maintain it will have serious repercussions for young people's understanding of the past and present. Senator D'Arcy made reference to Stair-Sheanchas Éireann, and he is right that it ended at 1921. The reason it did so, as I studied years later, was that the memories of the foundation of the State and the bitter Civil War that resulted had generated so much disagreement between the protagonists on the pro- and anti-treaty sides that the Department of Education at the time opted out and did not put forward an historical perspective. It stopped history at 1921. Thanks be to God we are living in a more enlightened age and we are able to look maturely not only at one side of the debate but at both sides.

Comments

No comments

Log in or join to post a public comment.