Course Contents

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Please note the content shown below is 2025 syllabus. This course is also available for 2026 syllabus. Please contact college for details.

Higher Level

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Detailed Content

• The Second Reich and the changing balance of power
• Anglo- and Franco-German tensions
• Bismarck’s foreign policy
• The structures of European diplomacy
• The New Imperialism and colonial rivalries
• Wilhelm II and Weltpolitic
• Serbia as a fulcrum of Great Power rivalry
• The Second International
• The outbreak of war in 1914
• The conduct of war
• War and revolution
• The Peace Settlement
• Case Study: The naval policy of Wilhelm II

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• Economic growth and social tensions
• Industrialisation in Germany and its impact on society
• Industrialisation and economic crisis in Tsarist Russia
• The impact of war on society and economy
• Case Study: Women in the Workforce During World War I
• Key Personalities: The Krupp Family
• Key Personality: Rosa Luxemburg

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• Expression of natural identity through literature and the arts: The literature of World War I
• Key Personality: Wilfred Owen
• Church/State tensions in Germany and Italy
• Key Personality: Pope Leo XIII
• Anti-Semitism in France and Russia
• Key developments in science, technology and medicine
• Key Personality: Marie Curie
• Case Study: The Invention and Early History of the Motor Car
• Key Personality: Karl Benz

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• The Home Rule Bill, 1912-1914
• The Impact of World War I
• The 1916 Rising
• The rise of the second Sinn Féin party
• The 1918 election
• The War of Independence
• Partition
• Treaty and Civil War
• State building and the consolidation of democracy
• From Free State to Republic
• Northern Ireland – the Unionist Party in power
• The Impact of World War II, North and South
• Case Study: The Treaty negotiations, October-December, 1921

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• Impact of partition on economy and society
• Impact of world economic crisis
• From free trade to protectionism
• Impact of World War II.
• Case Study: Belfast during World War II

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• The Irish language after 1922
• Religion and education
• Promotion of cultural identity
• Key personality: Evie Hone
• Case study: the eucharistic congress of 1932

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• From Brookeborough 1888 1973 to O'Neill
• Terence O'Neill
• The civil rights movement
• Emergence of the provisional ira
• Republican and loyalist terrorism
• Case study: sunningdale and power sharing
• Case study (continued): direct rule
• Key personality: Terence O'neill (1914-90)
• Key personality: Ian Paisley (1926 - )
• Key personality: Margaret Thatcher (1925 )
• Key personality: Brian Faulkner (1921-77)
• Key personality: John Hume (1937 )
• Key personality: James Molyneaux (1920 )
• Key personality: Gerry Adams (1948 - )
• Key personality: Bernadette Devlin (1947 )

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• Impact of welfare state: education, health, housing.
• Social and economic developments prior to 1969
• Impact of the "troubles": (a) the economy; (b) society education, health, housing.
• Case study: Coleraine University controversy
• Key personality: Terence O'Neill (1914-90)
• Key personality: Brian Faulkner (1921-77)
• Key personality: John Hume (1937 )

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• Religious affiliation and cultural identity
• Cultural responses to the "troubles"
• Ecumenism
• Case study: apprentice boys of Derry
• Key personality: Seamus Heaney (1939-)
• Key personality: Patricia Mccluskey, Conn Mccluskey

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• The Jarrow March, October 1936.
• Stalin’s show trials
• The Nuremberg Rallies

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