Some weeks ago during the G2 Summit (that’s the tongue-in-cheek look at the week’s events that George Lee and Ger Sweeney engage in weekly) the teaching of History in schools in Ireland was discussed. In fact that discussion can be heard on the edition of 19th April.
The discussion came about because of a news report on Ireland’s national radio and television broadcaster RTE, about a leaked document on the place of History in the Junior Cycle at second level. The National Council for Curriculum and Assessment was asked to carry out the review by the Education Minister Joe McHugh last November. This came after the controversy over the perceived downgrading of the subject to optinoal under the new Junior cycle framework.
It was in this context that George and Ger spoke about WHAT was taught and HOW it was being taught. Well, Patricia Trainor is a regular cotributor to this site and to Ger Sweeney’s Irish radio programme on Spain’s Talk Radio Europe and recently they both met to record some more of Patricia’s great anecdotes. The first to be recorded was a completion of a previous story about Maude Gonne and an introduction to her son Sean McBride and some information on the enormous impact that he made to not just Ireland but to the global community during his lifetime.
The reason for this blog is becasue after the interview Ger commented that there was so much in her story that had never been taught to him in school. Patricia’s piece is below to be heard and each listener can draw his/her own conclusion. We certainly think that is demonstrates very clearly the need to not just keep History on the curriculum but to ensure that it is relevant, unbiased and interesting.