Certificate in Cultural Landscapes

• Unit 1: Introduction to the prehistory of Ireland and the Boyne Valley: This unit will deal with the idea of prehistory, the earliest settlement of Ireland, the coming of farming and the megalithic tradition, technological, social development and increasing long-distance contact through the Bronze Age and the Iron Ages leading to an examination of the concept of the Celts and their impact on Ireland.
• Unit 1 Field Trip: The prehistory of the Boyne Valley: This Field Trip will include site visits to a series of appropriate sites in the Boyne Valley which might include: The Brú na Bóinne World Heritage Site – Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth; The Hill of Tara; the Loughcrew passage tomb cemetery; Fourknocks passage tomb.

• Unit 2: Ireland and the Boyne Valley in the early medieval period: This unit will explore the coming of the historic period and following a brief survey of the Roman background to this development the importance of the introduction of Christianity and the unique development of insular monasticism to a large extent independent of Rome. Particular features of insular monastic sites including churches, round towers and high crosses and enclosures will be introduced and contextualized. The parallel development of the secular landscape will also be examined and will draw on the information in the 7th and 8th century AD law texts as well as recently uncovered archaeological data.
• Unit 2 Field Trip the Boyne Valley  -  the early medieval period: The Field Trip will include visits to a series of sites in the Boyne Valley which might include: Monasterboice monastic site and high crosses; Kells monastic site – round tower, high crosses and early church; Donaghmore round tower with Romanesque doorway; The Hill of Slane; Danestown bivallate ringfort, a high-status residential centre.

• Unit 3 Ireland and the Boyne Valley  -  the medieval period: The coming of the Anglo Normans to Ireland in 1169 signalled a series of profound developments both political and physical – the traces of which can still be clearly seen in the Irish landscape. Ireland and the Lordship of Meath became Henry II’s ‘breadbasket’ – a major centre for agricultural production with a corresponding economy. The lasting legacy of this time is the series of great earth and stone fortifications, churches and cathedrals and, perhaps most important of all, a network of market towns and port towns to drive this new economy.
• Unit 3 Field Trip: The Boyne Valley  -  the medieval period: The Field Trip will include a series of site visits to appropriate sites which might include: Dun Dealgan Motte; Roche Castle; Trim Castle; Mellifont Cistercian Abbey; Bective Abbey; Millmount and Drogheda town walls; the medieval town of Trim

• Unit 4: Modern period: 'Big House' to the Peace Process: In this unit students will receive an introduction to the Plantation of Ireland from the early sixteenth century to the Battle of the Boyne which involved the transfer of the land of Ireland to new Protestant landowners. Following this cataclysmic change there was a gradual transition from castle to fortified house to ‘big house’ or mansion in the eighteenth century which will be explored. The prosperity of the Georgian period and the corresponding economic and other development will also be discussed. The move towards independence through the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries will be outlined. This period saw the emergence of the religious-ethnic identities of Catholic-Nationalist and Protestant-Unionist. The struggle between these identities led to the partition and establishment of an independent Irish State and Northern Ireland. The development of the site of the Battle of the Boyne at Oldbridge, regarded as ‘holy ground’ by the Orange Unionist tradition in Northern Ireland, took place in the context of recent initiatives aimed at reconciling the two communities.
• Unit 4 Field Trip: The Boyne Valley in the modern period: The Field Trip will include site visits to a series of appropriate sites which might include: The Battle of the Boyne battlefield and centre, Oldbridge; Beaulieu House; Boyne Navigation; Slane Mill; Slane Village; Slane Castle; Ledwidge Museum.

In this unit, students will study a number of literary texts set in and around the Boyne valley. The focus will be on how the texts identify changing perspectives from 19th to early 20th century Ireland. Texts draw on historical and mythological themes already presented in previous units and will be linked to the field work undertaken by students in those units. Examples could include Maria Edgeworth's satire of the Irish landowning classes in Castle Rackrent, W.B. Yeats' use of Cú Chulainn iconography as part of Celtic revival in a number of his plays, and Francis Ledwidge's evocative landscape poetry, much of it produced while on active service during World War I, and the issues it raises in relation to commemoration and cultural memory.

Unit 5 Fieldtrip Literature and Social Change in the Boyne Valley

While elements in this Unit may be covered during the course of some of the other themed field trips outlined above (e.g., the Francis Ledwidge Museum in Slane), there may be a trip to Dublin that could include visits to sites and locations of literary interest. These might include the Museum of Literature of Ireland (MoLI), Trinity College, The National Library of Ireland, the Epic Irish Emigration Museum.