OLLSCOIL NA hEIREANN

NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF IRELAND, MAYNOOTH

M.A. (LOCAL HISTORY) EXAMINATION - SUMMER 1999

STAGE 1

Dr. J Kelly Dr J R Hill, Dr. R. Gillespie.

Candidates should answer three questions. Illustrate your answers, where applicable

with examples drawn from your own research or other case studies.

1 . 'When selecting regions for local historical study, " main criterion should not he administrative boundaries but rather. the identification of the people living in the region with the place'. Discuss.

2. How would you apply the ideas of Le Roy Ladurie in framing a local study in Ireland?

3. What links, if any, do you see between the study of 'national' history and ‘local’ history?

4. How important do you think material evidence (including the landscape) is in writing a local study?

5. 'Local history is about the interaction of three variables: people, space and time ' Which of these do you consider the most important and why is it central to local history?

6. What do you think is the most significant contribution of the historian as opposed to the geographer in local history? .

7. To understand properly the history of south Ulster we must fist understand the history of Munster.' Discuss.

8. How would you go about writing a study of either religious life or economic life in a particular region?

9. The business of the local historian --- is to re-enact in his own mind and to portray for his readers the origin, growth, and decline and fall of a local community (Finberg). What do you consider the strengths and weaknesses of this definition of local history?