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DIB launches Leaving Cert history resource

21 September 2020

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PDF icon DIB: Relevant Irish figures for Leaving Cert history

The Dictionary of Irish Biography (DIB) has created a new resource for Leaving Cert history students comprised of forty biographies of major Irish figures from Daniel O'Connell to Seamus Heaney. 

About the resource, Deirdre Mac Mathúna, PRO of the History Teachers' Association of Ireland (HTAI) stated:

‘The HTAI is delighted to welcome the latest publication from the Royal Irish Academy which is now being made available to all teachers online … The key personalities that are included in this publication range from Daniel O'Connell and Charles Stewart Parnell in the nineteenth century to Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington, Éamon de Valera, Seamus Heaney and many others in the twentieth century. The biographies selected from the Dictionary of Irish Biography are written by eminent historians and academics, many of which have been supporters and guests of the HTAI down through the years, including Gearóid Ó Tuathaigh, Michael Laffan, Maria Luddy and Diarmaid Ferriter. This will be a great addition to the teaching resources for all teachers of history and we are grateful to the DIB for making this available to the HTAI at this time.’

The resource is divided into five sections in line with the Irish history curriculum as follows: 

Part 1. Ireland and the Union 

  • Daniel O’Connell 
  • Thomas Davis 
  • Charles Trevelyan 
  • Charles Kickham 
  • James Stephens 
  • Asenath Nicholson 
  • Mary Aikenhead 
  • Paul Cullen 
  • William Carleton 
  • William Dargan 

Part 2. Movements for political and social reform 1870–1914 

  • Charles Stewart Parnell 
  • John Redmond
  • Edward Carson
  • Isabella Tod 
  • Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington 
  • James Connolly
  • Michael Davitt
  • James Larkin 
  • Douglas Hyde
  • William Butler Yeats 

Part 3. Pursuit of sovereignty and the impact of partition 1912–1949 

  • Patrick Pearse
  • Éamon de Valera
  • Arthur Griffith
  • Michael Collins
  • Constance Markievicz
  • William Thomas Cosgrave 
  • James J. McElligott
  • James Craig
  • Richard Dawson Bates
  • Evie Hone 

Part 4. The Irish diaspora 1840–1966 

  • John Devoy
  • Richard Welsted (‘Boss’) Croker 
  • Daniel Mannix
  • Dónall Mac Amhlaigh
  • Paul O’Dwyer
  • Edward Galvin
  • Mother Mary Martin 

Part 5. Politics in Northern Ireland 1949–1993 

  • Terence O’Neill 
  • Brian Faulkner 
  • Seamus Heaney 

Download the DIB Leaving Cert resource (2MB).

The resource was compiled by Liz Evers of the DIB and designed by Fidelma Slattery of RIA Publications. 

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