Sir, As academics who have for the last 20 years been trying to raise the profile of Irish history teaching in British universities, we should like to express our disquiet at the Education Minister's proposal to drop history from the core subjects on the Junior Cert syllabus. Since the early 1970s we have seen a developing exchange of ideas between those interested in the subject here and in Ireland; Irish history has just begun to find its way onto British university courses; graduate students move more and more easily between the two countries; the 10th Biennial Conference of Irish Historians in Britain has just taken place, a larger and livelier gathering than ever before.
These developments have been encouraged by the high level of interest in the subject traditionally maintained by the Irish educational system, which has helped promote a more nuanced and historically aware approach to the issues of Irish history. To demote it from the core curriculum would leave the way open for a return to crude and untested assumptions, as well as making more difficult "the endeavours of those of us who believe that it is in the interests of both British and Irish to know more about their history. - Yours, etc.,
Carroll Professor of
Irish History,
Hertford College,
Oxford.
Andrew Geddes & John
Rankin Professor of
Modern History,
University of Liverpool.
Fellow and Director of
Studies in History,
Queens' College, Cambridge.