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[MUSIC PLAYING]

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Ordinary people living
through extraordinary times.

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Between 1912 and 1923, Ireland
experienced radical changes

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that reverberate still.

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It was marked by revolution,
guerrilla warfare, civil war,

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and partition.

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The history of this period
has been told, retold,

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and constantly contested.

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But this course will attempt
to do more than just focus

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on the familiar dates and faces.

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You will encounter a different
kind of war and revolution

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with multiple voices
and multiple truths.

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Over six weeks, leading
historians in the field

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will challenge your
understanding and certainties

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about what people thought
they were fighting for.

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Why did people fight?

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What was won and
lost, and by whom?

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What were the consequences for
the ordinary man and woman?

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I think often when you
see one historian in front

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of the camera, that
impression is almost built in

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to whatever they say, that
they have the right answer,

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and that there is
only one answer.

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And in a sense, I think
what this MOOC should

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be about is maybe being
honest enough to say sometimes

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we often don't have
an answer and we never

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will have an answer.

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What's actually
exciting about it

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is the pursuit of
the material itself.

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Everybody experiences history,
whether it's the prime minister

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or whether it's
the street cleaner.

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History is happening
to all of them.

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Nobody knows on Tuesday what's
going to happen on Wednesday.

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And you have to recapture that
kind of sense of being alive.

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The phases and changing nature
of conflict will be examined.

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The influence of total war
in Europe from 1914 to 1918,

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rebellion in 1916 and the
British response, the IRA's

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ruthless guerrilla warfare, and
the bloody civil war from 1922.

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Rich archive material
will not only

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give you an
understanding of events,

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but also the challenges faced
by the historians working

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with often
contradictory sources.

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The assumption that the
lives of those of the great

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and the good and the powerful
are in some ways more worthy

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of interest than the
lives of ordinary people.

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And I think one of the reasons
I got excited about getting

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into this in the first
place is the opportunity

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actually to imagine
ordinary lives in the past.

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The sources that we can
use in the 20th century,

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I think the fact that people
taking part in this MOOC

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can actually plug into
those sources themselves

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and do things that couldn't
have been done a few years ago.

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We can now approach
history looking

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at original documentation and
asking their own questions.

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Learn to engage with the past
on its own complex terms.

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Irish lives in war
and Revolution.

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What will you discover when
political, social, economic,

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and cultural histories collide?

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