THROUGH WAR AND REBELLION: CORK 1912-1918
CORK CITY & COUNTY ARCHIVES SAMPLE LESSON PLANS
Number 2 SAMPLE LESSON PLANS 1 ST YEAR The Irish Volunteers BECOMING A DOCUMENT DETECTIVE Year: 1913 Reference U156/1 Date 14 December 1913 [1914] Title: Formation of Irish Volunteers in Cork Place: Cork Author: Riobaird Langford Distribute a copy of the document and a record sheet to each group/individual Divide the class into groups of three or four. Three is better because everyone can get a job. Learning outcome: What is s Primary Document? What is an Archive? Can you analyse a document? Introduction: • What is a document? Ask for examples. Which other records can be used by historians? Audio, photographs, paintings, pictures etc. • What is a primary document? What is a secondary document? • What does the student know about places to keep documents? • What is a library? How many students have visited a library? • Which ones? Two or three examples of what can be found in a library will do • What is an archive? How many students have visited an archive? This is likely to be one or zero. Define an archive: • An archive is a place which stores public documents which need to be kept safe. • These can come from governments, hospitals, city and county councils or from personal and family papers. • Cork City and County Archives stores the records of Cork City and County Councils and a host of other documents from 1100 up to the present day. The Document: The document is an eyewitness description by Riobaird Langford after the event which describes what happened on the night when Eoin MacNeill and Roger Casement came to address a public meeting in Cork City Hall to set up a branch of the Irish Volunteers. Instructions: 1. Read through the Background information in the resource pack with the students. 2. Ask them to highlight the names of people, sentences, or words they do not understand. 4. Working from the resource pack fill in the recording sheet and attach it to the document. 5. Optional: • There is a second document by Diarmuid Fawcitt in the resource pack which describes the same events. Read through it and decide which of the two documents you find the more interesting. Pick out four quotes from either or both documents to tell the story. 6. Optional: • The Langford and Fawcitt documents mention groups such as the ‘AOH’, ‘Molly Maguires’, ‘Gaelic Leaguers’ and ‘the Redmondite party’. Look up and explain what each group was and discuss divisions in Irish nationalism in the period c1900-1915. • Conclusion • Discuss whether the students now understand what an archive is and what is a primary document? • Decide where to store the recording sheet. Now the class has started their own archive.
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