Remarks by Professor Dermot Keogh,
Chairperson of the Department of History,
University College Cork,
at the conferring ceremony, 3.30pm 25 September 2000.

"The Future of History".

"History" as a Leaving Certificate subject has been attracting negative headlines in recent months. "History goes from bad to worse in the Leaving Certificate" was the front-page headline in the Irish Times on 16 August 2000. There was a second article in the same paper headlined "Department urged to check on falling history marks" with the sub-heading "25% of Leaving Certificate students fail in ordinary level paper". What, however, the article neglected to point out was that 22.5pc in the same examination scored A grades, 14.7 being A 1s. There are few, if any, examinations in the Department of Education and Science with A grades that high.

History teachers could certainly have done without the negative and sometimes misleading and selective media coverage of the subject during the past two months. The figures also reveal, for example, that 10.6% got As at higher level, a much higher ratio than in Irish, English or Geography.

There is, however, little point in attempting to disguise the stark fact that the numbers taking leaving certificate history have been dropping steadily in recent years. Approximately 30,000 took history for leaving certificate in 1989. Over the past year, there has been an 8% drop in those taking leaving certificate history. The number has dropped from 13,636 in 1999 to 12,602 in 2,000. In ten years, those taking history for leaving certificate has dropped from 30,000 to 12,602 and that figure is likely to fall again this year.

Paradoxically, that negative trend has not been reflected in the numbers taking History at University College Cork where the numbers of undergraduates remain strong and the numbers registered for graduate work grows steadily and healthily. The quality and dedication of those students it has been my pleasure to teach in this university over the past twenty years has been quite outstanding. And this year's graduating class is one of the best I have ever taught.

It is not very difficult to kindle an interest in the subject. The basic enthusiasm is already there even before a student comes to college. This is a country with a passion for history. … Many of our students develop their commitment to the study of history through the teaching of the many dedicated history teachers who continue to labour in increasingly difficult circumstances. … University students also gain an interest in, and a strong historical sense, from their parents, grand parents and the wider society. … The mass media also plays its role in the development of a strong interest in history. This is a country where people had, and continues to have, a passion for history. Some might even say - an obsession. For example, … There are very few countries in Western Europe where nearly 400,000 per week would sit down to watch a serious TV series such as "Seven Ages" made by Sean O Mordha which was shown earlier this year. … The stacks of new history books in the shops in any major town in the country reflects the appetite of the public for the subject as does also the fact that history books are often in the best sellers list. … The numbers of local history societies around the country also demonstrates that passion for history. They are active, with large memberships, and many societies produce highly professional journals of enduring scholarly quality. But is that passion for history - once so much a characteristic of this country - on the wane? The fall off in the study of history at Secondary level is a major cause for concern.

That decline is neither inevitable nor irreversible The fate of history at secondary level is symptomatic of a trend in Irish education that is only slowly now being reversed in a determined and forthright manner during the past few years. I categorize what caused this radical decline in the study of history at secondary level - and other humanities subjects - as "the closing of the Irish mind." I am borrowing this phrase from Professor Allan Bloom. The minds of those who formulated Irish educational policy closed in the 1980s and resulted in a loss of equilibrium as governments - confronted by recession and high unemployment - felt compelled to prepare young people for a productive role in society rooted in what was called then "enterprise culture".

That was a laudable objective in itself. There was a need for the rapid acquisition of technical and IT skills. But the philosophy underpinning the approach was faulty and unbalanced. It demeaned and undervalued the importance of a classical/liberal education. It aggressively called into question the relevance of the humanities in educational formation. The humanities were pushed to the periphery of the curriculum - time-tabled against "relevant" subjects. History was consigned to the periphery of the periphery.

Students were now exposed to relevant subjects - the mass study of which would lead inevitably to fuller employment and the rapid development of the national economy. Governments instructed universities to produce more graduates in the technical/information technology areas. Time spent studying the humanities - and subjects such as history - was simply wasting the young entrepreneur's valuable time, if not a complete waste of his or her time. This one-sided educational philosophy - so much a feature of Margaret Thatcher's Britain - had its apostles in public life and its zealots inside the universities … What place had the humanities in the traditional universities when education was geared to create -predominantly if not exclusively - homo economicus? … What place was there to be in the university curriculum for homo ludens, or humanity and leisure. The disaster that was the university educational policy of Mrs Thatcher served to warn this country of going down the road of free market fundamentalism. Moreover, Irish common sense ultimately saw through the shortsightedness of such an educational strategy. It was hard to dislodge the central thesis of John Henry Newman, that "that training of the intellect, which is best for the individual himself, best enables him to discharge his duties to society".

On that basis, Newman affirmed that "if then a practical end must be assigned to a University course, I say it is that of training good members of society. Its art is the art of the social life, and its end is fitness for the world". The language may be archaic, reflecting a time when only males attended universities on these islands. But in those two quotations Newman defends the two central ideas at the core of the Western Humanist tradition: … Knowledge as an end in itself. … the education of the whole person. Newman supported the view that the training of the mind might best be achieved if the student were to be allowed to choose to study subjects of his/her choice - free of the burden of having to subject that choice to the test of the tyranny of relevance

Throughout his nine discourses and ten occasional lectures and essays on the topic of establishing a university in Ireland, he was quite clear that "a purely individualistic explanation of the duties to society would fall far short of Newman's vision". [see Jaroslav Pelikan, The Ideal of a Univesity - A reexamination] The phrase "duties of society" may be translated into today's language as the duties of citizenship.

I am not defending the idea of the university as an ivory tower cut off from the 'real world' and staffed by academics like the apocryphal Oxford professor who was stopped one day in August 1914 while walking outside his college reading the Greek text of Thucydides. Confronted by a patriotic woman, who was recruiting for the army, he was asked sternly: "And what are you doing to save Western civilization, young man? The professor replied icily: "Madam, I am Western civilization". I don't know anyone on the academic staff of UCC with such an inflated sense of self-importance. What I do know is that the climate for the study of the humanities has changed radically for the better in the past five years. Governments - and in particular the then Minister for Education and Science, Micheal Martin, who did an MA in History at UCC - has helped give the humanities a central place in national education policy. For practically the first time since the foundation of the state, due recognition has been given to the relevance of postgraduate research in the humanities. Government funding has been provided to support young scholars who will play important roles in the future development of the country. The UCC history department now has four Government of Ireland Scholars - two in medieval history and two in modern history - who are currently working on doctorates. Through open competition, the History Department has also acquired funding from the Higher Education Authority to employ five post-doctoral fellows to work on a range of scholarly projects on the theme "Culture contact - nation and state".

We are now entering a period of great vitality and creativity in the development of the humanities in this country - and I am delighted to say - in the study of history at university level. As chairperson of the history department, I am pleased to say that we have many requests annually from international scholars to spend a year teaching and researching in Cork. Professor Paul Shervish, a visiting Fulbright scholar, has joined us from Boston College for this academic year. (He was recently voted one of the top fifty most influential figures in the United States working in the area of philanthropy. One of the other people on that list was Bill Gates.) In order to develop further the subject of History at UCC it is desirable - and plans are already underway - to establish a National Historical Institute in Cork. This will provide a home for international scholars in the department. Their presence will reinforce the strong research ethos in the humanities in the college.

There is no need to speak defensively about the future of History at UCC. … The department has a distinctive academic profile and a strong reputation for research that will be reinforced by the establishment in the coming months of the National Historical Institute. … That research ethos is strongly supported by the current academic plan for UCC and the History Department is determined to respond actively to the challenge of President Wrixon for this college to become one of the top ten universities in Europe. … History at UCC will continue to build upon the strong tradition established by Professor James Hogan to contribute both to the world of scholarship and to play an active part in public life. "Public intellectuals" is the term in the United States used for those who approach their professional responsibilities in this integrated manner. … James Hogan was head of intelligence in the Irish army when he was appointed a history professor at UCC in the 1920s. … Professor John A Murphy and Professor Joe Lee have both been elected to Seanad Eireann. … Many are familiar with the department's programme of public conference on important historical topics - the next being on 20/21 October - entitled "Paths to Peace - the history of the peace process in Northern Ireland". … The study of politics, governance, and decision-making through the centuries is a central theme in the research and teaching of the department. … The Department will continue to cooperate with history teachers and with the Department of Education and Science to replace the present curriculum. Now that the falseness of the dichotomy between the humanities and the vocational/technical subjects has been exposed, History will begin to make a rapid recovery in the secondary school curriculum.

There is in this country, and there will continue to be, a passion for history. What I hope we have provided here at UCC is a scholarly environment protected from the world of advocacy, an environment where information been turned into knowledge and where minds have been formed by pursuing the subjects of their choice. Professor Jaroslav Pelikan has put this point well:

So easily, however can diagnosis turn into advocacy, and so subtly can a center of research on social change transform itself - or allow itself to be transformed - into a cell for galvanizing a society into action to accomplish such change, that the university urgently needs to find new ways of protecting the freedom of inquiry without allowing itself to become the tool of the polarities of nation, race, class, and gender that will continue to shape the ideological climate both outside and inside the academy. Pelikan, P. 160

I hope that you have found here at UCC that space for freedom of inquiry and developed the self-confidence and capability to grapple objectively with the complexities of scholarship.

As for my own discipline, I will simply say in conclusion that a sense of history is no burden to carry through life.