Making Northern Ireland
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Making Northern Ireland is an external resource created by Nerve Centre and NI Screen Ulster-Scots Broadcast Fund.
The website has been designed as an educational resource across a broad range of levels. Some of the content is aimed particularly at Key Stage 3 and 4 learners. However, the resource can also be used by those working at more advanced levels as well as those with a general interest in Ulster-Scots history and culture.
About Making Northern Ireland
The purpose of Making Northern Ireland is to show how references to Ulster-Scots history and culture and the links between Ulster and Scotland form an essential part of the Home Rule debate in the years leading up to the creation of Northern Ireland in 1921.
The resource is made up of three interconnected modules:
- Module 1 Why did Ulster feel so "Scotch"? shows how people visiting Ulster during the 19th and early 20th centuries are struck by how different it is from the rest of Ireland.
- Module 2 Putting the Ulster Scot centre stage explains the way the Ulster Scots have seen themselves and their community over the centuries.
- Module 3 Home Rule - An Ulster-Scots perspective focuses on 1886 and the first Home Rule Bill, up to 1925 when the border of Northern Ireland was finally confirmed.
Richard Hanna, Chair of the Ulster-Scots Broadcast Fund:
Making Northern Ireland is an engaging multimedia teaching and learning resource that will help learners understand the Ulster-Scots identity in the context of the establishment of Northern Ireland. It is part of a developing range of content supported by the Ulster-Scots Broadcast Fund aimed specifically at encouraging the development of high quality digital assets that support teaching and learning about Ulster-Scots culture and heritage in the context of lifelong learning.
Professor Wesley Hutchinson explains the significance of this resource to the telling the story of the foundation of Northern Ireland:
The site explores Ulster-Scots history and culture from the Plantation period on to show how unionist politicians systematically called on Ulster’s particularly strong Scottish connections as a central pillar of their campaign of resistance to Home Rule that was to lead to the creation of Northern Ireland.