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OpenLearn Ireland
A new layer: Culture, the Irish language and identity in 2015
We revisit the Glencolmcille folk village in 2015 to see whether the dilemma of development and the local language and culture has been resolved.
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OpenLearn Ireland
The dilemma of tourism and the Irish language, 1983
Father James McDyer discusses the dilemma of the Glencolmcille holiday village between development, language and culture and the threat of depopulation. Tourism is important for economic development but what impact does it have on local culture and the Irish language?
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OpenLearn Ireland
Culture and the manufacturing industry, 1983
In 1983, the fight to retain a unique Irish speaking culture meant that jobs had to be created locally in manufacturing and tourism so that Irish speakers no longer had to emigrate, but industrialisation also threatened the survival of the Irish language.
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OpenLearn Ireland
The realities of rural life in the 1950s-1980s
The period of the 1950s to 1980s was the beginning of modernisation in community life and farming and the development of manufacturing industry in the West of Ireland.
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OpenLearn Ireland
The rural dimension – after rundale
How did the rural areas of Western Ireland change after the rundale system was replaced?
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OpenLearn Ireland
Culture and regional distinctiveness
Culture and how language identifies that culture are key to understanding what makes a region unique.
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OpenLearn Ireland
A changing uniqueness – The changing ‘place’ of the West
The population of Western Ireland declined dramatically between 1891 and 1961. How do you think this affected Ireland as a whole?
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History & The Arts
What was the Easter Rising?
How close did the Easter Rising come to achieving the aims of its leaders?
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OpenLearn Ireland
Synthesis as a way of understanding the changing uniqueness of rural Ireland
What is synthesis? Discover how this way of thinking helps us to understand more about the way in which places retain their uniqueness within wider systems of interdependence.
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Society, Politics & Law
Derry Air: the new local history
After anthropologist and Emeritus Professor of the OU, Ruth Finnegan, OBE, FBA took a trip to her birthplace she reflected afresh about the sources scholars use and the importance of memory, imagination and sounds, the feeling of a place.
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OpenLearn Ireland
Bird ringing in Bog Meadows
Bird ringing is a world-wide method of finding out where birds migrate and how population levels change. This video shows how it works in Bog Meadows, a city nature reserve a few metres from the M1 motorway in Northern Ireland.
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OpenLearn Ireland
Beaghmore Stone Circle
Discover the legacy of the first farmers in the Beaghmore Stone Circle landscape of Neolithic, Norman and Plantation farmers throughout Northern Ireland.