Sir, - Might I be permitted a comment on Dermot Lucey's remarks (The End of History, June 8th) about the alleged influence of the universities on Leaving Cert history? I have taught history in this university for the past 25 years; am the author of the standard third level textbook on Tudor Ireland; and am also the only academic historian regularly teaching Tudor Ireland as Gaeilge. During my time in Galway, I have never been consulted by the Department of Education and Science about any aspect of Leaving Cert history. How the department is advised about syllabus revision remains a mystery to me and also, as I understand, to many of my colleagues.
Furthermore, it is a matter of indifference to the Galway history department whether undergraduates have taken any aspect of History for Leaving Cert. I personally teach medieval and early modern Irish, British and European history in both English and Irish as university needs and my own research interests dictate. Any suggestion that the periodisation of Leaving Cert history reflects a university agenda is false. - Yours, etc.,
Steven Ellis, MA, PhD, NUI, Galway.