Ireland

Isolation has given the Irish National History Competition a newfound lease of life: In 2020, the Irish National History Competition has cast its net much farther afield - this year appealing for entries from more than 700 Irish secondary schools. Directly aligned with Europe’s EUSTORY Network, this year the Irish competition is poised to go viral.

“We’ve experienced continued growth in this competition since fairly humble beginnings only a few years ago. It is a ‘national’ history competition, and it only made sense to really push it across the country”, said competition director Paul Flynn from the National University of Ireland Galway (NUIG). “While important, it’s not just about engaging with more history students either. There’s a wealth of expertise and experience among Ireland’s history teachers and they’re as crucial to this process, too.”

Traditionally, the competition organisers would host entrants and nominated finalists on campus (NUIG) for a finals night awards ceremony. Covid-19 cut that option altogether and the competition organisers improvised: The judging panel appraised 2020 entries as per normal but conducted all discussions over the internet. The postponed July Awards Ceremony also played out online.

Despite many difficulties, the Irish competition organisers experienced that the Covid challenges were not insurmountable: students were able to research and submit under restrictions, as much of history including archived material is already digitised and therefore accessible at home, at school or on the move, and luckily, the submission of entries to the Irish competition was an online process already in past rounds.

Now in its fourth year, the Irish National History Competition (INHC) will encourage senior cycle history students to explore greater depth-in-research when undertaking their classroom-based assessment: the Research Study Reports (RSR). On project completion, students may submit the Extended Essay element of their RSRs to INHC judges through the INHC website.