National University of Ireland, Institute of Public Administration

Position with a member of the Irish parliament or with a nongovernmental organization affiliated with the EU government. The internship is an officially authorized program working within the Irish Houses of Parliament: the Dail and the Senate. It is governed by the House Committee on Procedures and Privileges. Interns have the status of adjunct staff. Work in parliament is subject to conditions laid down by the Committee on Procedures and Privileges covering such matters as access to facilities, dress code, dealings with press and televised media etc. Each intern is part of a small staff: Irish parliamentarians commonly have a staff complement of just one or two. Interns are expected to work between two and three days per week. The nature of the work varies greatly but can be summarized as either administration or research. Typically a student will undertake some combination of these research and administration tasks. Throughout the internship, students are required to give an account of progress to the program director.

This course examines several aspects of Irish culture and how they impact Ireland today; focusing on Irish Society, Irish Politics, Irish Economy, and Ireland and the European Union. The course supports students in their placement in Dail Eireann or Seanad Eireann. Students are expected to interact at a high level while participating in their placement and have a strong knowledge of contemporary issues in Ireland. The politics component introduce participants to the main features of the Irish Political System. Students learn about the legislative, the executive, and the judiciary as well as the electoral and party systems. The society component describes the social, economic, and cultural features of modern Irish society. It highlights the recent changes in Irish society, and provides a grounding in the issues and attitudes of modern Ireland. It looks at the issue of religion, in particular the declining role and influence of the Catholic Church and the shift towards more socially liberal attitudes as reflected in the recent yes vote in the same-sex referendum. It describes the change in demographics within Irish society in the past twenty years, the growing presence of non-nationals within Irish society, and the effect this has had on the country. It also looks at the Irish Travelling community ("Irish Travelers"), the tensions at play between the settled community and Irish Travelers, as well as the issue of racism within Irish society. The culture of everyday life, and the topic of Northern Ireland and the 30 year conflict known as "The Troubles" are also discussed.

This course is a chronological survey, examining writers and key representations of Ireland within their contemporary contexts and assessing the chief socio-political motivations and implications underpinning these national portraits. It focuses on two concepts: Irish literature is an active interpreter and interrogator of socio-political realities and, in turn, an active mobilizer of cultural ideals. Second, writers appropriate, modify, or reject previous literary conventions and images to accommodate their own engagement with social change. While the course focuses on themes relevant to the socio-political angle, such as nationalism, cultural identity, history, place, tradition and modernity, representations of women, and “eloquence and violence,” students are reminded that it is the writers' gifts of imagination and insight which make the issues memorable in the first instance.