Making history a thing of the past

 First Word Column, Inspire, Autumn 2018

As I write this, we are at the back end of Heritage Week, an national event which has grown in popularity in recent years, backed by the Heritage Council and individual local authorities across the county.
There were over 100 events across county Meath, and over the past few years there have been many very interesting exhibitions, talks, displays and re-enactments of all sorts as our 'Decade of Commemorations' has been playing out.
These commemorations have been ongoing for many years now, marking the anniversary of such events like the Dublin Lockout of 1913, the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the Easter Rising in 1916, the centenary of allowing women to vote 100 years ago, and also the impending 100th anniversary of the conclusion of World War I. There are more sensitive events coming up, marking the centenaries of such troubled times as the War of Independence and Civil War.
This Decade of Commemorations has led to a greater awareness of our past as people began digging into their family and parish history and heritage, and discovering stories that they never knew – or maybe even skeletons in the cupboards!
So it was with surprise, given all the focus there has been on our history in recent times, that it came to my attention last week that history had been dropped as a core subject in the Junior Certificate, meaning that students no longer were required to do it as an exam subject.
There are arguments for and against making subjects compulsory – haven't we been grumbling for years how having Irish drilled into us turned us so against our native language. But maybe it was the methods of teaching it that was the problem!
It is quite a while since yours truly did the Junior Certificate. In fact, I never did it. We were the last class to do an Intermediate Certificate, I seem to recall. But we did history as a mandatory subject, and looking back on it, it was a very important one. 
After all, it was educating us on national and international events that had shaped the world that we now lived in. I was sorry that I didn't carry on and do it as a Leaving Certificate subject – it clashed with some other choice that won out. We were blessed at the time to have a teacher who had a passion for history, and who herself went on to have work published. You might say that all teachers should have a passion for the subject they are teaching, but I'm sure we've all come across teachers who haven't been able to, or may not have been let, share their love of education.
It is important that young children going to secondary school are educated about what went on the past, both at home and abroad. I  have slowly come to realise that events that I have so far witnessed in my lifetime, such as the downfall of the Berlin Wall, the break-up of the USSR, the dreadful and harrowing years of troubles in Northern Ireland, (even Meath winning an All-Ireland!), the 1979 Papal Visit which I barely recall, are all events which are now consigned to history books. 
But I also realise, on chatting to many young people, that they are ignorant of them, even in this modern world where so much information is at the touch of a search engine.
I can't see this situation improving if young boys and girls attending our secondary schools are not being given some grounding in where we came from.