JC History study guide
JC History · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
The Junior Certificate History examination is the lower-secondary history qualification taken in Irish post-primary schools, typically at the end of a three-year junior cycle. It is designed for students who have studied history as a timetabled subject and who are assessed on what they can do with evidence as much as on what they can recall. The JC History study guide has 10 sections and about 3,115 words.
01The Historian and the Sources
This domain asks you to explain what history is, to classify evidence, and to judge how far a source can be trusted. Questions usually present two or three short sources and ask about their strengths and weaknesses, or ask you to name a type of source and say what a historian learns from it.
348 words, about 2 min02The Work of the Historian and Archaeologist
This domain tests how evidence is found and processed: the historian in the archive and the archaeologist in the field, and the limits of each method. The historian's method Begin with a question, not a topic.
324 words, about 2 min03Ireland: The Ancient Past and Early Christian Ireland
Questions ask you to place Ireland's first settlers, farmers and metalworkers in sequence, and to describe what changed with the coming of Christianity. The sequence Mesolithic (c.
322 words, about 2 min04Ireland: The Age of Exploration and Plantation
This domain links European overseas expansion to the Tudor and Stuart conquest of Ireland: new wealth, new crops, and the transfer of land from Irish to English and Scottish owners. Exploration context Portuguese and Spanish voyages, above all Columbus in 1492, opened Atlantic trade and carried American crops to Europe - the potato, maize and tobacco - which later reshaped the Irish diet and economy.
320 words, about 2 min05Ireland: The 1798 Rebellion and the Act of Union
Examiners want causes, key events and consequences - and above all the link between the rising and the abolition of the Irish parliament. Causes The Society of United Irishmen (Belfast 1791, Dublin 1792) was founded by radical Presbyterians and Catholics influenced by the American and French revolutions - Wolfe Tone, Lord Edward FitzGerald, Henry Joy McCracken.
341 words, about 2 min06Ireland: The Great Famine and Emigration
The exam asks for causes, the course of the crisis, the government response, and the human cost measured in deaths and emigration. Causes Potato blight (Phytophthora infestans) reached Ireland in 1845 and returned in 1846, 1848 and 1849.
305 words, about 2 min07Ireland: The Struggle for Independence, 1900–1923
This is the most heavily examined sequence in the course: Home Rule, the Rising, the War of Independence, the Treaty and the Civil War. Know the order and the reasons.
306 words, about 2 min08Europe and the Wider World: The Renaissance and Reformation
Questions ask what changed in art, learning and religion between about 1400 and 1600, and why those changes spread. Renaissance A 'rebirth' of classical learning that began in the Italian city-states (Florence, Venice, Rome) and was funded by patrons such as the Medici.
294 words, about 1 min09Europe and the Wider World: Revolutions and Nationalism
Expect questions comparing revolutions, explaining why nationalism unified some states and fractured others, and judging how far 1789 or 1848 really changed anything. Revolutions American (1776): taxation without representation, colonial assemblies, a written constitution.
282 words, about 1 min10Europe and the Wider World: The Twentieth Century
The exam expects a clear grasp of causes and consequences across two world wars, the Cold War and European integration, argued with evidence rather than slogans. Core content WWI: alliance blocs, the Balkan crisis, trench warfare, total war; the 1919 settlement and the League of Nations.
273 words, about 1 min