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MHY7010 History Dissertation


Queen's College Library

MA Modern and Irish History

Semester 2 (Jan - June)

Co-ordinator: Dr Fearghal McGarry

The MA History Dissertation is the core element of MA Irish History and MA Modern History. It is a double-weighted module counting for 1/3 of the final marks of the programme.

Your dissertation should be a piece of independent and original research, with a maximum wordlength of 20,000 words (including footnotes but excluding bibliography and appendices). For full-time students it is due by mid-September; for part-time students by 1 May of your third year.

We provide training for the dissertation through the Research Methods course in semester one, and several workshops on dissertation technique in semester two. Students are encouraged to present summary reports on their dissertation research at an MA mini-conference in June. You should discuss your dissertation topic with your MA pathway convenor no later than January, and meet with a nominated research supervisor on 4-6 occasions over semester two and the summer months. Your supervisor should read and give you feedback on one draft of your dissertation chapters. The completion of the dissertation and adherence to the academic conventions used by the School are your responsibility.

If after examination your dissertation is deemed to have attained a high standard, you will be invited to submit a corrected version to the University Library for public reference.

Recent MA History dissertations include:

  • Merlyn Rees, the UWC Strike and constitutional policy 1974-6
  • Labor Day goes South
  • American Catholic intellectual thought in the 19th Century
  • Wars, famines and pestilences: Interpretation of prophecy in Ireland in 1848
  • The Irish Parliamentary Party in Counties Donegal, Down and Londonderry, 1914-18
  • Resisting Zion: The Palestinian Arab leadership and the road to war
  • An enigmatic relationship: Punch  and the Soviet Union, 1939-47
  • An argument in proof of human depravity: the human story of the Echo Africans
  • IRA General Headquarters and central control, 1919-21
  • Introducing Sodomy into Ulster
  • Robert Hart and Chinese foreign affairs 1868-76
  • American theories of racial destiny 1865-1905
  • Four Ascendancy women from Co. Monaghan, 1850-1900
  • The backgrounds and queenships of Catherine of Braganza, Mary of Modena and Mary II
  • ‘The Conservative Party and Egypt in the 20th century’
  • ‘Lord Ellenborough and the annexation of Sind, 1843’
  • ‘Rev Francis Alison's responses to educational, religious and political climate of the Middle Colonies’
  • ‘Irish Protestant chaplains in WWI’
  • ‘The leadership of Carson and Craig’
  • ‘The role of singing in the 1859 Ulster revival’
  • ‘'Socialism of a mild type': political thought and action of Rev. J. Bruce Wallace, 1884-91’
  • ‘Irish nationalist responses to the Polish January Insurrection of 1863’
  • ‘The political ideas and practical politics of Sir Richard Cox, second baronet’