The English Reading List for students in Northern Ireland

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00:00Hello, my name is Amber Ellott, and I'm a journalist specialising in education.

00:05Because education is a devolved issue, what Northern Irish people study in school can

00:09look a little different to their peers from across the rest of the UK.

00:13This goes on all the way up to A-level qualifications, including in key subjects like English.

00:19This means that students who opt to keep studying English literature have some unique poems,

00:24plays and novels that can end up on the required reading list.

00:28Here are a few of the more unique texts Northern Irish students may end up studying.

00:33The first is Translations, by Irish playwright Brian Friel.

00:38Translations is a play about language and the ability to communicate itself.

00:43It tells the story of two brothers, one teaching in an Irish hedge school in County Donegal,

00:48and the other working as a translator for the British Army as they work to create a

00:52map of the area, often renaming places and challenging the sense of identity and history

00:57tied to them as they go.

01:00A-level candidates will also study quite a bit of poetry, including potentially works

01:05by Irish poet Seamus Heaney, winner of the 1995 Nobel Prize for Literature.

01:11He was perhaps best known for his poetry on the natural world and people's connections

01:16to the landscape, some of which, like Bogland and The Harvest Bow, are among the pieces

01:22students will study.

01:24Finally, another poet who appears on the list is County Down-born Jean Bleakney.

01:29Many of her poems are about plants and botany, or flowers and gardens, and the heavy symbolism

01:34associated with them.

01:36Pupils who study her work will be able to sample much of this rich botanical imagery

01:40for themselves, such as reading about the star-like flowers standing in for an obscured

01:45city sky in nightscapes.