Ireland, Dublin

Plan

1. warm-up

2. reading: understanding without a dictionary

3. listening: From Irish history.

4. writing: answering questions.

5. making false statements true

6.making up dialogues

7. H.T.

Warm –up: who can think of a tune to the Irish song? Here is its refrain.

My young love said to me my mother won't mind
And my father won't slight you for your lack of kind
And she laid her hand on me and this she did say
It will not be long now 'til our wedding Day

Task 1 Read some information from the history and answer the questions:

What other countries greatly depend on such food as potatoes?

Could anything like this happen to a country nowadays? Why or

why not?

The Great Hunger, known more commonly outside of Ireland as the Irish Potato Famine, is the name given to a famine in Ireland between 1845 and 1851. The Famine was caused by a fungus (плесень) called " the Blight" – the potato fungus killed the entire potato harvest. Potatoes are and were one of the main sources of food for people in Ireland, so when the crop was destroyed the Irish lost their main food. Somewhere around 800, 000 to 900, 000 people died during this time. Some two million people left the country due to hunger and immigrated to England, Scotland, Europe and the United States.

Task 2 Listen to the text and in written form answer some questions.

A Green Island

Ireland is often called the Emerald Isle because of its beautiful green fields. In Ireland it is not very cold in winter. As it is the most western land of Europe, it is the first to meet the warm waters of the Gulf Stream. And the Irish people say that Ireland must be the cleanest place in the world because rain washes it everyday.

Hundreds of years ago the main occupation of the people in Ireland was cattle rearing. Irishmen built their homes in the countryside, and there were no towns or villages. Even now the only really large cities are Dublin and Belfast. There are few other big towns in Ireland. Only twenty two have population over than thousand men. A small town with a population under five thousand is a rule.

The history of Ireland can not be called peaceful. The Irish people very often had to fight for their land.

Ireland was under British rule for hundreds of years. It was only in 1921 that the Irish Free State was set up as a British Dominion, with Dublin as its capital.

In 1949 Ireland became a republic. Northern Ireland went on being a part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain. This part is called Ulster, its capital is Belfast.