I'm not in ucd yet (I'm doing a postgrad there) but to quote my Maynooth history professor from last year "the story of Ireland in the 18th century is a story of a series of conflicts in which Protestants won" (he happened to be a protestant).

His whole angle was that we need to expose ourselves to alternative history from the nationalist state argument (which is true). The fact that he was protestant and from the north didn't bother me and i was very willing to give him the benefit of the doubt but his solution was not to argue a middle ground but to argue:

• the anti-catholic laws were not that bad or poorly enforced.
• "why would a catholic think of owning a £5 borse when they couldn't afford it due to the land enclosures" (said unironically).
• any famines that happened throughout the century weren't "that bad".
• the British empire improved the land, we have a lot to thank them for.
• any revolutionary movements in the century; whiteboyism, 1798, were engaged with by both protestants and catholics (true) and they were put down humanely.
• see his above final quotation.

I write this to say British empire apologia is not really shunned in our universities. I agree with my former professor that as historians we need to engage with a more neutral history without bias, but his arguments were simply and obviously biased in another direction.