How can I show that the polynomial $p = x^5 - x^3 - 2x^2 - 2x - 1$ is irreducible over $\Bbb Q$?
.A little bit of scouting for nice irreducibility criteria throws up some very nice results:
Here is a lovely lemma by (Prof.) Ram Murty:
Let $f(x) = a_mx^m + ... + a_1x + a_0$ be a polynomial of degree $m$ in $\mathbb Z[x]$. Let $H = \displaystyle\max_{0 \leq i \leq m-1} \left|\frac{a_i}{a_m}\right|$. If $f(n)$ is prime for some $n \geq H+2$, then $f(x)$ is irreducible in $\mathbb Z[x]$.
I'll give the link : http://cms.dm.uba.ar/academico/materias/2docuat2011/teoria_de_numeros/Irreducible.pdf
In our case, $a_m = 1$, and the maximum of all the quantities in question is $2$. Hence, if $f(n)$ is prime for some $n \geq 4$, then we are done.
You can check that for $n=4$, the number $f(4) =919$, which is prime!
Hence, it follows that the polynomial is irreducible.
ASIDE : There is also a "shifted" base (base shifts from $0...n-1$ to $|b| < \frac n2$) version of Cohn's criteria, which will tell you that if $f(10)$ is prime, then the given polynomial is irreducible. This matches that description, since all coefficients are between $-5$ and $5$. Very interestingly, $f(10) = 98779$ is also prime! (Hence, another proof by another wonderful result).
By Gauss' Lemma we have that the polynomial is irreducible over $\mathbb{Q}$ if and only if it's irreducible over $\mathbb{Z}$. Now the easiest way would be to prove that polynomial is irreducible over $\mathbb{Z}_2$, which would be enough.
Assume it's reducible. As the polynomial has no roots over $\mathbb{Z}_2$, then the only possibility is if it's a product of polynomials of degree $2$ and $3$. So assume that:
$$x^5 + x^3 + 1 = (x^3 + ax^2 + bx + c)(x^2 + dx + e) \quad \quad \text{over } \quad\mathbb{Z}_2$$
Then multiply everything out and compare the factors. As $a,b,c,d,e \in \mathbb{Z}_2$, you only have two options. Eventually you will get that $c=e=1$ and $a=d=b$. But this would imply that $c+bd + ea = a^2 + a + 1 = 1$ in $\mathbb{Z}_2$. But this is impossible, as it's the coefficient in front of $x^2$ and it should be $0$.
Hence the polynomial is irreducible over $\mathbb{Z}_2$ and eventually $\mathbb{Z}$ and $\mathbb{Q}$
Your proof is almost complete: it is indeed sufficient to prove that $p(x)\in \mathbb F_2[x]$ (the reduction mod $2$ of your polynomial) is irreducible.
The polynomial $p(x)$ has no factor of degree $1$ since it has no zero in $\mathbb F_2$, so there remains only to prove that $p(x)$ has no factor which is an irreducible polynomial $g(x)\in \mathbb F_2[x]$ of degree $2$.
But the only such irreducible polynomial is $g(x)=x^2+x+1$ and long division proves that it does not divide $p(x)$. All is proved.