14 minute read
Tony McCarthy
KILBRITTAIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Advertisement
By Tony McCarthy While words of learned length and thundering sound Amazed the gazing rustics rang’d around; And still they gaz’d and still the wonder grew That one small head could carry all he knew.1
INTRODUCTION
Education today forms a very important part of all aspects of our lives. Education loans for our children’s second and third level budgets. This is a relatively recent phenomenon as it is only in the last accessible to many Irish families.
In our times, the main driver for the widespread participation in secondary school education was the announcement in 1967 by the then Minister for Education Mr Donagh O’Malley, of the introduction of free second level education in Ireland. The move caused consternation in some circles as O’Malley had not briefed his cabinet colleagues or sought sanction from the Department of Finance. However, it was to radically alter Irish education standards forever. At the time of the announcement 17,000 students left full time education on leaving education. At sixteen years only 36% were still at school. Within ten years, by 1977, participation in second level education had doubled. Today Ireland has one of the highest rates of second level education completion within the EU with 90% of students completing the Leaving Cert.2
In this article I am going to look at education in Ireland in the 19th
164
SCHOOLS IN KILBRITTAIN 1826 as it related to schools in Kilbrittain, Templetrine and Kilmaloda. This report sheds a light in an era of Irish history that has been mostly before this time.
EDUCATION IN EARLIER TIMES.
Despite it not always being widely available to the population in general, education has been important to the Irish through the ages. There is a contemporary account from 1561 that gives us an insight into education in Gaelic Ireland. This report tells us that there were four very important occupations in Gaelic Ireland. They were what we now refer to as the professional learned classes. They were the Judge (Brehon), 3 These four occupations were very highly regarded in Gaelic society and they were usually hereditary occupations with some families such as the Dalys being bardic families providing bards to the O’Sullivan Beares, Mc Carthy Reaghs and O’Donovans.4 The Cullnanes were physicians to the Mc Carthys. The Egans were hereditary judges and lawyers in Gaelic Ireland. Being in the learned classes brought privileges to these families. There is a record from 1473 of James Lord Courcey of Kinsale granting land to his physician, Rory Mac Betha along ‘with medical
liberty throughout my lordship’. 5
Fig1. e ruins of the O’Daly bardic school which dates from the 16th century. (Photo taken by author in 2015)
165
KILBRITTAIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Bards learned their trade in ‘bardic schools’. The bardic schools had existed from pre Christian times and continued into the 17th century. There was a very famous bardic school (the ruins of which still exist today) in Muintear Bhaire (Sheeps Head) run and owned by the their patrons. One of the more unusual privileges enjoyed by Fionn O’Daly chief poet to the Mc Carthys of Desmond was that he had the right to the wedding garments of every girl married in Desmond or Duhallow. These were taken on the day of the wedding and it caused some consternation in 1576 when a Margaret Scally took exception when her garments were removed by force by a Dermond O’Daly on behalf of the chief poet.6 Bardic schools ceased when their patrons lost their land, wealth and power in the aftermath of the battle of Kinsale, the rebellion of 1641 and the Cromwellian conquest of the 1650’s.
HEDGE SCHOOLS:
P.J. Dowling tells us that Hedge Schools probably date to Cromwellian times as they are mentioned in some Cromwellian records.7 It is very likely that there is a direct connection between the the
Cromwell, and the assurance of power to the Cromwellian landlords after 1691 brought these hereditary educators to be absolutely one with the whole mass of the Irish people.
Such teachers were the inheritors of the poetry and of the law of Gaelic Ireland…’ 8
PENAL LAWS AND EDUCATION
A major blow to Gaelic culture and education was the introduction of the discriminatory Penal Laws. Rather than being introduced all at once, these laws were introduced incrementally. The earliest of them were introduced in the reign of King James I. Their aim was to coerce Catholics and other dissenters (including Presbyterians) to conform to the Established Church of England. They gradually eroded the liberties of Catholics and other dissenters over the next two centuries. One of the principle tools used to achieve this was to try to deprive Catholics of education by various legislative
166
SCHOOLS IN KILBRITTAIN 9 eighteenth century saw the most oppressive of these acts. However hedge schools continued to operate successfully ‘underground’ and some contemporary accounts of the time claimed that they offered a of the time.10 The Catholic Church remained interested in education and there is an account of a diocesan visit to Cashel from the 1750’s that shows there were at least seventy three schoolmasters teaching catechism. 11
Fig.2: A depiction of a hedge school in 18th century Ireland.
Throughout the era of the penal laws there were many different English schools in Ireland which depended on either private or public funding. The earliest of these schools went back much earlier to the time of Henry VIII when free parish schools were set up in Ireland with the objective of teaching the Irish the word of God through English. During the reign of Elizabeth I diocesan schools were established in Ireland where only Englishmen could teach. Later, different societies and associations set up schools using private funding. These included Charter Schools, Free Schools of Royal Foundation, Association Incorporated for the Discountenancing Vice, London Hibernian Society, Kildare Place Society and others. The aspiration of many of these schools was the proselytization and Anglicisation of Catholic children and they were treated with suspicion by the majority of Catholics.
Hedge Schools increased in great numbers in the latter half of the 18th century. This was because of an exploding population and a
167
KILBRITTAIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY relaxation of the Penal Laws. It is at this time that we see the Catholic Church begin to formally establish an exclusive Catholic system of education which has remained with us up to this day. This took the form of training priests in new seminaries such as Carlow, Kilkenny, Killarney and Maynooth. A number of Catholic religious orders began to provide the poor with a Catholic education. These included the Presentation nuns who had been established by Nano Nagle, who had herself been a hedge school student. The Christian Brothers of 12
THE IRISH EDUCATION INQUIRY 1826
By the early nineteenth century there was much debate about education, and the spotlight turned on effectiveness of the education concluded that the Parish and Diocesan schools were a failure and which is the subject of this article was published in 1826. It is based on statistics gathered from the Catholic and Protestant clergy on the state of education in their respective parishes throughout Ireland over a three month period in 1824. The returns from both churches, two different sources, were very similar and this is testament to the accuracy of this comprehensive report. Therefore I think the report is
I have no doubt that many of the Catholic schools featured in the report were the remnants of hedge schools. The report gives us some very interesting information on the teachers naming 12,530 of them and tells us in which school they taught in every parish in the country. It also gives the religion of each teacher. The total number of teachers in the report was 12,530. There were approximately 565,000 children being taught by these teachers. This gives us a national pupil teacher ratio of 45:1. The pupil teacher ratio for the local schools which are subject of this article was 52:1.
1. Kilbrittain – Glandove (Glanduff): James Lee was the teacher. He was a Protestant and it is described as a free school. He earned Discountenancing Vice and Promoting the Knowledge and Practice
168
Established Church Protestant Disenters Roman Catholics Religion not stated
SCHOOLS IN KILBRITTAIN
Ulster 1,093 938 1,482 27
Leinster 1,128 65 2,612 25
Munster 597 45 2,913 17
Connaught 280 10 1,293 3
Totals: 3,098 1,058 8,300 74
Fig.3: Table shows breakdown of religious beliefs of teachers in Ireland in 1824.
of the Christian Religion. The school house is described as being built of stone and lime and was slated. It was valued at £80. A note in the report states that the incumbent rented the house. Scriptures were read in the school. There were 23 children in the school – 13 boys and 10 girls. All children were Protestant. 2. Thonroe: Denis Hegarty (Catholic) was the teacher. He was paid about £13 per year. This was a Pay School with no societies or associations supporting it. It is described as an old house made of stone and mud. It was valued at £12. There were 40 children attending the school. 39 of them were Catholics and 1 was a Protestant. When thereturns were made for the report there were 24 boys and 16 girls attending the school.13 3. Kilbrittain – Glandove (Glanduff): Thomas Flynn (Protestant) was the teacher. He was payed £3 or £4 per year. It was described as a ‘Pay School’ with no patronage from any associations or societies. The school is described as ‘poor accommodation in a slated house’. All the children were Catholic. There were 8 boys and 4 girls attending the school at that time. The teacher was John Hurly (Catholic). He was payed £8 a year. It was described as a Pay School. There is a note in the report that says ‘Francis and James Kearney, esqrs. built the house and give the master £1 per ann.’ The school was described
169
KILBRITTAIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY as a good slated house valued at £20. According to the Protestant returns for the report there were up to 90 children attending this school. The Catholic returns gave 86 students consisting of 66 boys and 20 girls attending the school. 5. Shanakiel Old Wood: Denis Lynch (Catholic) was the teacher. It was a Pay School with no support from any societies or associations. Denis was paid £5 to £7 per year. The school was described as bad accommodation in a thatched cabin with a value of £10 or £12. All the students were Catholic. There were 28 boys and 10 girls in attendance. 6. Glen Daw: The teacher in this school was John Riordan, who was a Catholic. It was a Pay School with no support from any societies or associations. John was paid £8 to £10 per year. The school was in a hired room. According to Protestant returns there were 50 students in the school but the Catholic returns state that there were 60 pupils. They consisted of 33 boys and 27 girls. All pupils were Catholics. 7. Gareendroig (Garryandruig): The teacher was Marmaduke Grady (Catholic). It was a Pay School and the teacher received between £7 and £8 per year. Like many of the other schools there was no support from societies or associations. The report notes that the school had been built by neighbouring farmers. It was described as being a thatched cabin worth £5. There were 70 pupils in the school all Catholic. 52 of them were boys and 18 of them were girls.
THE RETURNS FOR TEMPLETRINE IN THE REPORT:
8. Kilmore: There was a boys school and a girls school here in the one building. This was the parish school for Templetrine parish. The boys’ teacher was Adam Heagarty (Protestant). He was paid £18 per year and also had one acre of land as a condition of employment. At the time of the survey there were 16 boys in the school – 14 Protestants and 2 Catholics. The boys’ school is described as ‘a free and Pay School’. The girls’ teacher was Ann Wright (Protestant). She was paid £24 16s. 8d. per year. There were 7 Protestant and 6 Catholic girls attending the school. The girls’ school was a free school. The report described the school as ‘a good slated house, consisting of boys and girls school rooms costing £270. Defrayed by grants from Lord Lieut’s fund, the Kild. Str. Soc. and the Association for Discountenancing Vice’. It also notes ‘the parish school – The
170
SCHOOLS IN KILBRITTAIN Association for Discountenancing Vice and the Kildare Str. Society. Incumbent gave an acre of ground and contributed to the building supported by ‘the Ladies Hib. Female School Society and the Kildare Str. Society’. Scriptures were read in both schools. 9. Bogstown: The teacher was Denis Mc Carthy (Catholic). He was paid £15 per year. It was a Pay School. The school is described as ‘a wretched thatched house worth £7’. According to the Protestant returns in the report there were 40 pupils in the school. However, the Catholic returns give 50 pupils consisting of 40 boys and 10 girls. All pupils were Catholic.
THE RETURNS FOR KILMALODA IN THE REPORT:
10. Ballinscarthy – Madame: Thomas Powell (Protestant) was the teacher. He was paid a total of £20 per year. This was the parish school. It was a free school. The report tells us that two of the patrons to the school were Thomas Walker, esq. and Rev. Thomas Walker paid £10 a year to the master. The school was described as a slated house rented by the master. It was valued between £50 and £60. There were 33 pupils in the school of which 8 were Catholics. Of the 33 pupils 20 were boys and 13 were girls. Scriptures were read in this school. 11. Ahalusky (Ahalisky): Daniel Leary (Catholic) was the teacher. It was a pay school. The master earned about £20 a year. The school was described as ‘a small room in a dwelling house’. There were 90 pupils in the school all of whom were Catholic. There were 60 boys and 30 girls in the school. 12. Clogagh: Frances Hunt (Catholic) was the teacher. It was a pay school and the teacher got about £14 per year. It was a pay school. The school is described as a thatched cabin worth between £8 and £10. There were 90 pupils in the school, 3 of whom were Protestants and 87 Catholics. 70 of the pupils were boys and 20 were girls.
Conclusion:
The data in the report in relation to Kilbrittain, Templetrine and free parish schools were expensive to maintain. An example was the free parish school in Templetrine which cost £270 to build,
171
KILBRITTAIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY while the paying Catholic school in the same area was a ‘wretched cottage’ valued at £7. The wages in the parish schools were also much higher than the pay schools despite much larger numbers of pupils attending the pay schools. The report tells us that the pupil local teachers having seven extra pupils each to teach. The main consequence of this report was that the government took a more central role in the funding and support of primary education in Ireland and in 1831 the primary national school system was set up under the National Board of Education. This brought regulation, inspection and an improvement in standards of primary education and was the foundation of our current primary education system. Many of the teachers named in the report were hedge school teachers, even torch of enlightenment through one of the darkest periods of Irish education history and passed it on to future generations. I think we all owe these local heroes a depth of gratitude, and they should not be forgotten.
Notes
1. ‘The Village Schoolmaster’ from ‘The Deserted Village 2. Irish Times, 14 Feb. 2017. 3. P.J Dowling, The Hedge Schools of Ireland, (1935, rept. 1968, Mercier Press) p.8. 4. James Coombes, Timoleague and Barryroe, (1969). At p.19 Fr. Coombes makes reference to Philib Bocht O’Dalaigh being buried in Timoleague Abbey in 1565. This was also the burial place of high ranking Mc Carthy Reaghs. 5. K.W. Nicholls, Gaelic and Gaelicized Ireland in the Middle Ages, (Dublin, 2003), p. 93. 6. Diarmuid Ó Murchadha, Family Names of County Cork, (Cork, 2000), p.116. 7. Dowling, Hedge Schools, p. 35. 8. T. Corcoran, ‘Education in the Ireland of 1825’, Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review, Vol. 14,
No. 53 (Mar., 1925) p. 39. 9. Antonia McManus, The Irish Hedge School and Its Books, 1695-1831, (Dublin, 2011), p. 15. Note: This act was described as ‘an Act to restrain foreign education’ and its aims were to limit contact between Irish Catholics and their European allies in the aftermath of the
Jacobite wars. 10. Dowling, Hedge Schools 11. Antonia McManus, The Irish Hedge School and Its Books, 1695-1831, (Dublin, 2011), p. 23. 12. Gearóid Ó Tuathaigh, Ireland before the Famine 1798-1848 13. The author doesn’t know the location of this school. From the description given on the report it would appear to have been a hedge school.
