This book examines the radical reform that occurred during the final two decades of British rule in Ireland when William Starkie (1860–1920) presided as Resident Commissioner for the Board. Following the lead of industrialized nations, Irish members of parliament sought to encourage the establishment of a state-funded school system during the early nineteenth century. The year 1831 saw the creation of the Irish National School System. Central to its workings was the National Board of Education which had the responsibility for distributing government funds to aid in the building of schools, the payment of inspectors and teachers, the publication of textbooks, and the cost of teacher training. In the midst of radical political and cultural change within Ireland, visionaries and leaders like Starkie filled an indispensable role in Irish education. They oversaw the introduction of a radical child-centered primary school curriculum, often referred to as the ‘new education’. Filling a gap in Irish history, this book provides a much needed overview of the changes that occurred in primary education during the 22 years leading up to Ireland’s independence.

In this auto-ethnography, which is a contribution to a form of writing only recently adopted by historians, the author provides an exposition of how, since 1957, he has been located in education currents flowing through various exotic lands. He addresses how, in participating in that flow, he has been influenced by historical events in which he participated, along with broader societal events reaching back over 150 years. As such, this book is illuminative on education developments in education in Ireland and internationally over the last 70 years in relation to a longer time-scale. It commences with an account of the author’s early life and schooling in County Waterford, Ireland, addresses his undergraduate years in London and Limerick, and reflects on 13 years of school teaching and studying for postgraduate degrees at Trinity College Dublin and University College Dublin. An account of the author’s life and academic work in Papua New Guinea, Australia, Singapore, the Philippines, Hong Kong and Malaysia then follows.

This book provides the first complete account of Patrick Pearse's educational work at St. Enda's and St. Ita's schools (Dublin). Extensive use of first-hand accounts reveals Pearse as a humane, energetic teacher and a forward-looking and innovative educational thinker. Between 1903 and 1916 Pearse developed a new concept of schooling as an agency of radical pedagogical and social reform, later echoed by school founders such as Bertrand Russell. This placed him firmly within the tradition of radical educational thought as articulated by Paulo Freire and Henry Giroux. The book examines the tension between Pearse's work and his increasingly public profile as an advocate of physical force separatism and, by employing previously unknown accounts, questions the perception that he influenced his students to become active supporters of militant separatism. The book describes the later history of St. Enda's, revealing the ambivalence of post-independence administrations, and shows how Pearse's work, which has long been neglected by historians, has had a direct influence on a later generation of school founders up to the present.

In the final two decades of British rule in Ireland the Roman Catholic Church saw its pre-eminent role in the control of schooling threatened by the secularist and democratic reforms of the imperial administration. Consequently, the Catholic bishops increasingly viewed the success of the nationalist movement as the best guarantee of the continuation of the educational status quo. The nationalist alliance proved a key element in obstructing proposed reforms in the pre-independence period - a period characterized by church-state hostility. In this volume Dr Titley examines the institutional continuity of the Irish school system, focusing on the role of the church as educational power broker. He shows how, in the congenial atmosphere of the new Irish state, the secular and ecclesiastical authorities shared the same educational philosophy and view of the role of religion in the schools. He argues that the church jealously guarded its educational hegemony because of the important role played by the schools in producing candidates for the religious life and an unquestioning middle class. Dr Titley also suggests that the failure of the secularist ideology to make headway in education proves that the Irish revolution was, in reality, a conservative reaction which insulated the country from modernizing influences. This volume is an important contribution to educational theory and to the cultural history of modern Ireland.

This book compares the formal education of the majority of girls in Britain and Ireland in the nineteenth century. Previous books about ‘Britain’ invariably focus on England, and such ‘British’ studies tend not to include Ireland despite its incorporation into the Union in 1801. The Schooling of Girls in Britain and Ireland, 1800-1900 presents a comparative synthesis of the schooling of working and middle-class girls in the Victorian period, with the emphasis on the interaction of gender, social class, religion and nationality across the UK. It reveals similarities as well as differences between both the social classes and the constituent parts of the Union, including strikingly similar concerns about whether working-class girls could fulfill their domestic responsibilities. What they had in common with middle-class girls was that they were to be educated for the good of others. This study shows how middle-class women used educational reform to carve a public role for themselves on the basis of a domesticated life for their lower class ‘sisters’, confirming that Victorian feminism was both empowering and constraining by reinforcing conventional gender stereotypes.

Reforming food in post-famine Ireland: Medicine, science and improvement, 1845–1922 is the first dedicated study of how and why Irish eating habits dramatically transformed between the famine and independence. It also investigates the simultaneous reshaping of Irish food production after the famine. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, the book draws from the diverse methodological disciplines of medical history, history of science, cultural studies, Irish studies, gender studies and food studies. Making use of an impressive range of sources, it maps the pivotal role of food in the shaping of Irish society onto a political and social backdrop of famine, Land Wars, political turbulence, the First World War and the struggle for independence. It will be of interest to historians of medicine and science as well as historians of modern Irish social, economic, political and cultural history.