Under the terms of the Gavelkind Act, the (Protestant) Irish Parliament in 1704 enacted Penal Laws intended to make sure that the Catholic majority would never again endanger the Protestant Ascendancy. Among other things, these laws provided that "No Catholic may attend a university, keep a school, or send his children to be educated abroad. 10 pounds reward is offered for the discovery of a Roman Catholic teacher."

As the years went by these laws led to the creation of the "Hedge Schools", schools for Catholic children taught by often itinerant schoolmasters, and which frequently met in the outdoors in good weather behind "hedges" for fear of being observed.

With the coming of Union between England and Ireland and the abolition of the Irish Parliament in 1800, the English Parliament began to feel more responsibility for the welfare and education of its Irish subjects. The Penal Laws had by that time become effective more in the breach than in the observance and many schools had grown up with officialdom ignoring the fact. By 1810 or so, most of the "Hedge Schools" had indeed died out and more formalized "public" education, much of it for a fee, had been created. But the government decided that a National School System, similar to that under consideration for England itself, was probably needed and the Parliament commissioned studies of the existing situation in Ireland before making their decision.

The "Second Report of the Commissioners of Irish Education Inquiry" issued a report in 1826 which published the results of an 1824 survey of EVERY SCHOOL IN IRELAND. They sent forms to all the Parish Priests, Catholic and Protestant and asked them to do a survey of their parishes on a certain day and return those forms with the requested information. The bureaucrats compared the Catholic and Protestant returns and then published a 1,400 page report summarizing those returns.

That report is now on microfiche and is available for researching in the Irish Genealogical Society, International library.

This wonderful report surveys all of the schools in the country and lists them by County, Barony, Diocese and Town or Townland. The records list the name of the Schoolmaster or Mistress, the religion of same, whether or not the school was "free" or "pay", the salary of the teacher, a description of the school house and its cost of replacement, the number of students, by religion and sex, from both the Protestant and Catholic returns, the sponsoring Society or Parish, if any, and which version, if any, of the Scriptures were read, or not, in the School.

While not primarily a genealogical record, this report does give perhaps the only information other than the census substitutes on most of the townlands of Ireland and can, by reading between the lines, provide a hint as to what the lives of our ancestors may have been like. Being you are at the townland level, you may see familiar names; both people who first looked at this at the IGSI Library did. Some schools appear to have been rather prosperous and others were held in hovels. The records do mention some of the "Hedge Schools" which were still in existence.

The report also summarizes the activities of the several Societies which were in existence at the time to provide education to the Irish, the largest of which was the Society for the Education of the Poor in Ireland; and also the Kildare Place Society, the Trustees of Erasmus Smith, the Association for Discountenancing Vice (!), the Christian Brotherhood, the London Hibernian Society, and others.

Some of the comments relating to particular schools include such items as "read in Greek"; "held in R.C. chapel during summer, and in the master's house in winter"; "mud cabin, thatched"; "an upper room in a wretched home"; "R.C. clergyman says he removed all the bibles and testaments from the school"; "school held in a barn"; "wretched mud cabin, thatched"; "a hut built of sods, under a ditch"; "a good house, four stories high" (Dublin), "spacious dwelling house"; "wood and stone"; etc.

The summary of the report which has been made contains a few interesting general observations.

Depending upon the County, the numbers of students surveyed in the report appear to be only 20% to 41% of the estimated school-aged population aged 5-15; females constituted 27% to 42% of the student body; and school size, and generally also the size of the classroom, varied from as low as 23 to as high as 60. One would image that with 60 in a school, there would be enough income to provide for more than one teacher.

Submitted by Ray Marshall

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Appendices to the 1824 Report

Fiche 1
Page
27  1  Summary of the Schools and scholars in Ireland
35  2  Classes of Schools and scholars
48  3  Schools and Religion of Teachers and Whether or Not the Scriptures are Read
50  4  Schools of the Association For the Discontinuance of Vice
58  5  Schools of the Board of Erasmus Smith Trustees
64  6  Schools of the Society of the Promotion of the Education of the Poor in Ireland
74  7  Schools of the London Hibernain Society
82  8  Schools of the Baptist Society
86  9  Schools of the Christian Brotherhood
90  10  Female Schools Attached to Nunneries

Fiche 2
94  10  Female Schools Attached to Nunneries
96  11  Roman Catholic Day Schools (Subscription)
136  12  Society for the Promotion of the Education of the Poor in Ireland
166  13A  Schools not open in the Fall of 1824, but they were previously
171  13B  Same, but with no Student count
173  14  Abstract of Appendix 12 and 13
173  15  Schools Under Construction
180  16  Testimony of Joseph D. Jackson, Secretary to the Society

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Fiche 3
196  17  Examination of Joseph D. Jackson
205  18  Schools which have ceased to be associated with the Society
210  19  Roman Catholic Schools which have applied to the Society for aid
215  20  List of Society Schools, as found in the Religious Returns
223  21  Society Schools Found in their Returns, but not in the Religious Returns
229  22  Abstract of Parochial Returns
230  Ulster
231  Antrim
272  Armagh

Fiche 4
288 Armagh
304 Cavan
322 Donegal
354 Down

Fiche 5
386 Down
400 Fermanagh
420 Londonderry
448 Monaghan
472 Tyrone

Fiche 6
484 Tyrone
515 Leinster
516 Carlow
532 City of Dublin
572 County of Dublin

Fiche 7
584 County of Dublin
608 Kildare
628 Kilkenny
664 Kings

Fiche 8
680 Kings
688 Longford
706 Louth
724 Meath
750 Queens
776 Westmeath

Fiche 9
778 Westmeath
800 Wexford
836 Wicklow
865 Munster
866 Clare

Fiche 10
876 Clare
898 County of Cork

Fiche 11 974 County of Cork 1000 City of Cork 1024 Kerry 1056 Limerick

Fiche 12 1072 Limerick 1102 Tipperary 1158 Waterford

Fiche 13 1170 Waterford 1191 Connaught 1192 Galway 1234 Leitrim 1243 Mayo

Fiche 14 1268 Mayo 1282 Roscommon 1308 Sligo

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1826 Parliamentary Study on the Schools of Ireland

The "Second Report of the Commissioners of Irish Education Inquiry"

(Data for the Year 1824)

	1824 Pop. (est.)	Population Age 5-15	No. of Schools	Male Students	Female Students	Total Students	Student % of pop.	Females % of Students	Students per School
Ulster
Antrim	280163	74075	515	11718	8004	19722	27%	41%	38
Armagh	204190	53988	332	7646	5043	12689	24%	40%	38
Cavan	201759	53345	346	11329	6541	17870	33%	37%	52
Donegal	256775	67891	376	8341	5542	13883	20%	40%	37
Down	336604	88998	544	13128	8306	21434	24%	39%	39
Fermanagh	135484	35822	240	5914	3822	9736	27%	39%	41
Londonderry	200510	53015	380	7970	5682	13652	26%	42%	36
Monaghan	180682	47772	281	6731	4155	10886	23%	38%	39
Tyrone	280836	74253	435	10876	7461	18337	25%	41%	42
Total	2066962	546505	3449	83653	54556	138209	25%	39%	40

Leinster
Carlow	81656	21590	166	4832	3529	8361	39%	42%	50
Dublin	347399	91852	938	17713	14206	31919	35%	45%	34
Kildare	102458	27090	384	5177	3608	8785	32%	41%	23
Kilkenny	188179	49755	254	12684	7392	20076	40%	37%	79
Leix-Queens	138875	36719	275	6739	5101	11840	32%	43%	43
Longford	111255	29416	180	5852	3475	9327	32%	37%	52
Louth	123210	32577	169	4377	2701	7078	22%	38%	42
Meath	164636	43530	272	6797	3739	10536	24%	35%	39
Offaly-Kings	135579	35847	254	6072	4162	10234	29%	41%	40
Westmeath	133232	35227	216	5994	4057	10051	29%	40%	47
Wexford	176657	46708	380	11546	7592	19138	41%	40%	50
Wicklow	114561	30290	258	6622	4940	11562	38%	43%	45
Total	1812532	479233	3431	94405	64502	158907	33%	41%	46

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Munster
Clare	215218	56904	315	13548	6685	20233	36%	33%	64
Cork	755469	199746	1288	44556	24386	68942	35%	35%	54
Kerry	223591	59117	354	14329	5419	19748	33%	27%	56
Limerick	286983	75878	468	20191	10529	30720	40%	34%	66
Tipperary	358780	94861	657	21786	12588	34374	36%	37%	52
Waterford	161604	42728	284	9356	5735	15091	35%	38%	53
Total	2001926	529309	3359	123766	65342	189108	36%	35%	56

Connaught
Galway	348932	92258	405	12854	7056	19910	22%	35%	49
Leitrim	129060	34123	242	8010	4153	12163	36%	34%	50
Mayo	303154	80154	341	10846	5134	15980	20%	32%	47
Roscommon	215880	57079	309	9865	5379	15244	27%	35%	49
Sligo	151238	39987	226	6513	3808	10321	26%	37%	46
Total	1148264	303601	1523	48088	25527	73615	24%	35%	48

Ireland Total	7029684	1858648	11762	349912	209927	559839	30%	37%	48