The document discusses a teaching and learning resource produced by the Irish Qualitative Data Archive, focusing on education in Ireland throughout the 20th century. It covers education during the independent period of the 1920s-1930s, the economic challenges of the 1950s, and the industrialisation efforts of the 1960s, highlighting themes such as modernity, social authority, and the role of education in shaping inequalities. Additionally, it includes interview excerpts from individuals reflecting on their educational experiences during these decades.

1. Education
This teaching and learning resource has been produced by the Irish Qualitative Data
Archive as part of the NUI Maynooth/NDLR Learning Innovation Community Support
Project, “Teaching and Learning Through the Archive”.
The presentation includes short interview excerpts from the Life Histories and Social
Change Project, http://www.iqda.ie/content/life-histories-and-social-change-20th-
century-ireland where the respondent have given their consent to be identified.
Irish Qualitative Data Archive, 2012
Additional teaching resources are available at http://www.iqda.ie/content/teaching-
resources
Development of this resource funded by National University of Ireland Maynooth /
National Digital Learning Repository
Attribute as follows: Irish Qualitative Data Archive [distributor], 2012.

2. Education

3. Concept: Modernity
“A series of historical changes or processes in the material
world [which also involve] intellectual assumptions that
legitimate and sanction those changes”
(Tovey and Share 2003, p. 20)

4. Education is intricately bound up with
questions about modernity: it is seen as a key
to modernisation and as a…driver of
social, economic and cultural change.”
(Tovey and Share 2003, p. 188)
Image courtesy of The National Library of Ireland

5. Areas covered by this
presentation
1. Education in the 1920s and 1930s:
Independent Ireland
2. Education in the 1950s: economic
decline
3. Education in the 1960s:
industrialisation
Image courtesy of
The National Library of
Ireland

6. Themes running through
presentation
Education and modernity in Ireland
• Decline of traditional authority
• Growth of meritocracy
• Meeting requirements of industrial society
The contradictory effects of
education
• Reproducing inequalities
Image courtesy of
The National Library of
Ireland

7. 1. Education in the 1920s
and 1930s:
Independent Ireland

8. 1. Education in the 1920s and 1930s:
Independent Ireland
Education was
“a major instrument
in the political Image courtesy of Jane Gray
consolidation and
rejuvenation of
independent Ireland”
(Fahey quoted in
Tovey, Share and
Corcoran, 2007)

9. 1. Education in the 1920s and 1930s:
Independent Ireland
The School Attendance Act of 1926 made school
attendance compulsory for all children from six until
fourteen years of age.
Sanctions for non-compliance extended from visits and
formal warnings to fines on parents
and, ultimately, committal to ‘industrial schools,’
where children could be detained up to the age of
16 (Fahey quoted in Tovey, Share and Corcoran, 2007).
This had significant impact on the contribution of
children’s labour in the family, particularly in
agriculture. Fahey (1992) calculated that the
Image courtesy of implementation of this Act had direct consequences
The National Library of
Ireland for about a third of families with school-age
children.

10. Think about...
Listen to the interview excerpt on the next slide
and think about the following questions.
Q1. The interview participant describes having to leave school
at 14, “to earn your living slaving for people”. How did the
requirement to attend school conflict with other demands
for children and their families?
Q2. The Education Act (1926) meant that all children were
required to attend school to the age of 14. How did “The
modernising effects of education…*lead+ to a significant
reordering of the relationships between children, families
and the state” (Tovey and Share 2003, p. 203)?

11. An account of school in the 1930s
Audio clip Source: Life Histories and Social Change Project, LH111 (female, born in 1924)
http://www.iqda.ie/content/life-histories-and-social-change-20th-century-ireland
INT: When did you start going to school, can you remember?
RESP: What age was I?
INT: Yeah.
RESP: Between six and seven, it was that time.
INT: That would be about 1930.
RESP: Yes and finished at 14 and out the road then to earn your living slaving for people, and it was literally slaving.
INT: What can you remember from school?
RESP: It was the same as above, the same as there today as it was then, they put a wing onto it extra since.
INT: How many people were in the school at the time?
RESP: I don't know around 110 I'd say.
INT: Pupils? My goodness that’s big. And did you have much of a walk to it?
RESP: We had to walk about a mile and a half and in the summer without a shoe on our foot of course. Then the roads
weren't tarmacadamed, they were sandy and stones and you'd hit your toe on a stone and you'd be bleeding and
the dirt going into it, there was no such talk about [unclear] or nothing, no disinfectant, you let nature deal with it.
INT: And did all of you go to the same school, was it mixed?
RESP: It was mixed, it is mixed today too. My grandchildren go to the same school there up above.
INT: And all 5 of you went there but you were all staggered. Yourself [sister]
RESP: [sister 1], myself, [sister 2], [brother 1], [brother 2]
INT: And the three girls were first. Can you remember those first days, did you have a favourite subject?
RESP: No I don't remember the very first days but I remember it short after, I remember the teacher was there, two
teachers, one of them was a right devil. We were in 2nd and 3rd class that time now, she used to bring us out on the
playground, we used to get long summers at that time, I don't know where they have gone to, but we used to get big
long summers and she used to bring us out on the playground and she'd sit in the middle in a chair and we'd be
standing around her and she'd be teaching our lessons. And if you missed something she'd send you over there in
the hedge to pull a bunch of nettles to scorch yourself. And we used to be up at night with the itch in our legs with
the nettles, they got all itchy at night. Wasn't she cruel? ... [continues about corporal punishment]

12. 2. Education in the
1950s:
economic decline

13. 2. Education in the 1950s
The 1950s, ‘a miserable decade for the Irish
economy’, when real national income virtually
stagnated and net emigration reached its 20th
century peak (Ó Gráda quoted in Tovey, Share
and Corcoran, 2007).
New emphasis on meritocratic education in the
development of human capital (Breen et al.
quoted in Tovey, Share and Corcoran, 2007).
Despite the objective to modernise
education, little changed in day-to-day
schooling, particularly for working class and
Image courtesy of rural households.
The National Library of
Ireland

14. Think about...
Listen to the interview excerpt on the next slide
and think about the following questions.
Q1. Why were the interview participant’s parents reluctant to
intervene when the teacher “dished out corporal
punishment”?
Q2. The interview participant talks about the “voluntary
contribution” of fuel (turf) that each farm was expected to
contribute towards heating the school. How did such
practices reproduced traditional power relations within
the school?

15. An account of school in the 1950s
Audio clip Source: Life Histories and Social Change Project, LH202 (male, born in 1945)
http://www.iqda.ie/content/life-histories-and-social-change-20th-century-ireland
RESP: So I suppose my own routine had been at home every day and the next thing going into this place that I suppose looked enormous
looking, it was only, it was a two class school and there was a husband and wife as teachers and the wife was responsible from junior
infants up to 1st class and then the master took 2nd class up to 6th class. It was one large building with a dividing wall in the centre.
So you'd arrive into this room and there was about close to 100 in the school, so you are talking about 50 in this one room with this
one teacher standing up at the top.
INT: Did they have a ‘cailin’ helping them out?
RESP: No just the two of them
INT: 50 to 1. Can you remember them as teachers?
RESP: Yes
INT: Were they strict, were they fair? Were they?
RESP: She was extremely fair and was strict to the degree of control but not over. He should never have been a teacher, he was
diabolical, absolutely and totally diabolical. Corporal punishment was dished out like nobody's business, he would lose the head
several times during the week and threw chairs around the room, hammered the blackboard, hopped the chalk at people, you
were slapped every day. If you arrived in and were given 10 sums to do and for every sum that you had wrong you'd get two slaps.
If you had spellings, for every wrong spelling you had one slap. You could come home in the evening and your hand would literally
be raised up here. Actually I remember one time I arrived home and I had a cut up along there where I was actually cut with the
cane and he had poked the fire, there was one fire up at the very end with a pipe coming out of it and extending down the floor,
but the master stood with his back to the fire, and the teacher in the other room done exactly the same thing, but he used to poke
the fire with his cane and he'd use the same rod. And I remember being cut and an infection in here and my wrist being bandaged.
INT: Did you ever tell your mum or dad that you thought this guy was over the top?
RESP: Well they were aware because if you were getting dressed and iodine was applied to everything and it would sting the living
daylights out of you but it was applied to you. And if you cut your hand you'd just get the iodine, I can remember that. And they
were very reluctant to do anything about it because they felt if you done anything about it that you would be selected, perhaps
even more so. And there was an expected voluntary contribution and the contributions used to consist of turf from the bog and
each farmer that had a farm was expected to contribute the turf, and I remember even being conscious of the fact that he used to
take note of the amount of turf being brought up by horse and cart at that stage, no tractors. And the turf would be heaped
outside the school wall and the older kids would be asked to bring it in and stack it up in the hall way. When you went to the
school there were doors on both ends and the junior school was to the right and the senior school was to the left and you walked
into a hallway where there were rows of hooks to hang your coats, there wasn't even lockers at that stage, some of them would be
coming in Wellington boots even. And some of them had shoes and some of them hadn't either. But this turf used to be stacked all
along the wall inside to keep it dry. And he sort of referenced that, “oh yeah there was a fine load of turf today, other people
didn’t come with as much”, I still remember that.

16. 3. Education in the
1960s:
industrialisation

17. 3. Education and Industrialisation
from the 1960s
From the 1960s: policy change towards export-
oriented strategy and attracting foreign investment
Development of new employment
opportunities, increase in middle-class and skilled
manual work
1965: Publication of report on Investment in
Education. “It was positioned very much against
the background of the programme of
industrialisation and the opening up of the Irish
economy and was centred on the idea of
Image courtesy of
The National Library of
manpower planning” (Tovey and Share 2003, p.
Ireland 203)

18. Video clip w A depiction of education in the 1960s
Extract from: The Rocky Road to Dublin (1968).
Click to play Documentary film by journalist Peter Lennon and cinematographer Raoul Coutard
Note: This short clip from The Rocky Road to Dublin is
available on www.youtube.com at the following
location, and is subject to being made available at this
location:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05k59EhMEEI

19. 3. Education and Industrialisation
from the 1960s, continued
Growing emphasis on “equality of opportunity”
‘Free’ secondary education was introduced in
Ireland in 1967
Despite this, strong distinction between types of
school perpetuated social exclusion of certain
groups, so that secondary and boarding
schools catered for middleclass children, while
children from working-class or small-farm
families attended local vocational schools
Image courtesy of
The National Library of
(Whelan and Hannan quoted in Share, Tovey
Ireland and Corcoran, 2007).

20. Think about...
Listen to the interview excerpt on the next slide
and think about the following questions.
Q. The interview participant says that, “everybody wanted
to get into the other schools in Dublin”. How does this
contradict the idea of “equality of opportunity” that was
promoted in education at this time?

21. Audio clip Choosing schools in the 1980s
Source: Life Histories and Social Change Project, LH315 (male, born in 1970)
http://www.iqda.ie/content/life-histories-and-social-change-20th-century-ireland
INT: So where did you go to secondary school?
RESP: [name of school in north Dublin town]
INT: How come you went to [name of school] and not in [town]?
RESP: There was no schools in [town], no secondary schools in [town]
INT: There wasn't? Cos they used to go to the one in [village], didn't they?
RESP: Yeah it was [village], well I think the deal was
INT: Cos I went to [village], and the [town] bus used to come over
RESP: Yeah the [town] bus would have come over via [village], and that was it, it was [village], [other
town], or into town. So I think the deal was you had to do entrance exams into the schools in
Dublin and if you managed to get into a school in Dublin well done, otherwise you were on the bus
to [village]
INT: So going to school in Dublin would have been considered better?
RESP: Yes than going to the school in [village] cos what happened in [town] was you're going to have to get
on a bus and the people who failed the exams for the Dublin schools were on that bus. That was the
deal and because of that it was seen as they're the dummies going across to [village] because they
couldn't get into the other schools and everybody wanted to get into the other schools in Dublin

22. Think about...
Listen to the interview excerpt on the next slide
and think about the following questions.
Q1. The interview participant talks about struggling to get
into his career of choice in avionics. How well did
education’s objective of developing human capital for a
modernising economy match the experience of the
individual?
Q2. What other factors, apart from education, were
influential in “manpower planning” and the development
of human capital?

23. Career planning in the 1980s
Audio clip Source: Life Histories and Social Change Project, LH315 (male, born in 1970)
http://www.iqda.ie/content/life-histories-and-social-change-20th-century-ireland
INT: And what would you say your parents would have wanted you to get out of school at that time? Obviously if they
sent you to the one in Dublin they were keen on education.
RESP: Yeah
INT: What type of job would you say they wanted you to do?
RESP: Well my dad would have wanted me to get an apprenticeship that was from the word go an apprenticeship, get
yourself a job
INT: A trade?
RESP: Get yourself a trade, yeah. He's only had two jobs, he worked in the Air Corps and he went to Aer Lingus and his move
with Aer Lingus, sent him from Aer Lingus to SLR, but he's in the same job and working with the same people.
INT: So a good steady, pensionable job
RESP: Yeah
INT: So he wanted you to get a trade and what would you have wanted, what type of job did you want?
RESP: I wanted to get into, again I wanted to get into the airline industry. I wanted to get into avionics and stuff like that but
there was no jobs available at that time and there was no apprenticeships. I left school in ‘87
INT: Did you do your Leaving [final exams]?
RESP: Yeah I did my Leaving Cert., I left school in ‘87 and couldn't get a job. I spent six months trying to get a job with ten
pounds a month from my mum just to keep me in
INT: There was no jobs around?
RESP: Yeah there was no jobs absolutely nothing, and I wasn't allowed go on the dole that was one thing they
were adamant about that's why she gave me money
INT: That's interesting. Why?
RESP: Her reason was you couldn't get a job in the bank if you were ever on the dole and at that stage if you'd ever
been on the dole, if you ever signed on you couldn't get a job in the bank
INT: I never knew that
RESP: Mmm
INT: Really?
RESP: Yeah. So she saw it as a stigma, if you'd ever been on the dole

24. Think about...
Listen to the interview excerpt on the next slide
and think about the following questions.
Q. Having listened to all of the interview excerpts consider
the following statement:
“While education has been associated with the development
of scientific rationality, specific types of interpersonal
relationships, achievement orientation and a facility with
technology, it has also provided an arena for the
maintenance of attitudes, behaviour and relationships
that have been seen as barriers to the development of a
modern sensibility” (Tovey and Share 2003, p. 205).

25. References
Lennon, Peter and Coutard, Raoul . Extract from: The Rocky Road to Dublin
(1968), available on www.youtube.com at the following
location, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05k59EhMEEI
Tovey, H. and Share, P. (2003) A Sociology of Ireland, 2nd Ed., Dublin: Gill &
McMillan.

26. Note on this teaching resource
IQDA Teaching Resources by Irish Qualitative Data Archive is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at http://www.iqda.ie/content/life-histories-and-social-change-20th-
century-ireland.
Life Histories and Social Change was funded by the Irish Research Council (IRCHSS).
Images on slides 2, 4, 5, 6, 9, 13, 17 and 19 courtesy of The National Library of Ireland.
Reproduction of this images is with the written consent of The National Library of Ireland
only.
This teaching resource was prepared by Ruth Geraghty. IQDA would like to acknowledge Linda
O'Keefe and Aileen O'Carroll for their work on this teaching resource.
Preparation of this teaching resource was assisted by an NDLR Learning and Innovation Project
grant from the NUI Maynooth Centre for Teaching and Learning
Irish Qualitative Data Archive, 2012