Hedge schools - Irish education despite it all

 I have been on the search for a while for additional documents about hedge schools in Ireland. When I am not engaging in family history and research, I am a healthcare worker, and I teach.

I sort of fell into teaching at the college level - one of my former instructors had an instructor back away from teaching a practical lab, and asked if I'd be interested, if I could help out last minute, so I gave it a go. 

And it felt so natural. It still does. I still love to teach the same subjects with a joy that seems to reach back.

Every generation of my maternal side has had teachers for at least 200 years. So here I am, continuing the tradition.

I do enjoy reading the Schools' Collection, and this excerpt mentions family of mine. The collection is a fun, sweet read, with a trove of remembered experiences not found anywhere else.

The homepage for the Schools' Collection.

Continue

local history from the School's collection - Dromagh Castle

 History according to school-aged children in 1930s Ireland...perspectives, lore...more!

Situated south-west of Kanturk is the parish of Dromagh or Dromtariffe as it is commonly called was also built by the O'keeffes.

It is a square enclosure, flanked by four circular towers, one of which with part of the enclosure has been converted into offices in 1837.

It greatly resembled Dromsicane with its central tower, as in the case of the later castle also gone.

Lord Muskerry marched out from Dromagh Castle in 1652 to encounter Lord Broghill at the famous battle of Knockaclashy near Clonmeen.

Continue

Snapshots of School/Scoil life in Ireland in the 1930s

Not everything about genealogy is finding all the ancestors, but how they may have lived. I am blessed to have a tree with many generations of teachers, but having spent part of my childhood in Ireland, including attending the school where my grandparents taught, I find school history is not only interesting, but help anchor one in the time and experience of the day.

I had a short stint in Dromagh as part of my childhood was spent in Cork and Dublin. And memories of cold classrooms and learning Irish, writing journals, spotting hedgehogs outside in the hedges along the fringes of the school grounds never seem far, despite the distance of time and an ocean.

There is a lovely collection online via dúchas.ie that serves as a time capsule for school life many decades ago.

The Schools' Manuscript collection (some found in UCD's online collection) is filled with fun reads, and a feel for the times...

Termed the Schools’ Folklore Scheme, it was conducted in 1937-38 in collaboration with the Department of Education and the Irish National Teachers' Organisation. Over a period of eighteen months some 100,000 children in 5,000 primary schools in the twenty-six counties of the Irish Free State were encouraged to collect material in their home districts on a wide range of subjects dealing with local tradition and history. The topics about which the children were instructed to research and write included local history and monuments, folktales and legends, riddles and proverbs, songs, customs and beliefs, games and pastimes, traditional work practices and crafts, etc. The children collected this material mainly from their parents and grandparents and other older members of the local community or school district. Now known as the Schools' Manuscript Collection, the scheme resulted in more than half a million manuscript pages of valuable material.Schoolchildren from participating schools in Munster and Connacht were encouraged to write topographical descriptions of their own locality.

Some examples of the gems you can find:

Continue