For over 136 years the hedge schoolmasters were the dominant educators in Ireland. For most of that time, they worked underground due to the strictures of the Penal Laws. Their books were an eclectic mix of romantic chapbooks, as well as the best available literature of the eighteenth century, purchased by parents as cheap piracies of expensive English originals.

McManus (Education, Trinity College Dublin) examines the informal and often illegal schools where poor Irish, mostly rural, learned to read and were introduced to tenets of Irish nationalism. She also critically appraises a selection of the chapbooks--Burton books before 1824--used in them, including the criminal biographies, the works of entertainment, and the perennially popular chivalric romance The Seven Champions of Christendom. Distributed in the US by ISBS. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

In 1825, every school in the country was documented by a Parliamentary Inquiry. This showed that while the hedge school was still the main provider of education, there were a significant number of purpose-built schools in County Wicklow. This book investigates the origins of these purpose-built schools. While some came from the eighteenth century, most were built in the decade prior to 1825. They were built as a result of local efforts involving landlords, clergymen, and parents, as well as support from the Kildare Place Society and others. Many of these schools became connected with the National School system when it was established in 1831. Using original research from archives, society records and the reports of the Wicklow Education Society, the development of early purpose-built schools in Wicklow is described for the first time.

While Irish historical writing has long been in thrall to the perceived sectarian character of the legal system, this collection is the first to concentrate attention on the actual relationship that existed between the Irish population and the state under which they lived from the War of the Two Kings (1689-1691) to the Great Famine (1845-1849). Particular attention is paid to an understanding of the legal character of the state and the reach of the rule of law, with contributors addressing such themes as: how law was made and put into effect; how ordinary people experienced the law and social regulations; how Catholics related to the legal institutions of the Protestant confessional state; and how popular notions of legitimacy were developed. These themes contribute to a wider understanding of the nature of the state in the long eighteenth century and will therefore help to situate the study of Irish society into the mainstream of English and European social history.

Reviews the restricting consequences of older and newer forms of paternalism, in education, taking a historical perspective and offering a cohesive sustained argument.

The Oxford History of the Irish Book is a major new series that charts the development of the book in Ireland from its origins within an early medieval manuscript culture to its current incarnation alongside the rise of digital media in the twenty-first century. Volume III: The Irish Book in English, 1550-1800 contains a series of groundbreaking essays that seek to explain the fortunes of printed word from the early Renaissance to the end of the eighteenth century. The essays in section one explain the development of print culture in the period, from its first incarnation in the small area of the English Pale around Dublin, dominated by the interests of the English authorities, to the more widespread dispersal of the printing press at the close of the eighteenth century, when provincial presses developed their own character and style either alongside or as a challenge to the dominant intellectual culture. Section two explains the crucial developments in the structure and technical innovation of the print trade; the role played by private and public collections of books; and the evidence of changing reading practices throughout the period. The third and longest section explores the impact of the rise of print. Essays examine the effect that the printed book had on religious and political life in Ireland, providing a case study of the impact of the French Revolution on pamphlets and propaganda in Ireland; the transformations illustrated in the history of historical writing, as well as in literature and the theatre, through the publication of play texts for a wide audience. Others explore the impact that print had on the history of science and the production of foreign language books. The volume concludes with an authoritative bibliographical essay outlining the sources that exist for the study of the book in early modern Ireland. This is an authoritative volume with essays by key scholars that will be the standard guide for many years to come.