"The charter schools, founded in the early eighteenth century, were envisaged by their supporters as the positive side to government policy towards the Roman Catholics of Ireland. The various penal laws sought to restrict power to those with an interest in maintaining the Protestant (Anglican) state, while the charter schools were to open the scriptures to the children of the poor, educating them in the Protestant habits of loyalty to the Hanoverian crown, of industry and of good husbandry." "In 1733-4 the Incorporated Society for Promoting English Protestant Working Schools in Ireland was granted its charter. In the course of a century, over a million pounds in government funding was provided for the establishment and running of these schools. But the results fell far short of expectations." "Chapters on the origins of the schools, on their administration, their everyday routine and their curriculum, will reveal many reasons for their failure. Yet the charter schools were never intended to be the places of horror, the prototypes of Dotheboys Hall, that they so frequently became. How did it happen that, established with such high hopes for advancing the cause of the Reformation in Ireland, they ended by seriously discrediting it?" "This study draws largely on manuscript sources, official and otherwise, in repositories in the England and Ireland. The picture that emerges is of an organisation insufficiently aware of the existence within its own system of those very phenomena central to its purpose: the frailty of human nature and the prevalence of Original Sin!"--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

This book provides a complete overview of the development of education in Ireland including the complex issue of how religion can coexist with education and how a national identity can be aided through Irish language teaching. It also offers a comprehensive exploration of the development, issues, challenges and future of education in Ireland within the context of historical studies.

What was life like for Irish Protestants between the mid-17th and the late-18th centuries? Toby Barnard scrutinizes social attitudes and structures in every segment of Protestant society during this formative period.

David Hayton examines the political culture of the Anglo-Irish ruling class, which had settled in Ireland in different ways over a long period and had differing degrees of attachment to England, and shows how its multi-faceted identity evolved.

How did the Protestants gain a monopoly over the running of Ireland and replace the Catholics as rulers and landowners? To answer this question, Toby Barnard: - Examines the Catholics' attempt to regain control over their own affairs, first in the 1640s and then between 1689 and 1691 - Outlines how military defeats doomed the Catholics to subjection, allowing Protestants to tighten their grip over the government - Studies in detail the mechanisms - both national and local - through which Protestant control was exercised Focusing on the provinces as well as Dublin, and on the subjects as well as the rulers, Barnard draws on an abundance of unfamiliar evidence to offer unparalleled insights into Irish lives during a troubled period.

This final volume in the Cambridge History of Ireland covers the period from the 1880s to the present. Based on the most recent and innovative scholarship and research, the many contributions from experts in their field offer detailed and fresh perspectives on key areas of Irish social, economic, religious, political, demographic, institutional and cultural history. By situating the Irish story, or stories - as for much of these decades two Irelands are in play - in a variety of contexts, Irish and Anglo-Irish, but also European, Atlantic and, latterly, global. The result is an insightful interpretation on the emergence and development of Ireland during these often turbulent decades. Copiously illustrated, with special features on images of the 'Troubles' and on Irish art and sculpture in the twentieth century, this volume will undoubtedly be hailed as a landmark publication by the most recent generation of historians of Ireland.

First published over forty years ago and now updated to cover the “Celtic Tiger” economic boom of the 2000s and subsequent worldwide recession, this new edition of a perennial bestseller interprets Irish history as a whole. Designed and written to be popular and authoritative, critical and balanced, it has been a core text in both Irish and American universities for decades. It has also proven to be an extremely popular book for casual readers with an interest in history and Irish affairs. Considered the definitive history among the Irish themselves, it is an essential text for anyone interested in the history of Ireland.