Brendan Walsh – författare

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.

Patrick Pearse, teacher, poet, and one of the executed leaders of the 1916 Rising has long been a central figure in Irish history. The book provides a radically new interpretation of Patrick Pearse’s work in education, and examines how his work as a teacher became a potent political device in pre-independent Ireland. The book provides a complete account of Pearse’s educational work at St. Enda’s school, Dublin where a number of insurgents such as William Pearse, Thomas McDonagh and Con Colbert taught. The author draws upon the recollections of past-pupils, employees, descendants of those who worked with Pearse, founders of schools inspired by his work - including the descendants of Thomas McSweeny and Louis Gavan Duffy – and a vast array or primary source material to provide a comprehensive account of life at St. Enda’s and the place of education within the ‘Irish-Ireland’ movement and the struggle for independence.

Primarily an attempt to set policy within a historical context, the book draws together compelling research on the evolution of key changes in topics as diverse as the use of corporal punishment, the evolution of skills policy in post-primary settings and the development of the universities in the post-1922 period.

Primarily an attempt to set policy within a historical context, the book draws together compelling research on the evolution of key changes in topics as diverse as the use of corporal punishment, the evolution of skills policy in post-primary settings and the development of the universities in the post-1922 period.