The Irish Hedge School and Its Books, 1695 - 1831.

McManus, Antonia.

Published by Dublin, Four Court Press., 2004

16 cm x 23,5 cm. 270 pages, 8 illustrations. Original Softcover. Very good condition with only minor signs of wear. Pencil markings throughout, private inscription on half title page. Includes for example the following chapters: Repeal of the penal laws and the rise of the Catholic church / Irish education in the age of the Enlightenment / Lay and clerical opposition to the Kildare Place Society, 1819-1824 / The 'hidden Ireland'. The underworld of Gaelic poets and hedge schoolmasters / Education and religion / 'The Groves of Academus - what was Plato himself but a hedge schoolmaster' / The curriculum in the hedge school / The historical development of children's literature, 1671 - 1851 / 'Penny Histories' - Chivalric and Neo-Chivalric Medieval Romances etc. For over one hundred and thirty six 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. Impoverished parents valued this education so highly that they bartered flitches of bacon and miscawns of butter for it. Being independent of church and state, the schools incurred the wrath of both on occasions. The state regarded their reading books as objectionable. In fact, they were an eclectic mix of romantic chapbooks and the best literature of the eighteenth century, purchased by parents as cheap piracies of expensive English originals. The beginning of the end for the masters came when their erstwhile allies, the Catholic hierarchy, concurred with the official view of them as incompetent, at a time when the church was seeking state aid for Catholic education. But the masters remained deep in the affections of the Irish people as they fulfilled a multiplicity of roles such as local scribe, historian, poet, defender of religion, Bible Society teacher, land surveyor, lawyer, parish clerk, revolutionary and political activist. (Rear cover) Sprache: english. Seller Inventory # 28769AB

Bibliographic Details

Title: The Irish Hedge School and Its Books, 1695 -...
Publisher: Dublin, Four Court Press.
Publication Date: 2004
Binding: Soft cover