Lancasterian School Cork: 1814-1913[1]
JM Feheney fpm
Background
To fully appreciate the contribution of the Lancasterian school (popularly
known as the Lancs) to the educational history of the city of Cork, we must
first take a quick look at the educational provision for Catholic children
before it came into being. The fact that Catholic schools and Catholic
schoolmasters were outlawed is well known. In 1537 the English Parish School
Act was passed which obliged every Protestant vicar in Ireland to keep or cause
to be kept a school in his parish in order to learn himself, and introduce the
English tongue’.[2]
Through the medium of the parish school and the English tongue, it was hoped to
eliminate Catholicism and to foster the use of English.
Several
other Acts of Parliament followed the English Parish Schools Act, all intended
to foster the English language and to spread the Protestant religion. These included:
the Diocesan Free School (1570), Trinity College (1591), The Royal Schools
(1608), The Schools of Erasmus Smith (1669), The Blue Coat Hospital Schools
(1672), The Foundling Hospital (1704), the Charter Schools (1733), the
Hibernian Marine School (1775) and the Kildare Place Society (1811). The
Catholic Church continued to discourage Catholics from attending these
proselytising schools and, instead, encouraged the growth of what the
Protestant establishment pejoratively termed ‘Hedge Schools’. It should be
emphasised that the term, ‘Hedge’ schools was intended as an insult and that
these schools were normally held in houses or ‘cabins’, as the homes of the
peasantry were called.[3]
Though
education was denied to the ordinary people, there is much evidence to show
that they had a great appreciation and love of it. The writer, William Carleton,
stated: ‘There never was a more unfounded calumny than that which would impute
to the Irish peasantry an indifference to education’.[4]
The Cork Charitable Society
It was in
this context that the Cork Charitable Society came into being in 1793. Apart
from its other charitable work, this institution will always be remembered for
two great contributions to education in Cork. The first was that it was
responsible for bringing the Society of the Presentation (and hence the
Christian Brothers) to Cork. The second was the opening of the Lancasterian
School. In 1811 the Society learned of the great educational work being done by
Edmund Rice in Waterford and wrote to ask him to open one his schools in Cork.
Edmund gave his usual response to such requests. He recommended that some
suitable candidates be chosen and sent to Waterford, where he (Edmund) would
supervise their religious and pedagogical training. Thus, two young men, Jerome
O’Connor and John B Leonard, were sent to Waterford in 1811 and returned Cork
in 1813 as members of the Presentation Society and opened a school near the
north Cathedral. From this foundation evolved all the schools of the
Presentation and Christian Brothers in Cork.[5]
The
Lancasterian School, situated at the corner of Wood Street and Great George
(now Washington) Streets was opened in 1814 in a location that was then densely
populated. Originally, the school consisted of one very large room, 90x60
feet which, at the time, was the largest room in Cork. As such, it was much in
demand for banquets and meetings. On one occasion, in April 1844, an important
meeting was held there by the Cork Repeal Committee when it entertained Daniel
O’Connell and 600 guests to a banquet.[6]
The
Lancasterian school was under the general direction of the Cork Charitable
Society, of which the Bishop of Cork was chair. The school itself was managed
by a special committee, under the control of the Society, which raised funds
from charitable events and public subscription to cover the cost of teachers’
salaries and the general maintenance of the school. The Presentation Brothers
were invited to take over the management of the school in 1827 and Brother
Michael Augustine Riordan was the first superintendent, as the Principal was
then termed. In place of individual salaries, the Brothers received a monthly
honorarium of £10.[7]
The Name ‘Lancasterian’
The name
‘Lancasterian’ came from the Royal Lancasterian Society, established in London
to promote schools organised and operated along the lines advocated by Joseph
Lancaster. Lancaster, born in London in 1778, opened his first school in London
in 1798. He was a Quaker and insisted that his schools should be Christian,
though non-denominational. Drawing on the ideas of Rev Andrew Bell, another
pioneer in popular education, Lancaster developed what became known as the
monitorial system of teaching large numbers of children. In this system one
experienced teacher taught a select group of older pupils, who then taught
groups of younger children organised into groups of 10-20. The teaching methods
used involved much repetition and rote learning, but, under the general
supervision of an experienced teacher, it was effective in imparting the basics
of reading, writing and arithmetic, including the Catechism. Moreover, it was
also a very cheap method: in 1827 all the Brothers and monitors received only
£10 per month between them in the Cork Lancs. The Government salary at the time
for teachers was about £40 per annum.
Following
the formation of the Royal Lancasterian Society, Lancaster himself retired from
classroom work and devoted much of his time to travelling around the UK giving
talks and lectures. He gradually attracted considerable support and patronage
for his work. He was unwilling to inflict physical punishment on his pupils,
though he did develop an elaborate system of sanctions, calculated to develop a
sense of shame in pupils who misbehaved.
The
monitorial system was a great ‘find’ in a period when the state gave little or
no financial support to popular education. The system enabled large numbers of
children to receive basic education for a relatively small financial outlay and
the system contributed significantly to the rise of literacy. It also had some
pedagogical advantages: good teachers modelled good teaching to the monitors,
who were essentially apprentice teachers. Moreover, the fact that a number of
monitors occupied the same space meant that children were not covertly
punished. Generally, all serious breaches of discipline were referred to the
‘Head’ teacher.
The
Lancasterian system was especially welcome to members of teaching
Congregations, when, as time moved on, young religious replaced the monitors in
teaching small groups. The trainee teachers could, in this way, observe the
experienced teacher in action and gradually hone their own pedagogical skills.
It was in this system that some of the great Presentation Brother teachers
mastered their craft and developed outstanding study skills. Thus Brother
Ignatius ConnoIly, later Principal of Presentation College, Cork, was regarded
as one of the finest teachers in Ireland. Brother Peter Curtin became fluent in
German. Brothers Sales Mehigan, Aloysius Rahilly, Austin Queenan, and other
colleagues went on to obtain Master degrees.[8]
The Lancs, 1850-1 870
In the
early days, the enrolment in the ‘Lancs’ was usually about 600 pupils. The
children were organised into ‘books’ rather than years, since the school used
the range of schoolbooks published by the Irish National Board. There were five
Readers, ranging from Book 1 (for the youngest pupils) to Book 5 (for the
senior pupils). These text books, subsidised by the National Board, so that
they cost the pupils only a few pence, were highly regarded by educationalists
all over the English speaking world. Moreover, they were the standard School
Readers in several British Colonies, including the Caribbean. In addition to
the Readers, the National Board also published texts on Arithmetic, Geography
and Agriculture. Even today, critics acknowledge that there was a great wealth
of English Grammar, Natural History, Political Economy, Geography and Biblical
stories in these Readers. Though a non-denominational Protestant approach was
attempted, there was a strong religious and moral tone to much of the material.
Thus, much use was made of biblical stories, including those about Adam and Eve
and Joseph, son of Jacob. Animal stories include descriptions of stags, bears,
camels, cats, cuckoos, foxes and hens. The proportion of prose to verse was
about three to one. The readers for older children included material on what
was then known as ‘political economy’, contributed by Dr Richard Whately,
Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin, and former professor of Political
Economy at Oxford University. Whatever the weaknesses of these school readers,
they had two great advantages: they were well produced and, because of
Government subsidy, were available to the children at the relatively small cost
of less than six pence each.[9]
Paul Townsend Era
After the
death of Brother Michael Augustine Riordan in 1848, Brother Paul Townsend
became superintendent of the Lancasterian school, remaining there until shortly
before his death in 1870. This was a period of great stability for the Lancs.
Paul was a man of great dignity and charm and had a wonderful influence on the
older boys, many of whom were monitors, When we read what past students had to
say about Paul Townsend, and take into account that, at that period the
influence of the superintendent was all pervasive, we cannot but be impressed
by the ethos of the Lancs. One of his former monitors wrote:
Brother Paul was an ideal gentleman, in his
deportment, in his carriage and in his manner; he was most affable and
courteous to everybody; he spoke with a tone of sincerity in everything he
said, and his kindness of heart and innate nobility of character won him the
respect and admiration of all. He had a great affection for children and
naturally enough was loved and venerated by them in return.. It was most
edifying to hear him say the prayers with the boys in the school with much
unction and fervour, and to listen to his religious instruction in the
afternoon...[10](Allen,
1993, 145)
Another past pupil wrote:
I doubt if ever a teacher of youth was more
esteemed, admired and loved better that than Father Paul was by the boys who
had the good luck to be catered for intellectually by him. He stood with the
boys for something more than a schoolmaster. He was not feared, any more than a
loving father may be said to be feared, for we felt that he was sympathetic,
just, and considerate and gave us of his best. He seemed to me at times to
belong to the past, he was so courtly in his demeanour ...In or out of school
he carried a perpetual smile ...the bigger boys and monitors almost adored him.[11]
(Presentation Record, No. 2, 1916, 2)
Post Townsend Era
Brother
Paul Townsend was succeeded as superintendent of the ‘Lancs’ by Brother Joseph
O’Callaghan, who had previously established a name for himself as Director of
St Joseph’s Orphanage in Greenmount and Principal of the National School there.
Joseph was born in Kinsale in 1841 and, as a young man, served his time as a
shipwright. It will be remembered that Cork, at the time, was the centre of
ship building in Ireland. Feeling drawn to the religious life, he entered the
Presentation Brothers in the South Monastery, Douglas Street, Cork, where his
natural gifts and sincerity helped him to settle quickly and become a useful
member of the community. He studied hard and was soon considered ready to take
his place in the classroom. Joseph’s director of novices, Brother Vincent
O’Connor, impressed on him that there were three requirements to be a good
Presentation Brother. These were a) to be a gentleman b) to be a life-long
student and c) to be a man of prayer. It could be said that Joseph managed all
three. A contemporary wrote of him:
I was at Mass at the South Chapel, and, as
usual, a few minutes before the ceremony began, the Brothers from the South
Monastery began to file into their seats, in the back row of the right wing
gallery. I knew all the Brothers one way or another, except one, a newcomer who
caused some little flutter of curiosity by his appearance there. Brother
Joseph, the new acquisition, was undoubtedly the finest specimen of manhood
amongst them: tall, well-built, good-looking, in the prime of life. He
naturally excited my curiosity, as well as that of many others, and after Mass
I heard the people discussing him.[12]
(Presentation Record, No.16, Oct., 1919)
Brother
Joseph was a great success as a teacher and Principal. He had a caring
personality, which, when combined with down-to-earth directness, made him
popular with young people. It would appear that he soon raised the general
standard of the Lancs and, by 1887, one of his colleagues wrote, ‘Joseph, I
hear has beaten all the Colleges in Cork’.[13]
A report in the Cork Examiner in 1887 on the Lancasterian school
gives substance to this opinion. It read:
Five Brothers are constantly engaged in this
important educational work and a thorough understanding appears to be
established between them and their pupils. To the senior Brother, Mr
O’Callaghan (Brother Joseph), we believe is mainly due the credit of extending
the curriculum as we have noticed. The general aspect of the schools is
orderly, cheerful and business-like.[14]
Other
Brothers teaching in the Lancs with Brother Joseph O’Callaghan in years 1878-90
included Brothers Ignatius Connolly, Bernard Shanahan, Benedict O’Connor and De
Sales O’Connor.[15]
Brother Ignatius Connolly
One of the most famous and successful teachers at the Lancs in the post
Townsend era was Brother Ignatius Connolly. He began teaching infants there
around 1876 and continued in the school until around 1888. A colleague has
described Connolly’s early days in the ‘Lancs’ as follows:
Brother Ignatius’ first years in the
classroom were spent in teaching infants. He had two hundred all to himself!
The monitorial system was then in vogue and was based on the Lancasterian
System. The infants were divided into sections of about twenty each before whom
was suspended a tablet on which was a lesson taken from the Primer, and a
monitor taught each section its lesson. Brother Ignatius went from section to
section -taught, examined and promoted when necessary. Thus every child was
taught something definite and progressive each day. Promotion was not by class
but individually according to progress. At the end of every hour there was
combined teaching, such as Action Songs, simple stories to suit their young
minds and marching in the playground.
Brother Ignatius never raised his voice and
so was able to secure attention. There was never any confusion, noise or want
of control. When seven years old, each child could read simple sentences
composed of monosyllables, could point out individual words on a tablet, could
spell them from memory, know Addition Tables and could make simple
calculations. The Tables were learnt by sing-song method.[16]
The above
quotation confirms that the practice in the Cork Lancs followed the
Lancasterian monitorial system faithfully. Some of those who criticise this
system fail to appreciate the degree of organisation that underpinned it. The
information to be mastered by pupils was minutely divided and subdivided, even
if learned by repetition. With continual examination and promotion, bright and
ambitious pupils moved rapidly through the grades. This accounts for the
evident enthusiasm of some of the former monitors, who were generally the
brightest and most enthusiastic students.
As the years went by Brother Ignatius was moved to the senior class in the
Lancs, where he began advanced classes preparing boys for Civil Service examinations.
His biographer continues:
In the eighties of the last century (i.e.
1880s) Brother Ignatius was the principal teacher at the Lancasterian School,
Great George (now Washington) Street ...He had a large number of young men
studying for the Civil Service. Year after year they won coveted appointments,
even in the Indian Civil Service. Many of the students were second and third
sons of the farmers from Munster counties. Their fathers gave them two years to
pass, or else go to America. As these examinations then required neither Latin
nor Science the sixth standard, of the National Schools Programme, made a
splendid foundation on which to work.[17]
In 1890,
the Lancs suffered a serious loss. The principal, Brother Joseph O’Callaghan,
left the Lancs to take up an appointment as first superior of a new foundation
in Cobh (then known as Queenstown). Two years earlier, the school had suffered
an equally significant loss when Brother lgnatius Connolly was transferred to
the recently established Presentation College, Cork. Moreover, several of the
senior students at the Lancs are reported to have followed Ignatius to ‘Pres’,
where they became the nucleus of a highly motivated academic cohort that laid
the foundations for subsequent academic achievements in ‘Pres’. Brother
Connolly went on to become Principal of ‘Pres’ in 1892, a position he retained
until his retirement in 1931.
Inspector’s Ranking of Schools
After 1900, school inspectors used a system
of six grades to rate the success of a primary school. These grades were:
excellent; very good; good; fair; middling and bad. In an attempt to establish
uniformity of standards among inspectors, seven criteria for inspection were
agreed as follows:
An excellent school is one in which
(a) the whole programme is taught in a highly creditable manner; (2) in which
the best methods of teaching are in use; (3) the educational equipment ample;
(4) the tone and discipline of high order; (5) order and tidiness exemplary;
(6) the school records neat, correct and complete; (7) house and premises of a
good class and in good order.[18]
The senior inspectors then
went on to give definitions for highly efficient and efficient teachers:
A higly efficient teacher should show special
aptitude in developing the intelligence of his pupils; in cultivating habits of
order, neatness, attention and industry, and in maintaining a firm but pleasant
discipline. His preparation for work should be thorough, and his pupils should
attain a highly creditable proficiency.[19]
Though
the rating of ‘Highly Efficient’ carried considerable prestige among the
teaching fraternity, it is notable that the only difference between the
definition of a ‘Highly Efficient’ and an ‘Efficient’ teacher was that the
italics (see above) were omitted in the definition of the latter.
Br De Sales Mehigan, Principal
In 1894,
Brother De Sales Mehigan (1863-1947) became superior (and Novice Master) of
Mount St Joseph, which had then become the formation and training house of the
Presentation Brothers in Cork. He was also given overall responsibility for the
Lancs, since all the teachers there, being at various stages of their religious
and professional training, were his responsibility. To help him, he was given
two assistants, Brothers Cyril Hunt and Anthony Nealon, the latter assuming day
to day responsibility for the Lancs. De Sales was a man of intelligence,
education and culture, who held many different posts of responsibility in the
Presentation schools, both in Ireland and England. De Sales remained as nominal
Principal of the Lancs until January, 1905, when he was transferred to England.
Brother Declan O’Sullivan then became Principal of the ‘Lancs’ and remained in
this post until the school transferred to the Mardyke and was renamed St Joseph’s
School, Mardyke.
During this period the Lancs was used as a training school for young Presentation
Brothers. Like all such training schools, the young Brothers were supervised in
their teaching and were made to provide detailed syllabi and teaching notes.
One of the young teachers in this period was Brother Albertus Reen, who wrote
as follows:
Each man was provided with a DAILY SYLLABUS,
a WEEKLY SYLLABUS and a MONTHLY SYLLABUS. The daily had to do with short notes
of what one proposed doing in any given subject each day. The weekly went
deeper for it contained a full lay-out of each subject for a week and the
monthly for a month. Like the devil, who prowleth in the dark, His Majesty’s
Inspector of Schools was likely to pop in and Britannia quaked if you hadn’t
your syllabuses right on your desk for inspection. To this very day a certain
creepy feeling seizes me when I recall those gentlemen, HM Inspectors. School
door opens and he appears like the ghost of Hamlet, bulky red book in hand,
glowering at everything! Brother Declan, ever on his watchtower, ‘radioed’
through the grapevine that HE was in and nobody dared ask who HE was for there
was only one HE.[20]
Teacher Training Qualification
The
monitorial system was formally introduced by the British Government in 1846 and
it continued in Ireland until 1925. From the point of view of teacher training,
it was very successful with intelligent and ambitious students. One needs only
to review the career of people like Sir Patrick Keenan to see how quickly the
better students could advance. Beginning as a pupil teacher at thirteen, Keenan
advanced through certificated teacher to Principal, to lecturer in the
Marlborough Street Training School in Dublin, to inspector, chief inspector and
finally Resident Commissioner of the National Board of Education. Another
example was John Moran from Gurteen, Dromcollogher, Co. Limerick, born about
1830. John, who also started as a pupil teacher advanced through certification
and principalship, to become a school inspector and HMI Chief Inspector.
Moreover, his scholarly studies obtained for him a Fellowship of the Royal
Irish Society and an honorary LLD from Trinity College, Dublin.
Suitable
students (both boys and girls) were eligible for selection as pupil teachers
(commonly called monitors) from the age of thirteen. If everything went well
they were expected to have completed the Queens Scholarship, the official
examination for determining entry to Teacher Training College, by the eighteen.
This examination gave the same scholastic status to its holder as the post-
1922 Junior Assistant Master (JAM) accreditation. Success in the Queen’s
Scholarship was determined by the outcome of a two-strand evaluation process.
The first was the annual examination in school by the School inspector
mentioned above. In addition to teaching methods, this examination included
reading, writing, arithmetic (including mensuration), geography and religious
knowledge. The second strand of the process was the actual examination for the
Queen’s Scholarship. This also included English, geography, mathematics,
general science and religious knowledge.
I have a
copy of the syllabus for Pupil Teacher Examinations (Year 1to Year 5) for the
year 1875 before me as I write. The preliminary instructions could with
advantage be used at the top of College undergraduate papers today. They
included the following directions:
- At the head of your Paper write:
a) Your Christian name and Surname in full, and your age last birthday;
b) The name of the School and the locality in which you are a Pupil Teacher;
c) The year of your apprenticeship. - The answers must not extend beyond one
sheet, or four pages of foolscap. Any writing beyond that will not be
looked at.
- Of the questions given, you can only
answer six.
- Write the Question you are Answering at
the head of each Answer.
- Leave on the left-hand side of each page
a margin of this breadth (…….)
N.B. Accurate Answers will rank higher than those, which, though longer, are diffuse and inexact.[21]
Certification of Teachers
There
were different levels of pass in the King’s Scholarship examination, the
ordinary level permitting a person to be ‘certificated’ as a teacher. Passing
at the highest level enabled the candidate not only to gain entry to a Teachers’
College, where his fees would be paid, but also entitled him to a bursary of
£25, together with a pocket money allowance while attending the Training
College. At the highest level, therefore, it was undoubtedly a scholarship
system beneficial to aspiring teachers. The King’s Scholarship system was
operational in Ireland until the Leaving Certificate took its place for entry
to teacher training in 1924.
Though
only 34% of teachers in National schools had received formal training by 1868,
this figure had risen to 50% in 1900. This did not mean that individual
teachers were not using the procedures existing within the National Board
system to secure a partial qualification without attending a Teacher Training
College. This study and training on the job was well organised and compulsory
within the Presentation Brothers, though few of them attended a Teacher
Training College before 1900. Apart from the purely academic content of
the syllabus, there was a searching pedagogical examination conducted by
Inspectors of Schools. Brother Albertus Reen describes the pedagogical
requirements for teachers at the Lancs around the year 1910:
The candidate had to have 30 lessons written
up in strictly standard form: Object, Apparatus, Method, Conclusion, and, on
the opposite page, Illustration. When his ability to teach a class was being
examined by HM Inspector, the examiner chose one lesson from the book and the
candidate another: the marks obtained were superadded to those of the final
examination held every Easter… Sullivan’s School Method, much in vogue
once, used to have bon mot headings for each chapter, such as ‘Teachers
are born, not made’, ‘A noisy Master makes a noisy school’.[22]
Preparatory School
In 1892 what was known as the Preparatory Grade examination was
introduced for pupil teachers. This led to the establishment of the Preparatory
School at Mount St Joseph, with the purpose of providing an appropriate
education for young men who, it was hoped, would later enter the Presentation
Brothers and go on to be teachers. In the first two decades of the twentieth
century, there were up to a dozen young men in this Preparatory school, housed
in the old ‘Sanctuary’ in Mount St Joseph. Among its graduates who entered the
Presentation Brothers were Brothers Albinus O’Donnell, Thaddeus O’Donnell, Columba
O’Donnell, Aengus McAuliffe, Ailbe O’Connor and many others. These students
prepared first for the le Preparatory Grade (until it was abolished in 1913)
and then went on to prepare for the Queen’s Scholarship. Most of the
above-mentioned went on to Teacher Training College.
In 1883
state aid was first granted to the denominational Teacher Training Colleges.
This induced several teaching Religious Congregations to set up Catholic
Training Colleges, such as the Christian Brothers (Marino), Mercy Sisters
(Limerick, Dingle, Carysfort), Dominican Sisters (Sion Hill), Ursulines (Lough
Gill, Co. Sligo), De La Salle Brothers (Waterford). The Presentation Brothers
also established a Teacher Training College at Mount St Joseph in 1904, but
they soon found that the small number of candidates from their own Congregation
did not justify the financial outlay required. The first Principal was Brother
Stanislaus Kenneally, who was succeeded by Brother De Sales Mehigan. The staff
included some teachers from ‘Pres’ (such as Mr Malone), who, during this
period, acted as tutors for students doing the BA degree with the Royal
University. It will be recalled that, during its existence (1882-1908), before
the National University was established in 1908, the Royal University acted as
a degree granting institution only.[23]
It should
be noted that some of the older Brothers never got the opportunity to attend
Teacher Training College. Certification by means of the King’s Scholarship was,
however, recognised as meeting the minimum training requirements, even for the
post of Principal. And, as noted above, some of the greatest scholars and
teachers among the older Presentation Brothers, including Paul Townsend,
Vincent O’Connor, Ignatius Connolly (Principal of ‘Pres’ 1892-1931), Peter
Curtin and Patrick Shine, first Principal of ‘Pres’, never attended Teacher
Training College. [24]
O’Faolain’s picture of the
‘Lancs’
No discussion of the history of the Lancs
would be complete without a consideration of what Sean O’Faolain had to say
about it. O’Faolain, then living in No.4, Mardyke Place (formerly on the site
now occupied by UCC’s Granary Theatre), was enrolled in the Lancs at the age of
five on 6 March, 1905. The great writer was then known as John (Jack) Whelan
and one of his teachers was the young Brother Albertus Reen (1889-1990). Later
the Whelan family moved to Half Moon Street, but Sean’s address in the Lancs
Roll Book on the day he was enrolled was No. 4 Mardyke Place, Cork. When
reading what O’Faolain had to say about the Lancs, it must always be borne in
mind that one of his greatest talents as a writer was his ability to spot and
write at length on the weaknesses of people and institutions. This is not to
say that he was not able to capture the essence of a situation, but, rather,
that his preoccupation with the sordid sometimes led him to overlook more
sterling qualities. His biographer, Harmon, says that Sean’s portraits of his
youth were ‘fictionalised to give the impression of truth’.[25]
He could also be cruel and embarrassing. Thus, he spied out crudities in his
own mother’s behaviour and wrote embarrassingly about them. [26]
O’Faolain’s
experience of the ‘Lancs’ was, on the whole, happy. He could only recall two
objectionable teachers in the course of his six or seven years. The Lancs, he
wrote, reminded him of Lowood School in Jane Eyre
…because, in spite of the cold, the dirt, the smells, the poverty and the
vermin, we managed to create inside this crumbling old building a lovely,
happy, faery world. And when I say ‘we’ I mean the Brothers and ourselves,
because the Brothers were brothers to us, and I think we sincerely loved them.
After all, they were not much more than boys as themselves, country lads with
buttermilk complexions, hats so much too big for their heads that if Providence
had not supplied them with his ears to keep them up they would have extinguished
their faces; ...They had nothing at all of the keep-the-boy-in-his-place
attitude that I became familiar with later on in my secondary school.[27]
O’Faolain is also emphatic
about the sound elementary education provided in the Lancs. He wrote:
Do not, however, begin to imagine that we
learned nothing useful in our old tumbledown Lancs. They ground the three r’s
into us, unforgettably - reading, ‘riting and ‘rithmetic. They gave us a
solid basis for whatever we might later wish to build. Before we finished, or
as we used to say were ‘out of books’, we had learned fractions, proportion,
compound interest, the nature of stocks and shares, of bills of exchange, of
discount. We were introduced to the rudiments of physics and chemistry - very
simply but none the less impressively (even if the painters’ blowlamp did burst
the retort); the nature of oxygen, why a teapot handle has an inset of
non-conducting material, that metal expands when heated, the lever, the law of
Archimedes and so on. Above all (even if it was done by Sloppy Dan with the
black strap) a thorough knowledge of parsing, grammar and analysis.[28]
Actual Lancs Building
A former teacher at the Lancs, Joseph A
Conroy, describes the buildings as he observed them in 1879: These schools were
one-storey buildings, divided into large rooms by glass partitions, so that a
Brother in one room could see into all the rooms. The ceilings were very high,
with an abundance of air and light, all well adapted for school purposes. The
schools were well furnished, and the national government supplied the cost of
maps, pictures etc., making it a comparatively easy matter to equip a
school.... No religious pictures, or anything sectarian were allowed and very
reasonably so - because the schools were un-denominational, and it would never
do to offend either a Hebrew or a Presbyterian if they cared to attend the
schools. However, if such pictures were the work of any of the pupils they were
not objected to...[29]
Brother Albertus Reen, who
taught there 1905-1909, describes the Lancs building as follows:
The old building, a capacious unit
excellently lighted, with two low wooden buildings on either side, each capable
of holding one class. The main structure had two very large rooms with at least
three classes in each - the day of separate rooms for each grade had not yet
arrived... The low side buildings of which I speak were neatly described by the
Cork boys as ‘sheds’ - ‘The ball is up on the shed, sir!”[30]
O’Faolain also describes
the physical set-up in the ‘Lancs’.
The school was composed mainly of two
enormous rooms. The bigger of these two rooms, to my childish eyes as big as a
cathedral, was, like the nave of a church, lighted by clerestories high up on
either side, that is, long lines of glass, that is, bits and patches of glass,
and under these clerestories the various classes would ‘toe the line’ about horseshoes
chalked on the floor. The centre of this main hall was occupied by lines of
desks, like benches in a chapel. Every second boy did literally toe the line:
he was barefooted, with the mud of the streets dying between his frozen toes,
zoomorphic tracery on his shins from sitting in the ashes of his laneway home.[31]
Though to
O’Faolain (in hindsight, sixty years later), the Lancs building and equipment
seemed to be primitive and shoddy, it undoubtedly did not so appear to all who
passed through it. Conroy, writing about the building in the first decade of
the twentieth century, considered the building, furniture and equipment to be
the equal of any other school at the time, and this on either side of the
Atlantic, since he was writing from Philadelphia. He wrote, ‘I can still see
that the Brothers’ schools thirty years ago were in equipment equal to any I
have ever met or heard of since’.[32]
Move to St Joseph’s School
As time moved, on it became evident that the Lancs would need to move to a new
building in a new location. Fortunately, sometime previous to this, the
Presentation Brothers had managed to purchase land across the road from the old
‘Pres’ building (part of this land is now the site of the present ‘Pres’). The
western section of this strip of land was chosen as the site of a new school,
subsequently called St Joseph’s National School, Mardyke. The new building was
completed in 1913 and, on one historic day in the month of September, the Lancs
moved into its new home.
The late
Mr John J. Kearney (1906-1982, father of Mrs Margaret Murphy, former executive
secretary at the Presentation Generalate, Mount St Joseph), used to recall the
day the ‘translation’ occurred. The operation was a model of organisation and
order. Every pupil in the school, in addition to his own books, helped
transport some object of furniture or equipment, the older boys, carrying the
desks, and tables, the younger ones transporting smaller items of equipment.
The pupils walked in orderly fashion up the Western Road, then into the Mardyke
and deposited the items as directed in the new school. Next day the classes
operated smoothly in their new surroundings and the old Lancs was no more.
Subsequently, this building was reconstructed and became part of the Lee Boot
Factory and is now incorporated into the present Square Deal furniture store.
The late Brother Albertus Reen, however, was emphatic that the five-foot high
facade at the bottom of the existing building is part of the original Lancs
structure.[33]
The move to St Joseph’s
Mardyke was also noted by O’Faolain:
(The Lancs) has been replaced, a little out
of town, by a fine modern school, all tiles and hardwood floors, and it is
beside fields, and below it there are trees through which one sees the flowing
river with cows chewing the cud in other fields beyond. In our old place there
were just a few ragged trees growing out of gravel, and not one blade of grass.[34]
Appendix: List of
Principals, Lancasterian School
1827-1848: Michael A Riordan
1848-1870: Paul Townsend
1870-1874: Austin Shanahan
1874-1889: Joseph O’Callaghan
1889-1891: Ignatius Connolly
1891-1894:
1894-Jan 05: De Sales Mehigan
Jan 05-1913: Declan O’Sullivan (closure & transfer to St Joseph’s, Mardyke)
Endnotes
[1] This article first
appeared in Presentation Studies, No. 16, June 2006, 1-14.
[2] Queenan,
Brother Austin, 1945, ‘The Presentation Brothers: Educational Aims and Achievements,
Part I, Chapter One.’ Timthire na Toirbirte. Cork: Presentation
Brothers, 35.
[3] Ibid.
[4]
Carleton, William, 1830, reprinted 1979, Traits and Stories of the Irish
Peasantry.
2 Vols. Dublin: Curry; Reprinted, New York: Garland, 1979, 231.
[5] Feheney,
JM (ed.), 1996, ‘Edmund Rice and the Presentation Brothers’. A Time
of Grace- School Memories. Edmund Rice and the Presentation Tradition of
Education. Dublin: Veritas, 20.
[6] Allen,
DH, 1993, The Presentation Brothers, Vol.1: Under the Authority of
the Bishops, 1802-1889. Cork: Presentation Brothers, 73.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Feheney
, JM, 2013, Presentation Brothers. Concise Biographies. Cork: Iverus
Publications, passim.
[9]
Coolahan, John, 2004, Irish Education. History and Structure. Dublin:
Institute of Public Administration, 20
[10] Allen, op.cit.,
145)
[11] Mehigan,
Br De Sales (ed.), Presentation Record, 1916-21. Cork: Presentation
Brothers, No. 16, 2.
[12] Ibid.,
No. 16, Oct., 1919.
[13]
O’Connor, Br Luke (ed.), 1998, ‘Letters of Brother Augustine Ryan’,
Presentation Brothers Archives, Mount St Joseph, Cork, 29).
[14] Cork
Examiner 1887, cutting in Presentation Brothers Archives, Mount St Joseph,
Cork.
[15] Conroy,
Joseph A, 1905, ‘With the Monks’, reproduced in Presentation Studies,
No.6, July, 1989. Originally published in Baltimore, USA, 1905, 36.
[16]
Anonymous, 1945, ‘Brother Eugene Ignatius Connolly LLD, Timtire na
Toirbirte, 1945, 90)
[17] Ibid.
[18]
Coolahan, op. cit., 67.
[19] Ibid.,
68.
[20] Reen, P
Albertus, 1982, ‘Reflections of a Nonagenarian’. Presentation Studies, September,
1982, No. 2,
13.
[21]
‘Examination of Pupil Teachers’, 1875, Diocese of Beverley, England.
[22] Reen, op.cit.
[23] Feheney,
JM, 2009, ‘A Novitiate and Training School at Mount St Joseph: Notes from the
Annals’. Presentation Studies, No. 19, 2009, 40-51.
[24] Feheney
, 2013, op. cit., passim.
[25] Harmon,
Maurice, 1994, Sean O’Faolain, A Life. London: Constable, 22.
[26] Ibid.,
37.
[27] Ibid.,
39.
[28] Ibid.,
42.
[29] Conroy, op.
cit., 32.
[30] Reen, op.cit.
[31]
O’Faolain, op. cit., 36.
[32] Conroy, op.
cit., 32).
[33] Reen, op.cit.
[34] O’Faolain, op. cit., 44