Hedge school

Hedge schools ( Irish: scoileanna chois ClaI ) originated in Ireland, where it was specifically prohibited in the 18th and 19th centuries to provide Catholic children education. Also speaking or teaching of the Irish language was prosecuted. For the measure of the British occupation forces, it was not just about the persecution of religion, it was mainly an attempt to discourage the people under occupation.

Hedge schools were mostly in remote, undisclosed from the English varieties. Popular locations were destroyed walls and field barns. Even in the shadow of a hedge or in ditches was held teaching. The "Hedge Schools" originated at the beginning of the 18th century as a result of the Penal Laws, according to which no person could be granted Catholic religion in public or private houses lessons. The British government promoted public schools, but the Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin, James Warren Doyle (1786-1834), and with him the majority of the Catholic population refused to use them. The state schools were clearly there to convert the people to a anglicized Ireland. Even in 1825 the slogan was spread that the Irish children should be instructed in the English language and the basic principles of true religion. At this time, over 400,000 children have already visited hedge schools. 1832, the Penal Laws were repealed and the hedge schools disappeared in the sequence.

The language of instruction was the Irish. Hedge schools were the only way to learn without indoctrination of the occupiers reading, writing and arithmetic. Irish who could afford to pay the school fee, sent their children to the hedge schools. Here also the laws of the Irish Brehon Laws, as well as Irish history, music and tradition have been. Some schools taught at a higher level than the public schools, and mediated, for example, Ovid and Virgil in Latin. Some schools even had names. In the " Moate Lane School " was Edmund Ignatius Rice (1762-1844), founder of the Irish Christian Brothers, his education. He founded, as well as Nano Nagle (1718-1784) hedge schools for destitute Irish.