hedge schools

hedge schools (pay schools) were so designated because, especially in the early 18th century, when the prohibition against Catholic schools and teachers was stringently enforced (see penal laws), the masters taught their pupils clandestinely in makeshift classrooms, sometimes consisting of little more than the shelter of a hedge or barn. The name continued in use even when a hut or the home of a pupil was a more usual location. Though by no means restricted to Catholic pupils, especially in the Presbyterian north, hedge schools were particularly identified with the Catholic population. Official figures suggest that in the 1820s between 300,000 and 400,000 children attended, the number of schools rising to 9,000 by 1824.

The masters, usually self‐taught or former hedge scholars themselves (contemporaries give contrasting accounts of teachers of academic distinction, and of others who were subversive, intemperate, and brutal), were often itinerant, setting up school in a cottage or lodging with a family in return for teaching the children. Other parents paid a modest fee in coin or in kind. Attendance was erratic.

The curriculum was generally in English and comprised the customary three Rs, though there were masters who had some competence in classics and modern languages. Such books as were used were often simply what lay to hand, e.g. religious literature or novels. Children were taught individually, though William Carleton, himself a hedge school pupil and teacher, claimed that a system close to the monitorial was quite common by the early 19th century.

Kenneth Milne