The descriptions of these schools range from
excessively eulogistic to suggesting that they
were places of squalor and educational anarchy
(Daly 1979). Initially, reflecting their
collective name, ‘classes’ were held in remote
hedgerows. As a result, classes were mostly
held during the fine weather of summer. The
prevailing economic circumstances also
emphasised summer teaching, and it should be
noted that any wages earned by children from
casual or other work would have been an
important part of the average family budget.
Individual and contemporary accounts leave us
with evidence regarding these hedge schools,
of which a select few will be reviewed here.
Thus, Mason (1814: 472) informs us that the
children of the parish of Killesk (County
Wexford) attended “hedge-schools all the
summer until harvest” and subsequently (in
relation to County Clare) that “the employment
of the children interferes very much with their
education, as they are constantly occupied in
agriculture and the fisheries, or in saving turf,
and leading the horses that draw it to the shores
of the river”. Subsequently, he notes that in
Killegny (County Wexford) a local school “had
100 pupils during the summer but only 8 or 10
during winter” (Mason 1816: 465/467).
However, during the winter a landlord or
farmer might provide a barn in which the
schoolmaster could teach his classes (Ó
Tuathaigh 1972). Alternatively, Hislop (1987)
points out that more often than not the pupils
assembled in the simple residence of the
master or, if he were itinerant, of a family.
Therefore, it is not surprising that Carleton
(1896) mentions that pupils often brought two
sods of turf for the fire to keep the school
heated throughout the winter.
The hedge (or pay) schools were totally
independent of any kind of authority other than
market forces and the influence and ire of the
parents (Adams 1998). Hedge school teachers
received some payment but this varied from
school to school and parish to parish, and the
fees paid by each pupil usually amounted to
one or two shillings per quarter per subject.
Wakefield (1812: 399) indicates that prices for
teaching subjects had been fixed for a number
of years, and “custom has so firmly established
it in the minds of the parents, that any attempt
to raise it would be probably accompanied with
the withdrawing of the pupil from the school”.
Thus, it was inevitable that the financial
situation of these hedge schoolmasters was
precarious, to say the least. Mason (1816: 374)
indicates that many of the hedge schoolmasters
“do not earn sixpence per day” (which was
often not paid) so that they subsisted by “going
with some of the children daily or weekly,
where they get their food or bread”. Thus,
hedge schoolmasters often depended on the
hospitality of local families for food and
shelter, and earned extra income by working on
farms or giving private tuition to the children
of the house they were staying in (Dowling
1968).
The number of pupils at a master’s school
was largely dependant on his reputation as a
teacher but it should be acknowledged that
single schoolmaster schools lacked variety and
dependability. Mason (1814: 158) colourfully
remarks that in one particular parish, the only
qualification (for a schoolmaster) was “the
capability of drinking whiskey and sharing it
with the electors; and whoever entertains the
best, and drinks deepest is sure of gaining his
election”. It is inevitable that conflicting
assessments are provided for these hedge
schoolmasters, who were “generally
considered a clever, irregular, eccentric person,
not always of very correct habits, and very
often the author and ringleader of mischief in
the parish” (Select Committee, 1854: 984).
Nevertheless, overall pupil attendance at these
schools was significant. The Commissioners
of Irish Education Inquiry (1826) revealed that
in 1824 a total of 560,549 children attended
places of education, with the majority (70%) of
pupils (394,732) attending hedge schools. This
is a very significant number of pupils,
especially when one considers that attendance
at hedge schools for most pupils would be their
only form of education