‘Schooling the National Orphans’: the Education of the Children of the Easter Rising Leaders

This essay explores the educational history of the children of the 1916 Easter Rising leadership in Ireland. These children of the martyred revolutionary elite were the prototypical new citizens; as such, they merited an education worthy of the sons and daughters of the Rising leaders, the founding fathers of the new state. An examination of their schooling both before and after the Rising illuminates the very broad range of educational experiences evident in Ireland in the early twentieth century, from elite secondary schools to the truncated education of the working classes, along with the question of female education, the prevalence of religious orders, and the embedding of republican ideals into education. It also reveals the highly variegated class profile of the Rising leadership, which continued to shape the lives of their children thereafter and which was only partly alleviated by official welfare provision.