A new exhibit at the Nore Folk Museum is expected to provoke considerable local interest....and will take people of all ages down memory lane to the best (or maybe not so happy) years of their lives.

Curator Seamus Lawlor has acquired the roll book of Danesfort National School covering the years 1913 to 1920. It is in excellent condition, having been lovingly preserved for decades by the O’ Shea family in Danesfort, who have now kindly donated it to the museum.

The school itself was a two room building located beside Saint Michael’s Church in the village. It was built in 1836 and continued to meet the educational needs of the district until its closure in 1988, when the present school replaced it following a brilliantly organised and well supported community fund raising initiative.

Seamus showed me the pages of the roll book, where appear the names of local children, all of whom, he remarked sadly, have since passed to their eternal reward. Included among the entries    are Seamus’s own parents, James Lawlor and Bridget Corcoran.  The attendance records for all the children recorded, as well as other information and comments pencilled in by the teachers are clearly legible. Also listed are the teachers of the period: Annie Wall and Brigid M. Hogan.

Seamus expects a flood of inquiries about the roll book once it goes on public display at the museum from this week. 

 He explained: “The descendents of the people who attended the school and whose names appear in the roll book can be found not just in the Dansfort area, but naturally, all over Ireland and beyond our shores because of course a percentage of the school-goers or their offspring would have emigrated. I plan to have information on the roll book publicised on the internet with this in mind.

“This is a precious resource. Each name recorded is a treasure, a human being who once trod this earth and walked miles through hail rain and snow, in all seasons, in many cases barefoot, to avail of an education that in those days was never taken for granted. The period covered...1913 to 1920, was a tumultuous one in Ireland. It took in World War One, the 1916 rising, and the war of independence.

“The parents of the children who attended Danesfort national school would have been affected to a greater or lesser extent by those national upheavals. The children’s lives, though, would have been dominated by their daily trek to the school and their learning experience.

“And learning didn’t come easy to those good people. Corporal punishment was in vogue back then and it hung like a cloud over any boy or girl who arrived late for school or fell behind in class. The rod was applied liberally and none of the children ever forgot the sting of it in later years. Thankfully, they all benefited from their lessons and went on to become the backbone of the thriving Danesfort community.  People are invited to view the roll book at the museum.

 

Seamus showing an old writing slate that was once used in classroms all over Ireland.