History, Memories and Life Stories of Secondary School Education in Ireland, 1922–1962: An Overview

Abstract

By way of opening to this concluding chapter, a number of qualifying points regarding what has been offered in the book so far need to be restated. First, most of the accounts by individuals on their secondary schooling relate to the years immediately prior to the introduction of the free-education scheme; while throwing up great challenges in terms of obtaining participant participation and quality of responses, it would be interesting to produce a similar body of accounts in relation to a large number of those who went to secondary school in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. It is also recognized that others might favour the use of a different category of secondary schools to that used to frame the accounts in this book, and might also wish to pay attention to a range of additional schools, including the one Jewish school in the country during the period, the ‘secondary tops’ and the secondary schools established in the Gaeltacht, as well as a small number of schools that were completely private in the sense that they received no financial assistance whatsoever from the State.