LOCAL HISTORY:THE FRENCH, of course, have a phrase for it: "The more things change, the more they stay the same." Kildare Place: A History of the Church of Ireland Training College 1822–2010,by Susan M Parkes (CICE Publications, 256pp, €25 plus €2 postage from the library at Church of Ireland College of Education, Upper Rathmines Road, Dublin 6), and The Bicentenary Book,edited by Valerie Coghlan (CICE Publications, 136pp, €25), both illustrate this perfectly, with their picture of a society in a flux of change yet maintaining its status quo.
Those twin prongs of policy that often torment governments (the current one being no exception) are health and education. Both are high-spending departments, and both have the dangerous local links that can make or break a politician. These hazards are not so much in evidence in Kildare Place, but they are perhaps more visible in The Bicentenary Book.Both are works of substance, underlining the importance of their subject, and are full of useful information about education 200 years ago; Kildare Place, particularly, contains much information on the subject.
The tone of Kildare Placeis rather prescriptive, as befits a Victorian document. It is, for example, didactic about what items of clothing a young female student should bring to college with her, including: eight pairs of cuffs, four pairs of cooking sleeves, four nightdresses, four pairs of stockings, six chemises, six pairs of drawers, a dozen pocket handkerchiefs, two dresses, four coarse aprons, one toothbrush, one hairbrush, one nail brush and one clothes brush. And, under Hints to Students Seeking Admission, prospective students were warned about their attitude to life at college: "Avoid all negligence in your personal appearance. Let your manners be cheerful, sober and decorous. Remember that you are to be as lights set on a hill that cannot be hid; that you are expected to exemplify in your conduct all that you teach."
Because the college shared a roof with the model school, each set of students had to make allowances for the other. The model schools, where the trainees learned how to teach, were part of the college’s success, adopting the monitor system, whereby those who knew a little were allowed to teach those who knew less. The system ultimately brought about a revolution in teaching methods. This was the more notable as teacher training courses were extremely short – initially four to six weeks, extending later to eight weeks. The demand for teachers was such that these very short courses made it possible to turn out the necessary 150 to 200 teachers a year.
The Bicentenary Bookis an upbeat publication, lavishly illustrated with contemporary photographs, which looks at the 200 years of Kildare Place Society and Church of Ireland College of Education, charting the changes in education policy and their effects. As the principal, Dr Anne Lodge, writes in her introduction, the college has maintained close relationships with schools throughout the country, and she highlights how change continues to take place in education. For those with an interest in the subject these two books make for fascinating reading.
“Glory O! Glory O! To the Bold Fenian Men.” It’s quite a song, full of drama, and, like many Irish songs, it may make you wonder where it came from. It was the property of PJ McCall, who is the subject of Liam Gaul’s
Glory O, Glory O!
(the History Press, 223pp, €18). McCall also wrote
Boolavogue, Follow Me Up to Carlow
and
Kelly the Boy from Killann,
and made several collections of songs. He was born in 1861 and died in 1919, having collected many of the songs associated with his time. Liam Gaul’s book is much more than a biography of McCall; it is as much a history of music in Dublin at the time and, as such, is lively and well informed. Gaul treats each song with admiration and, helpfully, provides the lyrics to many and the musical annotations as well. Oddly, though he was obviously a colourful character, McCall never really emerges as such from the pages of the book. It is as if he has been somehow smothered by the writer’s admiration.
Lough Hyne: The Marine Researchers in Pictures,by Terri Kearney (Skibbereen Heritage Centre, 95pp, €18), is basically a pictorial record of research that has been going on at the west Cork lake since 1886 (which makes it one of the most studied sites of its size in the world). It's an evocative and often nostalgic collection of pictures of the researchers working in a magnificent landscape in summers when the sun always seemed to be shining. But unless you were yourself one of the researchers the effect is rather distant – like looking at someone else's photograph album.
A History of Bandon Co-op, published by the co-op and available free from it, is a handsomely designed 149-page book, by John Crowley, that begins with an erudite history of the co-op movement and then leads into a history of Bandon before getting down to the euro and cent of Bandon's operations. It's a useful book on both counts, even if you have no particular interest in the movement.
A survey by AA Ireland reported that 15.5 per cent of people from Cork claimed to have seen a ghost, more than in any other county in Ireland. Haunted Cork, by Darren Mann (the History Press, 98pp, €13. 50) is a nicely produced little book, with photographic illustrations, that runs to 96 pages of ghost stories, each one hung on a district or topic. They're largely unexplained – by far the best treatment of the supernatural – and include accounts of vanishing islands, the ghosts of shipwrecked sailors and the classic story behind the Blarney stone. These are engaging vignettes and ideal holiday reading.
Noeleen Dowling is a local historian
