Inspecting a Doomed Non-Denominational School System: The Inspectorate of the Kildare Place Society in Ireland, 1811–1831

Abstract

The Kildare Place Society was a non-denominational educational society founded in Dublin in 1811. Unlike earlier official attempts to proselytise Irish Catholics, the Society attempted to unite Catholics and Protestants in monitorial-style schools. From 1816, substantial government grants enabled it to establish the key working features of a national educational scheme yet the goal of a religiously mixed system eluded the Society.One of the innovative aspects of the system was its efficient inspectorate which for the first time in Ireland allowed a body such as the Society's Committee to manage its school system. This paper examines how the inspectorate was able to chart the failure of the Kildare Place experiment in non-denominational education: at least some of the inspectors reported on how entrenched denominational interests overwhelmed the attempt to create a religiously mixed system, how the principles and scripture reading rules of the Society were never going to be an acceptable compromise in Ireland and how the system needed to change if it was to survive. The reaction of the Society's Committee to these unwelcome revelations and its ultimate failure to rise to the challenge presented by them is examined, as are the major implications the episode had for the founding and shaping of the Irish National School System of 1831.