Marching Forwards or Backwards? Physical Education and the Army in Early Twentieth-Century Ireland

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This article examines systems of physical education implemented in Ireland in the period 1890-1939, their origins and underlying messages. The systems used to train children’s bodies were not ideologically neutral but reflected wider societal ideals surrounding health, fitness, warfare and modernity. There is a particular focus on the first decade of the twentieth century when systems of military drill based on British Army practice were brought into Irish classrooms, and also on the 1930s, when the Irish Free State Army and some Irish schools, briefly trialled the Sokol System of Physical Culture from Czechoslovakia. While the motivations for introducing these programmes reflected changed circumstances, the underlying messages spoke to much greater continuities. There is a particular emphasis on the symbolic function of physical education in Ireland in the four decades spanning independence and partition. It was seen as a means of protecting the nation’s health, improving children’s intelligence and as a defence against undesirable aspects of social change.