Page 266 - Demo

266 Stephen Dunford: The Journey of The IrIsh
a long period our ancient music has been kept alive, there remained but few to con-
tinue the precious tradition...” Thomas Moore
The imposition and enforcement of the dreadful Penal Laws ‘under which Ireland long groaned,’ as one contemporary writer put it, placed all political power and social influence in Ireland during the eighteenth century, in the hands of the Protestant minority. From 1692 until 1800, the Irish Parliament was an exclusively Protestant assembly; while from 1727 to 1793 Catholics were unable to vote at elections of any kind. Socially the Catholics were reduced to the position of ‘hewers of wood and drawers of water.’
The following statement by Lecky, whom we referenced earlier, expertly sums up the merciless spirit of the Penal Laws:
“They were intended to make the Irish poor and to keep them poor, to crush in them every germ of enterprise, and degrade them into a servile race who could never hope
to rise to the level of their oppressor.”
Yet, despite the imposition of such dreadful measures, the great Irish love of and quest
for knowledge and education persevered, and amongst those who were unable to send their children abroad to be educated, the outlawed and hunted school-master was cherished and hidden. These itinerant, solitary scholars, more often than not taught their classes behind hedges in isolated mountain glens, or other remote and equally out-of-the way places, and during lessons each pupil in turn would act as lookout on a nearby hill-top to watch for the approach of the military. As a result, the pursued schoolmasters became known in the vernacular as “Hedge or Ditch Schoolmasters” and their desolate academies as “Hedge or Ditch Schools.” Despite this unorthodox method of education, a high standard of learning was available in these secluded rustic institutions and both Latin and Greek were frequently on the curriculum-in fact Latin was widely and fluently spoken by many poor country peo- ple in those fearful days. Dr. Alexander Ross, Protestant rector of Dungiven, in county Derry left us this vintage sound-bite:
“Even in the wildest districts, it is not unusual to meet with good classical schol- ars; and there are several young mountaineers of the writer’s acquaintance, whose knowledge and taste in the Latin poets might put to the blush many who have all the advantages of established schools and regular instruction”.
Its known that several of these “Hedge Schoolmasters” also taught English and while
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