Scoil Éanna and the Machine: Neoliberal Ideology and Educational Apparatuses

Essay
Written By Luke O’Conaráin

This article was originally published on Luke Ó’Conaráin’s Substack and is syndicated with the permission of the author.

Last week, as I walked the aisles of St Patrick’s library in Drumcondra, looking for the home of one book or another on the history of Irish education, something else caught my eye – The Murder Machine by Pádraig Pearse.

The Murder Machine is a pamphlet published in January 1916 that treats the situation of education in Ireland under British rule. I had read it before, though not with particular investment. However, now that I was implicated in the world of educationalism via my teaching studies, it carried a greater resonance.

I opened to a page in which Pearse was reckoning with the contemporary reality of education in Ireland and read:

“Our common parlance has become impressed with the conception of education as some sort of manufacturing process. Our children are the ‘raw material’; we desiderate for their education ‘modern methods’ which must be efficient but cheap; we send them to Clongowes to be ‘finished’; when finished they are ‘turned out’; specialists ‘grind’ them for the English Civil Service and the so-called liberal professions.”

I was impressed by Pearse's lucid, mechanical metaphors. More pertinently, however, I could not escape an aching sense that, despite over a hundred years having passed and a (supposed) replacement of state machinery, very little has changed in Irish educational ideology.

Nurturing Capital: The Rise of the ‘Talent Pipeline’

See the following advertisement – for what else could it be called – of Irish STEM graduates by IDA Ireland, no doubt directed towards foreign multinational industry giants:

“Ireland has a highly educated population that supports employment in knowledge-intensive and high-technology sectors. Skilled graduates fuel Ireland’s talent pipeline in science and technology.”

This represents the authentic, mask-off ideology that governs Irish education today, despite the windowdressing of government officials. There is no discernible difference – except in aesthetics – between The Murder Machine and – as was so poetically put by the IDA – the ‘talent pipeline’. Both scenarios regard the Irish people as nothing more than raw material to be shaped for and sold into the labour market.

In no ideal scenario should words with industrial connotations be used to describe the process by which we raise the minds of our young people, that is if one desires a fulfilling education for one’s children. However, this is where we stand concerning education – firmly under the boot of the neoliberal order, where only that which contributes to the needs of the ‘talent pipeline’ is valuable in the eyes of the ruling classes.

Ultimately, the attitude towards education in this country, and globally, it must be said, is one of viewing it as a mere means to an end. Schooling today is, first and foremost, a primer for the prospective wage labourer. At third level, we are quickly shifting to a ‘student as customer’ model, evidenced in part by the regular closures of humanities departments (and others deemed ‘unvaluable’) across the Western world. The traditional conception of university life as participating in a kind of ‘life of the mind’ has been largely diminished.

This should be of no surprise. The state apparatus is the product of the material relations and, therefore, the dominant ideology of the ruling class – the capitalist class. It is always important to note that the state, and power more broadly, does not exist as a thing in itself. It is always the product of economic ideology. French Marxist Louis Althusser posited a two-pronged conception of the state. Repressive state apparatuses (military, police, courts, prisons, etc) and the more pervasive ideological state apparatuses (education, culture, etc) operate in tandem to reproduce the status quo, but he writes that it is the latter:

“Which largely secures the reproduction, specifically of the relations of production, behind a ‘shield’ provided by the repressive State apparatus. It is here that the role of the ruling ideology is heavily concentrated, the ideology of the ruling class, which holds state power”.

The insights of Althusser are invaluable, especially in today’s world where the role of the repressive state apparatuses have, at least in the West, taken a back seat in favour of the more subtle and coercive ideological state apparatuses. Institutions such as the education system must be recognised as possessing a certain ideological ontology. Foucault writes:

“The real political task in a society such as ours is to criticize the workings of institutions that appear to be both neutral and independent, to criticize and attack them in such a manner that the political violence that has always exercised itself obscurely through them will be unmasked, so that one can fight against them.”

It can be demoralising to realise that Ireland's education system and other superstructural systems exist in the form they do owing to the economic constitution on which they depend. Indeed, Ireland cannot be truly renewed except through the eventual progression into post-capitalism, but, according to Althusser, education and other ISAs that exist as a result of the base may well prove to be a pivotal site of class struggle — see: Althusser. Furthermore, it brings great optimism to imagine revolution as immanent, the materials for which being contained in the very relations of production that constitute the present society. However, as revolutionary science is not the subject of this essay, I shall not explore it further.

Experimental Pedagogies: Reflections on Scoil Éanna

“[St. Enda’s] will be a nursery of character, intellect, patriotism and virtue, which may eventually exert a benign influence on the private and public life of our country.” — Editorial by John Henry, An Claidheamh Soluis, 12 September 1908)

Pearse was a dedicated educationalist, and his writings would be useful for addressing this issue. However, his tangible experience, through establishing a school in Rathfarnham – Scoil Éanna (St. Enda’s) – is more valuable in presenting a potential model for any prospective post-capitalist education system.

An examination of that experiment is in order, but first, it is essential to place Pearse’s thinking in context. All that Pearse put his hand to – from his teaching at Scoil Éanna, to his work with An Claidheamh Soluis, and, ultimately, to his artistic epilogue at the General Post Office – was entirely imbued with an unwavering belief that there is more to the human experience than that which is ‘rational’. The Easter Rising is the episode of particular fascination – an insurrection doomed to fail, completely outgunned and outmanned, and bound to be wiped out by the mighty empire. Fail it did, but only in materiality, in the ‘rational’ sense. However, in the imaginal realm, it was a different story; it was the seed of the coming deluge.

None of this was lost on Pearse. Material, short-term success was relegated in the face of the sheer idealistic quality of the event. To view the Genesis of the Irish struggle through a strictly enlightened lens would be a thoroughly British trait:

“Patrick Pearse’s unique contribution to Irish political history was his expression of the ‘’mythic’’ ideas that served as the moral basis of physical-force nationalism… Pearse believed that the Easter Rising was a blow struck for freedom but also a revolt against the materialistic, rationalistic and all-too-modern world represented by England.” — (Moran, p. 182 + 191)

Pearse was unconcerned with the immediately prudent. This is, likewise, easily visible in his intentions with St. Enda’s. Financially, the project was precarious, to say the least, though Pearse was, expectedly, undeterred by this, and the school was opened in Cullenswood House, Ranelagh in September 1908. Two years later, enticed by a more holistic, environmental setting and a connection to the martyrs of the past he moved the school to The Hermitage in Rathfarnham, a more rural setting, where Robert Emmet had supposedly spent time.

Principally, the school was to serve as an alternative to the restrictive, middle-class colleges of the day which:

“operated as training grounds for service to the empire or were seminaries or ecclesiastical colleges unreservedly loyal to the crown.” — (Sassoon, p.34)

Scoil Éanna’s was to be the antidote to that kind of education. We can see already that the school had higher, more profound aspirations. Politically, the school was unapologetically nationalist, and many of the students who passed through it would go on to play important roles in the physical and intellectual struggle to liberate Ireland.

More generally, however, the school was holistic in outlook, with the

“object of providing an elementary and secondary education distinctly Irish in complexion, bilingual in method, and of a high modern type generally, for Irish Catholic boys.” — (Prospectus, 1908-09)

Gaeilge was to be the everyday language of the school. It was to be taught using An Modh Díreach, a direct method, a visual conception of language teaching inspired by examples of modern language instruction Pearse had witnessed in mainland Europe.

William Pearse, Pádraig’s brother, was an essential figure at St. Enda’s. Indeed, when Pádraig became more involved in revolutionary politics in the 1910s, much of the day-to-day running of the school fell to William. He was the art teacher, and because the arts, particularly drama, were most encouraged at the school, he was responsible for staging several high profile performances of plays such as An Naomh ar Iarraidh by Douglas Hyde and The Coming of Fionn by Standish O’Grady which were attended by some of the most renowned figures of the Gaelic Revivalist intelligentsia of the day including Stephen Gwynn, Eoin MacNeill, and Count and Countess Markievicz.

Scoil Éanna boasted an impressive curriculum, recognisably Gaelic in character but decidedly liberal in the truest form of the word. Pearse and staff drew from any cultural sources that they saw fit. Modern languages other than Gaeilge – French, German, Spanish and Italian were all on offer. The ancient Gaelic sensibilities of the project were masterfully synthesised with a maturing modernity to curate the richest possible educational experience. The notion of excluding ‘foreign influence’ from school life was firmly reprimanded by Pearse. It was to be taken as an indisputable fact that the school would be characteristically Irish while also embracing other contributory strains of educational thought:

“What I mean by an Irish school is a school that takes Ireland for granted… You need not denounce English games – play Irish ones. You need not ignore foreign history, foreign literatures – deal with them from an Irish point of view… Secondary education in these days surely implies the adding of some new culture, that is, of some new language with its literature, to the culture enshrined in the mother tongue.” — (Prospectus, 1908-09)

In the spirit of high modernity, an emphasis on the sciences and practical study was included alongside the more classical disciplines of literature and philosophy. The school offered botany, zoology, geology and more vocational subjects such as typewriting, shorthand and book-keeping. On the sports field, physical education, most notably the GAA, was encouraged to instill both a love of ancient athletic culture and to celebrate ‘bodily vigour, grace, and cleanliness’.

To say that the project at St. Enda’s excited the Gaelic Revivalist movement of the time is an understatement. At the beginning of its existence, renowned members of Irish intellectual life were keen to witness the formation at work, such as Douglas Hyde and Maude Gonne, who both gave lectures at the school. Officially, Pearse instated a programme whereby experts in their respective fields would come to lecture to the students during school holidays on topics including philosophy, phonetics, medieval history, archaeology and Egyptology, to name just a few. The translator of The Táin, Margaret Hutton, addressed the students, as did Standish O’Grady and WB Yeats.

The visiting lecturers were, no doubt, highly decorated, but the staff of the school were also very well-renowned. Many of the teachers at St. Enda’s had come from what Pearse saw as the best of the aforementioned middle-class secondary schools, such as Rockwell College and Blackrock College, and others from seminaries and universities. Thomas McDonnell had been a professor in both the Connacht and Leinster colleges of Irish, while T.P. Nolan had lectured in classics at UCD and St. Patrick’s College Maynooth. Thomas MacDonagh, who taught French, had his play When the Dawn is Come staged in the Abbey Theatre in the first year, which left the students reportedly ‘yearning for rifles’. William Pearse, already mentioned, had been trained at the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art, studying under Oliver Sheppard.

A clear profile of the staff therefore emerges. The standard expected of an individual worthy of educating the students of St. Enda’s could only be described as exceptional. The profile of educators today generally falls flat in comparison. ‘Good teachers’ now are those who get good exam results. A good teacher gives good notes and is a good reviser, not too dissimilar to the archetypal educator that proliferated with the payment by results system of the mid to late nineteenth century. Again, we cannot seem to help ourselves when it comes to mirroring the sterile approaches of our colonial oppressors.

At St. Enda’s, a teacher was expected to be someone worth listening to – someone with true wisdom to impart. The ideal educator was modeled on the poet-academic of Gaelic Ireland, An t-Ollamh, a figure of both intellect and insight. This vision feels almost foreign in the modern era, where the teaching profession faces increasing deprofessionalisation, and the standards for entry, in terms of academic excellence, continue to decline.

Of course, this is an expected consequence of a system that must produce enough teachers to staff over four thousand schools. With the ever-growing number of schools and the relentless push to accommodate every type of learner – a philosophy that inevitably lowers intellectual standards to the lowest common denominator – it follows that teachers must be produced en masse to meet demand. As a result, a troubling number of wholly incompetent and apathetic educators have entered the profession. But this is the reality of an education system that has transformed the school into a factory.

Myths from the Hermitage: Moving Forward with the Past

Life at St. Enda’s carried within it a particular telos, an ideal, virtuous, and sacrificial constitution. All students were instilled with a yearning for liberation, which could only be satiated by victory or death in the striving for it. Figures such as Fionn Mac Cúmhail and Cú Chulainn were presented as models. In 1909, to celebrate the end of the first year of schooling, Pearse wrote a pageant about Cú Chulainn– Mac-Ghniomharta Cúchulainn (‘The Boy-deeds of Cúchulainn’), hoping that it

“would crown our first year’s work with something worthy and symbolic; anxious to send our boys home with the knightly image of Cuchulainn in their hearts and his knightly words ringing in their ears. They will leave St. Enda’s under the spell of the magic of their most beloved hero, the Macaomh who is after all the greatest figure in the epic of their country, indeed as I think the greatest epic of the world.”

The boys at Scoil Éanna had big boots to fill! Such was the attitude that governed teaching and learning at the school, an attitude of excellence and heroism. It seems obvious that today, our schools are certainly not operating towards any particular ideal, certainly nothing to the extent of emulating the mythic heroes of the past.

Of course, Scoil Éanna opened on the eve of war. For Pearse, it was imperative that the boys who would become the men to free Ireland be instilled with an enormous self-sustaining fighting will. In 1916, the enemy was clear. Its alien flag flew over Dublin Castle, and its soldiers marched up and down the streets. In 2025 – in post-modernity – the ideological lines have been intentionally blurred. Those who are quite illuminated to the universal enemy of the world are in the minority. It does not help that capitalism is, in many ways, an abstraction. It manifests itself in innumerable forms, and for the intellects of many, it never presents itself at all.

However, credit must be given where credit is due. There are many individuals working today in the Department of Education, the NCCA, and the education and policy departments of our universities who are doing outstanding theoretical work in an effort to revitalise the field. Furthermore, there are intelligent and dedicated teachers and principals across the country who are moving mountains in the service of their students. But it is a rudderless ship. The ideas of those who would lead us out of this dark tunnel are seldom adopted by the school system, and when they are, a sobering reality often presents itself – that the holistic, child-centred ideas of the academy are no match for the dominant ideology of the state machinery and the demands of the capitalist market. We should not be surprised that our schools are not operating towards some noble end.

In conclusion, Education is to be understood as an end in itself. It is ongoing, formative and operates in the service of nurturing the development of a well-rounded, intelligent, and confident individual. Any attempts to subjugate it to the terminal demands of external entities must be frustrated at every turn. Education, superstructural as it may be, is a battleground to be fought on, and fight on it we must.

Works Cited

Luke O’Conaráin
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