Distribution of Irish Speakers, 1851 The map shows clearly how Irish speakers were mostly found in the more remote western regions after the Famine. In Ulster, only west ...
Census Figures on Illiteracy Roughly half of Ireland’s population could read and write. With most people living in rural areas and engaged in farming there was ...
Printing Press This Columbian printing press was built in 1844. It was hand operated and used in the printing of newspapers. The rising demand for ...
Chap Book Chap books were cheap little books popular among the poorer classes.
National Schools National schools were opened from the 1830s. They had teachers trained by the Commissioners of National Education who also produced ...
National School Reading Book Most people learned to write in the national schools. This was a child’s reading book used in many of the national schools. As you can ...
The Nation The Nation was launched in 1842. The inspiration behind the paper was Thomas Davis and he contributed many of the articles in this ...
Reading Room The Nation claimed a readership of 250,000 mainly because it was free in the reading rooms that had been established in many towns. ...
Decline of Irish The charts mark the sharp decline of Irish speakers in the first half of the 19th century. The impact of the Famine was very ...
Anti-Repeal Address This is a copy of Lord Castlereagh’s anti-repeal address issued in Co. Down in May 1831. The poster used difficult words such as ...
