Prospectus of the School Year

Prospectus of the School Year

St. Edna School

1910-11

Padraic Pearse opened a boy’s elementary and secondary school in 1908, hoping to make it “distinctly Irish in complexion, bilingual in method, and of a high modern type generally.” Funding was limited, yet the main objective was “to help the child to be his own true and best self.” St. Enda’s School thrived, assisted by Pearse’s friend Thomas MacDonagh, members of his own family, and lecturers including W. B. Yeats, Douglas Hyde, Padraic Colum, and Eion MacNeill. St. Enda’s closed after Pearse’s execution in 1916 as leader of the Rising, although his mother later reopened it.