School: Multyfarnham (roll number 2405)
- Location:
- Multyfarnham, Co. Westmeath
- Teacher: Mícheál Ó Tiomáin
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0738, Page 279
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- The Penal days
The Penal Laws prevented Catholics from holding any position in the service of the State, in the army, the law, the courts, or the town corporations. Catholics were forbidden to have schools or schoolmasters, or to carry arms. It was thus hoped to make the Irish ignorant, poor and unable to assert their rights.
The law compelled Catholics to pay dues to the Protestant clergy. The Penal laws were in full force for nearly a hundred years. Many of them were abolished in 1792, though Catholic Emancipation did not come in until 1829. But, even in the darkest of Penal days, the people heard mass on the hillsides and in the little back lanes. A Catholic could not own land valued at more than thirty shillings a year. The Penal Laws could not be enforced in full because the people all over Ireland remained Catholic. Some Protestants who were left as guardians acted in a very honourable way allowing them to be brought up in the Catholic faith.
- Collector
- Anne Shanley
- Gender
- Female
- Age
- 13
- Address
- Lismalady, Co. Westmeath
- Informant
- Mrs Rose Shanley
- Relation
- Parent
- Gender
- Female
- Age
- 50
- Address
- Multyfarnham, Co. Westmeath
