As we have said in our last essay, the 18th century was the darkest period in our Irish history, during the troubled times the terrible Penal Laws were in force, and the Irish suffered much from land troubles especially the landlordism. Owing to the hard laws made against Catholics no Catholic children were allowed to attend school, the Protestants burned down the Catholic schools, as a result simple structures were erected in fields and remote places and schoolmasters taught the ragged children in those schools which were called Hedge-Schools and the teachers were called Hedgeschoolmasters, all over the country there are remains of those old schools, now I will tell of local remains in my District.

At Walshestown Lusk Co. Dublin, about one mile south of our school there are the remains of an old school in which children were taught in those dark days, it is situated