School: Cortubber
- Location:
- Cortober, Co. Roscommon
- Teacher: Mary A. Burke
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0237, Page 028
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- I knew one old woman, who is dead those ten years whose father was a hedge school master. She told me her father was paid by collecting a few pence from each child every month and that if pupils couldn't pay they were never pressed. They wrote chiefly on slates and read from the one book. The old man explained the sun, moon and other planets to them.
The school was held in a nice dry green field in the good weather and discontinued in the winter unless some out office or barn could be secured.
This woman is buried in Toomna, an old graveyard closed now as her people had a plot there and her father the hedge school master was buried there too.
Near here too is a house that is pointed out as Master Burke's School where more than 150 years ago a teacher named Burke had his school, an old man here told me his mother was going to it and that there were no seats, only planks left on stones and the children wrote on their knees and great writes(continues on next page)
