22.10.2019
Kildare Place School – Celebrating 50 years in Rathmines and 200 Years in Existence
Anniversary celebrations took place on September 28 2019.
By Anne Lodge, Ian Packham & Rob Jones
A group of philanthropic, wealthy businessmen formed the Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor in Ireland in 1811. This was known as ‘the Kildare Place Society’ because of where its buildings were based on Kildare Street in Dublin city centre. It intended to provide elementary education for all the poor, regardless of their beliefs and established a non–denominational, non–proselytising school system which was avowedly Christian in that Scripture was to be read each day without comment but there was to be no religious instruction.
The Society provided plans for school houses, training for teachers, printing school books and giving grants for its schools. In its early years it was given large government grants. Within 15 years of its establishment, it was supporting 100,000 pupils in 1,490 schools across the island and had trained 207 teachers. Its training institution and model school opened in 1819 in Kildare Place, and that primary school has remained in operation for the last 200 years.
By the 1820s the Society had run into serious opposition from the Roman Catholic church in Ireland because of its policy that Scripture be read daily in its schools without comment. The Government was pressured by the Roman Catholic church and set up a commission that recommended a neutral board of education be established. In 1831, the Government grant to the Kildare Place Society was withdrawn.
The Society was able to achieve relatively little after 1831 but it retained ownership of the Kildare Place Institution until 1887. It continued to train teachers using the Lancastrian system in its model schools though its numbers declined after 1831 because students were going instead to the National Board’s training college in Marlborough Street. The training institution closed in 1840, but the model schools continued to operate though with dwindling income. In 1846, the Church Education Society entered into an arrangement with the Kildare Place Society to send a group of students to train in their model school to prepare them to teach in the Church of Ireland Schools. The Kildare Place Society was formally wound up in 1887.
Even after the Society was wound up, the Kildare Place primary school continued in existence as the training school for the Church of Ireland Training College which had taken over the buildings and property of the Kildare Place Society. The school shared the Church of Ireland Training College building and was attended by many children from Dublin city over decades.
By the 1960s, the facilities for both the College and the Kildare Place primary school were old, outdated, cramped and very unsuitable. The city centre location was now full of traffic and noise. The governors began to explore alternative sites. In 1963, the governors were offered both an opportunity to sell the Kildare Place site and buy Rathmines Castle. With the proceeds of the sale of Kildare Place and access to a Department of Finance loan, the governors were able to commission the planning and building of a purpose–built College and primary school on the Rathmines Castle site.
Kildare Place School joined with the Rathmines Church of Ireland parish National School which had been in an old building on the Upper Rathmines Road now used by the Rathmines and Rathgar Musical Society. The primary school pupils and staff continued to share the facilities of the College on the new site, just as they had done in the old buildings in Kildare Place. During the course of nearly half a century on the Upper Rathmines Road site, a full cohort of student teachers were placed in the school twice a year for their practical School Placement assessments.
In 2016, after the Church of Ireland College of Education was incorporated into a University in line with a change in State policy regarding initial teacher education, Kildare Place school remained on the site where is has now spent 50 years of its long existence.
The school has now reverted to the care of Parish of Rathmines with Harold’s Cross and the patronage of the Church of Ireland archbishop of Dublin.
The Kildare Place primary school is a very popular school in the locality of Dublin 6 and enjoys a consistently excellent reputation. It constantly experiences over–subscription for entry to its Junior Infants’ class. The school looks forward to a great future under the leadership of Ian Packham, its principal who leads a great staff team, and the Chair of its Board of Management the Revd Rob Jones (both pictured below with the Revd Prof Anne Lodge, Director of the Church of Ireland Centre, the successor of the Church of Ireland College of Education).
In a message read during the anniversary celebration on September 28, Archbishop Michael Jackson said that throughout its life, KPS had contributed greatly to primary education and to community life and that tradition continued.
“We all look forward to the enhanced opportunities the future will give for education at its most diverse and its most effective for pupils of the widest range of capacities and personalities. In fact, it is often in the school setting that such gifts are disclosed, nurtured and cherished by teachers and fellow–pupils. In this regard, KPS is no exception,” he said. “I am delighted to be the Patron of this school and for it to have an enhanced link with the parish as it builds a stable sense of community together with values of self–respect and care for others.”
