176
In the full Report Curraghclewin is shown as the only free school in this list.
The Census of 1821 gives an additional school in the parish, namely in Derrafadda (subd. Fahey), teacher Michael Armstrong, aged 26,—24 boys and 10 girls, day scholars.
Pat. Campster, age 36, was returned as schoolmaster and farmer, holding 4 acres, and keeping a school at his house. Martin Kean's school was placed in the townland of Cahermurphy.
Lewis' Topog. Dictionary, 1837, gave the number of schools in Feakle parish at that period as five.
Previous to 1826 an attempt had been made to maintain a charter or subsidised school at Feakle, but the institution was viewed with suspicion, and, like a great many others of its kind throughout the country, was shunned by the people and finally discontinued.
23. "The common country schools have generally from twenty to one hundred scholars each, boys and girls mixt together, but are badly attended in winter, as they are usually kept in small damp cabins, or in the Roman Catholic Chapels (to the disgrace of the priest and his flock) equally damp and dirty." — Statistical Survey of the County of Clare by Hely Dutton, Dublin, 1808, p. 235.
24. "It maybe justly imagined no respectable man would suffer the hardships the masters do, when the remuneration is so very inadequate to a task so very irksome. . . . And even this pittance is very badly paid . . . Sometimes a trifling addition is made to the master's little income by drawing examinations, bail-bonds, petitions, summonses, &c., &c. As the cold and damp situations of country schools generally drive the children home in winter, the master during this season goes from house to house and teaches the children for his diet. . . . It often happens that some masters are under the necessity of employing themselves in manual labour for a subsistence. The distance being sometimes great between the master and children, he is
