Thunder Box

Whilst wandering around one of my favourite derelict haunts, the old National School in Dunbeacon, the undergrowth was suitably subdued and I spotted something I hadn't noticed before - a small brick building at the back of the yard. Upon investigation it proved to be two small rooms, each containing one thunderbox or earth closet* - presumably one for the boys and one for the girls, still there in all their glory. Literally a wooden seat over a pit which had to be occasionally emptied!  At one point the school, built in 1902, had over 60 pupils and two teachers. I wonder if the teachers had to share these conveniences. You'd have to be pretty desperate.
The extra shows the little school,  now looking in a desperate condition. Two rooms, a corridor for coats, open fires, tilly lamps, a walled yard and conveniences.
It sounds quite an enlightened school though. This is what one ex-pupil had to say about it. He attended in 1930s:
Few children attended school in those days until they were five years of age. Although we had a walk of a mile and a half many more had much longer journeys. I have no recollection of my first day at school - no great deal was made of it at the time. I walked together with the other children who looked after me. Around that time a fundamental change took place in the educational standards of the school. Until then a married couple had been teaching there. They both retired at the same time. Neither had much Irish .... . Everyone was delighted when a new principal was appointed who was both fluent in the language and who had a great interest in promoting it. The same was true of the new mistress and there was great understanding and cooperation between them both. The Mistress used the storytelling method to teach Irish and in no time at all she had laid down a good basic foundation. She would write stories on sheets which were hung on the black board, one every week. We learned the stories by heart and were then questioned to ensure that we understood them completely. She would cleverly weave witty expressions, proverbs and sayings into the stories. We then had to compose other suitable situations to employ those expressions. I have no doubt that this was an efficient language teaching method and we all achieved fluency by the time we reached third class and the Master’s room. I still know some of those stories by heart - for example the Fox and the Crow. It should be understood that outside the school no one spoke Irish in the locality at that time.




* Did you know the earth closet was patented in 1860 by the Rev Henry Moule? And actually it works very like a modern compost toilet.Blip is so educational isn't it!

And many thanks to serpent for hosting the DS challenge for the next few weeks.