The free classes offered by Inghinidhe na hÉireann, children’s columns in nationalist newspapers and the activities of Na Fianna all helped to prepare children and adolescents for their future role in the struggle for Irish independence.

In this podcast Marnie Hay discusses the ways in which Irish advanced nationalists sought to prepare children and adolescents for their future role in the struggle for Irish independence. She explores three examples: the activities for children provided by the nationalist women’s organisation, Inghinidhe na hÉireann; the columns for children included in nationalist newspapers; and the activities of the nationalist youth group Na Fianna Éireann.



About Marnie Hay

Marnie Hay is a historian of modern Ireland and an Irish Studies scholar whose research focuses on the Irish Cultural Revival, the Irish Revolution, and the involvement of youth in both. She has not only taught modules on Irish history, Irish Studies, and Canadian Studies at University College Dublin (UCD), but has also lectured in Irish history at Trinity College Dublin (TCD) and the Institute of Public Administration in Dublin, Ireland. Currently a Visiting Research Fellow in History at TCD, she is the author of Bulmer Hobson and the nationalist movement in twentieth-century Ireland (Manchester University Press, 2009) as well as many articles in journals and edited collections. In 2011 and 2012, she served as the academic director of the annual Parnell Summer School, held at Avondale in Co. Wicklow.

At present she is writing her second monograph entitled Scouting for Rebels: Na Fianna Éireann and the Irish Revolution, 1909-23. This book is part of her wider research project on Irish nationalism and youth in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which was initially funded by the former Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences (IRCHSS).

Image: Fianna Éireann Council, 1915. Source – irishvolunteers.org