Space and Place: Lessons from National School Buildings in the North of Ireland

Integrated schooling is currently promoted in post-conflict Northern Ireland, but an earlier attempt to establish secular education in Ireland during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries – the Irish National Schools system – is often forgotten. A preliminary study of former National Schools indicated architectural differences between rural and urban buildings, possibly linked to the expression of divergent cultural and religious traditions in conflict with the reforming principles of the national system. This paper uses archaeological and anthropological perspectives, including the first recorded excavation of a National School in Northern Ireland, to examine their past and current significance for education, identity and place.