Childhood: studies in the history of children in eighteenth-century Ireland

The history of children and childhood in eighteenth-century Ireland has long been overlooked. Yet over the course of the century children were brought more firmly into the centre of eighteenth-century Irish society. The policies, practices and ideologies that emerged during the century provided the essential framework for a more comprehensive inclusion of children in all societal and political considerations by the nineteenth. The object o f this thesis is to construct a picture o f childhood among elite, gentry, peasant, pauper and institutional children over the course o f the long eighteenth-century. In addition, it incorporates as a separate appendix the digital humanities project ‘Irish children in 18th century schools and institutions’. Even though childhood was a dynamic process there was a rigidity reinforced by intertextualities and hierarchies, so that in many instances childhood remained an abstract yet distinctive process. Parental and societal attitudes shaped the expectations of children and childhood and, though all children experienced childhood, there were significantly marked differences between them based on class. This is more vividly illustrated in some aspects than others. For instance, all social classes promoted children’s health, well-being and their education, but for some it remained aspirational. Yet the behaviour and attitudes shown towards children in institutional care were in marked contrast to those operating in the domestic environment. Children and childhood are examined in separate but related dimensions: the parental and societal view of childhood within the domestic and institutional environment; the attitudes and practices surrounding children’s health and well-being, and crucially, children’s education and ‘the child’ as society’s hope for the future. The thesis does not claim to provide a complete history o f children and childhood in eighteenth-century Ireland, rather it identifies the impact that public and private policies, and emerging and developing ideologies concerning children had on the experience o f children, childhood, parenthood and society across the long eighteenth-century