Artane industrial school
Added on May 24, 2006
24/05/2006
A potted history
With the passing of the Industrial Schools (Ireland) Act in 1868, the then Archbishop of Dublin, (Ireland's first cardinal) Paul Cullen, asked the Christian Brothers to help in running such institutions. Artane opened on July 28th, 1870, with three pupils.
Its brief, as with all such institutions managed by the religious congregations, was to cater for neglected, orphaned and abandoned Roman Catholic boys (in this context). By 1877 it was the largest industrial school in Ireland catering for 700 boys. It was licensed to take 825 and reached that figure before the end of the 19th century.
By the 1940s, numbers ranged between 794 and 818, with an average 802. By the 1950s the annual average for the decade had declined to 620. The school closed in July 1969. From 1954, boys guilty of criminal offences were not admitted. Most boys there, throughout, were from Dublin.
? The Irish Times