concede the point in order to dispose of the children. The officers testified that when a respectable Catholic tradesman sought apprentices, the child was released to the parents, who then proceeded to place the child in indentures or as a servant. Doubtless many others were simply returned by the governors to their families when they reached fourteen year of age. In total around 420 boys (some thirty-five percent of the totals) and some 240 girls (around fifty-seven percent of the totals) were discharged to their parents or friends during these years. Given the sectarian divisions in Ireland it is reasonable to assume that most of these children thereafter followed in the religious traditions of their families.30 The Commissioners of the Board of Education in Ireland had reported very favourably about the management of the School and the treatment and health and condition of the children when they had visited Phoenix Park. The Commissioners of Education Inquiry were similarly impressed and concluded in their 1825 report that “The appearance of the children bore a very favourable testimony to the general management and kind treatment which they experienced. We have in no other school observed such decided appearances of health, activity and animation amongst the children.�31 The Hibernian Society could not be easily accused of mismanaging public funds or of neglecting and mistreating its children, but the Protestant character of the charity was another matter. The political campaign for full Catholic emancipation was approaching its climax in the late 1820s and the Hibernian School could not escape charges of injustice and discrimination that were levelled against other publicly funded Protestant charities in Ireland. Although after 1829 there were Irish Catholic members in the United Kingdom Parliament, it was not until 1841 that changes were made to the Society’s charter removing the requirement for Protestant religious instruction. A revised charter allowed the governors to appoint the first Roman Catholic chaplain in 1847 and a chapel for Catholic worship was opened at Phoenix Park in 1850, but suspicion remained in Ireland that the governors favoured the admission of the children of Protestant soldiers and accusations that the School proselytised and discriminated against Catholics persisted until the early 1870s. By this time girls were no longer admitted and the RHMS had been transformed into a 30 31
Ibid. ,pp 151-2. Sixth Report of the Commissioners of Irish Education Inquiry, ( House of Commons Papers) 1826/7p, 6.
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