“The following table will show the number and the average daily attendance at the different schools:
| No. Schools. | Av. Attend. | |
| Ordinary schools | 8,100 | 401,000 |
| Model schools | 73 | 6,955 |
| Convents and monasteries | 384 | 80,712 |
“The money is divided among these different schools as follows:
| Amount. | Per Capita. | |
| Ordinary schools | £1,038,854 | £2 13s 10d |
| Model schools | 27,755 | 3 19s 10d |
| Convents and monasteries | 164,048 | 2 7s 6d |
“The average daily attendance seems very small, and is due to several reasons: first, the lack of accommodations and the long distances between schoolhouses in the thinly settled sections along the west coast of Ireland, where some families are many miles from a schoolhouse, and where the children have no means of conveyance to reach them. In all the poorer sections of the country, where the men of the family go off to England or Scotland to do labor, the children have to stay at home and look after the place. They take care of the cows and the sheep and the pigs. Many parents make their children work where the compulsory education law and the child labor laws are not enforced. In the factory towns of northern Ireland the laws prohibit children under eleven years old working, and they are pretty well enforced.
“The following table will show the number of children of the different religious denominations enrolled in the national schools:
| Roman Catholic | 541,638, or 74.4 per cent |
| Church of Ireland | 87,904, or 12.1 per cent |
| Presbyterian | 82,434, or 11.3 per cent |
| Methodists | 9,387, or 1.3 per cent |
| Others | 6,794, or 0.9 per cent |
“Of the Catholic children a large number, perhaps 112,000, are in the convents. The Catholic families prefer to send their girls to be taught by the nuns. And about 10,000 boys are in the monasteries.
“Every teacher is required to pass an examination prepared by the commissioner of education as a test of his or her qualifications, and the teacher is responsible to the educational department for the enforcement of the rules and the application of the methods of instruction that have received its indorsement. But, as a rule, teachers are nominated by the priests of the Roman Catholic church or the clergy of the Church of Ireland or those of the non-conformist churches, as the case may be. The consequence is that there have to be separate schools for each denomination, which naturally adds to the cost of maintenance. In two-thirds of the schools, however, you will find both Protestant and Catholic children. Any sect that can furnish twenty pupils can have a school of its own, to run it as it likes at the expense of the government and select its own teachers, provided the persons selected demonstrate their qualifications by submitting to the regular examinations.
“Religious instruction, prayer, and other exercises of worship may take place before and after the ordinary school hours, during which all the children of whatever denomination may attend, but the regular school business cannot be interrupted or suspended for any religious instruction or worship or any arrangement that will interfere with its usefulness or cause any pupils inconvenience in attendance.