ABSTRACT

This article traces the functioning of the Commissioners of National Education, outlining salient aspects of their activities in the national school system during Ireland’s Great Famine of the 1840s. The role of the commissioners as an agency of government is explored in the context of their annual reports and their general response to the calamitous circumstances of the period. The first-hand reportage of the commissioners’ inspectors of schools is surveyed and the circumstances of the Poor Law Union or workhouse schools are examined. Despite the fact that the commissioners had ready access to the personal experiences and stark reports of their own corps of inspectors, the defining character of the reaction of the commissioners to an appalling calamity was one of bureaucratic indifference and official insouciance. The overall response of the commissioners to the cataclysmic events of the time mirrors the response of other agencies of government of the period.

摘要

本文追溯了国民教育专员的职能，概述了他们在 1840 年代爱尔兰大饥荒期间在国民学校系统中的活动的主要方面。专员作为政府机构的作用在他们的年度报告和他们对这一时期灾难性情况的一般反应的背景下进行了探讨。对学校监察员的第一手报道进行了调查，并对济贫法联盟或济贫学校的情况进行了调查。尽管委员们可以随时获得他们自己的监察团的个人经历和赤裸裸的报告，但委员们对一场骇人听闻的灾难的反应的决定性特征是官僚主义的冷漠和官方的漫不经心。