ABSTRACT

This chapter explores two discourses about illiteracy arising from statements within official reports, pamphlets, and books published between 1900 and 1921. This was a time when new political arrangements for Ireland were anticipated. These publications considered illiteracy in the context of envisioning the appropriate mass education system for a “new Ireland”. These proposals identify how schooling was accepted as the key vector for literacy in this era. The archival data demonstrates how two distinct discourses related to illiteracy circulated in these years, a discourse of deficiency and a discourse of superior intellect. Both discourses addressed the poor literacy levels observed in Irish primary schools, but their solutions mapped onto the opposing political landscapes of unionism and nationalism. The chapter examines how these two distinct discourses overlapped in relation to aspects such as their silence about the presence of extreme poverty in Ireland. It also explores the shared literacy practices of the document authors, regardless of their political affiliations. The chapter concludes by examining the high level of popular support for Irish nationalism in the early twentieth century. It argues that the proliferation of non-literate nationalist activities in Ireland allowed nationalist ideas to spread widely, irrespective of literacy levels.