Introduction; Brendan Walsh.- Chapter 1. The National System of Education 1831-2000; Tom Walsh.- Chapter 2. 'An Essential Service' The National Board and Teacher Education, 1831-70; Susan M. Parkes.- Chapter 3. Forged in the Fire of Persecution: Edmund Rice (1762-1844) and the Counter-Reformationary Character of the Irish Christian Brothers; Daire Keogh.- Chapter 4. Girls at School in Nineteenth-Century Ireland; Jane McDermid.- Chapter 5. 'Injurious to the Best Interests of Education'? Teaching and Learning under the Intermediate Education System 1878-1922; Brendan Walsh.- Chapter 6. Historical Overview of Developments in Special Education in Ireland; Michael Shevlin.- Chapter 7. Teachers' Experience of School: First-hand Accounts 1943-1965; Brendan Walsh.- Chapter 8. Creating a Modern Educational System?: International Influence, Domestic Elites and the Transformation of the Irish Educational Sector 1950-75; John Walsh.- Chapter 9. The Transformation of Irish Education: the Ministerial Legacy 1919-1999; Antonia McManus .- Chapter 10. The Development of Vocational and Technical Education in Ireland 1930-2015.; Marie Clark.- Chapter 11. Current Developments at Third-Level Institutions in the Light of the Origins of the University; Catherine Kavanagh.- Chapter 12. Advanced Education for Working People: The Catholic Workers' College, a Case Study; David Limond.- Chapter 13. Teacher Accountability in Education - The Irish Experiment.; Martin Brown, Gerry McNamara and Joe O'Hara.