This volume explores how Irish children were 'constructed' by various actors including the state, youth organisations, authors and publishers in the period before and after Ireland gained independence in 1922. It examines the broad variety of ways in which the Irish child was constructed through social and cultural activities like education, sport, youth organizations, and cultural production such as literature, toys, and clothes, covering themes ranging from gender, religion and social class, to the broader politics of identity, citizenship, and nation-building. A variety of ideals and ideologies, some of them conflicting, competed to inform how children were constructed by the adults who looked on them as embodying the future of the nation. Contributors ask fundamental questions about how children were constructed as part of the idealisation of the state before its formation, and the consolidation of the state after its foundation.

Autorentext
Ciara Boylan is Researcher at the UNESCO Child and Family Research Centre, National University of Ireland, Galway. Her research interests and publications cover the history and sociology of education, publishing for children, and educational policy and practice. 

Ciara Gallagher is an independent scholar and previously worked as a postdoctoral researcher on the National Collection of Children's Books project in Ireland. Her research interests include colonial and postcolonial children's literature, Irish children's literature, and contemporary Indian children's literature.  

Inhalt
Foreword; Professor Pat Dolan.- Chapter 1. Introduction; Ciara Boylan & Ciara Gallagher.- Section I Education and Learning.- Chapter 2. Concepts of Children and Childhood from an Educational Perspective: Context, Curriculum and Experience; Thomas Walsh.- Chapter 3. The Church of Ireland's Response to Changes in the National School Curriculum in Post-independence Ireland 1922-40; Martina Relihan.- Chapter 4. A Treasure-house for the Young: Free Public Libraries and The Irish Child; Máire Kennedy.- Section II Literature and Language.- Chapter 5. Drama for Children in the Irish Free State: Sinéad De Valera's Plays for Schoolchildren; Kate Harvey.- Chapter 6. Jimín Mháire Thaidhg and Constructions of Childhood in Irish-language Children's Literature in the Independence Period, 1910-40; Róisín Adams.- Chapter 7. 'For children or nuns': Language and Ideology in Irish-language Translations and Retellings for Children, 1922-40; Caoimhe Nic Lochlainn.- Chapter 8. This is No Country for Young Girls?: Irish Girlhood in the Revolutionary Period; Susan Cahill.- Chapter 9. 'Stories of Ancient Days': Mythological Constructs of Childhood in Independence Ireland; Rebecca Long.- Section III Material culture and organised activity.- Chapter 10. Toys, Material Culture and Play Space in Ireland: The Iveagh Trust Play Centre; Vanessa Rutherford.- Chapter 11. 'Set up Before the People': Image and Ideals of Boys' Clothing in Ireland, c. 1910-40; Hilary O'Kelly.- Chapter 12. The Boy Scouts in Ireland: Urbanisation, Health, Education, and Adolescence; Brendan Power.- Chapter 13. 'A Youth Tainted with the Deadly Poison of Anglicism'?: Sport and Childhood in the Independence Period; Richard McElligott.- Appendices.- Index