Drawing on teaching manuals, government reports and school inspectors' reports from the 1830s up to the early twentieth century, this paper traces the changing conceptual and social distance between childhood and adulthood in Ireland. Using Norbert Elias's figurational approach, it is argued that children became increasingly involved in both…

Prompted by a concern regarding the large numbers of unsupervised children playing on the streets of Dublin in the 1920s and 1930s, the Civics Institute of Ireland (referred to subsequently as the Civics Institute) established 10 playgrounds where children aged between four and 14 years could play after school hours and during school holidays.…