Between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, various charitable, endowed or "free" schools were established in Ireland with a view to providing schooling, initially for children of primary and later secondary school age, the latter being the subject of this article. Sometimes these schools were state initiatives, such as the parish and diocesan schools, established by Henry VIII and Elizabeth I respectively, but mostly they were voluntary undertakings, Protestant in ethos, such as the schools of the Erasmus Smith Trust, the Kildare Place Society and the Society for Discountenancing Vice. Catholics tended to eschew such schools as sites of proselytism and, throughout the period under consideration, represented a small minority of enrolments.