There is a book underneath this book, a book about education in Ireland and how it developed, how changes in policy about who should be educated changed an organisation from teaching people how to be better workers to providing secondary education. This, however, is a fairly dry recitation of what the annual congress of the Irish Vocational Education Association and it's predecessors discussed and what government leglisation made changes happen.

I extracted some bits for a blog post on my knitting blog here: http://wyvernfriendknits.blogspot.com/2012/05/some-history-of-craft-education-in...

It was about the crafts and a curiousity about the teaching of things like knitting that drew me in, that and a sudden understanding of some of the issues surrounding Kevin Street Libray, a glimpse into the interlinked history of Vocational Education and libraries in Ireland, but the book overall left me wanting more. As a springboard for further research it's useful.

The index is not particularly useful for in depth research, it would probably be a great book as an ebook and searchable. The Bibliography is pretty extensive.

The other reasons I got sucked into this book are to do with my family history. My mum and dad were both teachers in the vocational education sector and after marriage my mum had to leave work. Many of the policies I saw in the late 20th century affected my father and it was interesting to see the changes.

I must admit that I skimmed huge chunks of the text searching for keywords that I was interested in, so I may have missed bits. It's not the easiest read. ( )