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This article suggests that Patrick Pearse’s thought and work was rooted in the child‐centred movement of the late nineteenth‐century, was informed by the tenets of progressivism and predated the work of later influential educational thinkers. It is further argued that Pearse developed a unique conceptualisation of schooling as a radical form of political and cultural dissent in pre‐1916 Ireland. Aspects of Pearse’s thought that are evidently problematic are highlighted and the article suggests that discussions of his work might benefit from moving to these more substantial and germane areas.

Patrick Pearse’s status in Ireland today oscillates between the iconic and kitsch: he was recently voted by readers of a newspaper as the person whom they would most like to see commemorated by a statue or monument in central Dublin (though this proposal has not met with universal approval even with that publication’s staff) and as one of the most important Irish heroes by readers of another paper. But it also possible to buy chess piece like statuettes or figurines of this national hero in tourist souvenir shops as one might buy model or tin soldiers. However, Pearse has consistently, and often fulsomely, been praised for his educational work and ideas, even by those who are otherwise critics, being described by one as ‘stimulating and, for Ireland at least, novel’ in this respect.

The purpose of this paper is to encourage re‐reading and re‐evaluation of a series of educational polemics published in the UK in the 1960s and 1970s, the Black Papers. These works proposed, for the most part, avowedly conservative views on education: condemning so‐called “progressive” teaching methods and the re‐organisation of secondary schools in the UK (especially England) into non‐selective comprehensives. It is argued, however, that much said and written about the Black Papers since has concentrated only on selected “high profile” contributors, to the neglect of other contributors, often anonymous, whose comments were sometimes more measured/thoughtful.

The work proceeds first by re‐visiting the facts surrounding the writing of the Black Papers and their critical reception. It then analyses the nature of the contributors and describes selected essays not usually referred to when the Black Papers are discussed by historians and others.

The work finds that the Black Papers are often infuriatingly and unhelpful polemical in nature but that much written about them since has concentrated only on selected contributors, ignoring others who were more measured.

The work is perhaps the first critical re‐reading of the Black Papers in any depth in several decades. It does not simply dismiss them as hysterical rants by ill‐informed authors and suggests that they re‐pay careful attention, despite their often polemical nature.