In the following essay I will discuss how significant and evident the role the Catholic Church has played in our education system to date. I will analyse the role and influence of the Catholic Church from the earliest known catholic schools to the catholic schools of the present day. The Catholic Church can be granted the pride of setting up our education system which allows us to compete academically with all the countries of the world today in industry and all other areas of work.
The Catholic Church founded the world class education system we have in place today. The earliest schools the Catholic Church set up set up were in the 6th century. These schools were set up to train boys for church. The entire teaching was religiously related if it did not have some relevance to religion it was not taught. The teachers of these schools were monks. There was little or no writing before Christianity. In the monastic schools boys were taught philosophy, logic and theology. Clonmacnoise, one of the most remarkable of the ancient schools of Erin was founded by St. Ciarán surnamed Mac an Tsair, or "Son of the Carpenter". He chose this rather uninviting region because he thought it a more suitable dwelling place for disciples of the Cross than the luxuriant plains not far away. On 23 January, 544, Ciarán laid the foundation of his monastic school of Clonmacnoise, and on 9 May following he witnessed its completion. The remains of this school can still be seen today. The monastery then began to involve itself a bit more with the local community. The school taught some of the local boys who would have been from families who were financially struggling. The local boys were given an education in exchange for some labour work done around the monastery for the monks. Schools like this were common around the country. There was one set up by St. Finnian in Clonard, co. Meath. It