At the beginning of the 20th century, the recognition that children were the future of the Irish Nationalist movement fueled initiatives to prepare young people for their forthcoming roles within that movement by educating them along Nationalist lines.

Aspects of the Irish cultural revival played a part in this education. One of the first initiatives was to offer free classes in Irish language, history, music, dancing, and needlework for children over the age of nine.

Through organisations such as Na Fianna Eireann, a generation of Irish youth were taught its heritage, and its right to own that heritage.

Author Joe Connell charts the initiatives which sought to capture the minds and hearts of the Irish people, and those behind these initiatives as they prepared throw off the shackles of 800 years of bondage