The Belmore Commission and technical education, 1898

During the second half of the nineteenth century, technical instruction became part of the educational system of many European countries. In Ireland in the 1880s and 1890s there was growing pressure on the government to make provision for such instruction. Sir Horace Plunkett was among the most vocal and effective proponents of this cause and it was largely as a result of his work that the Agriculture and Technical Instruction (Ireland) Act was passed in 1899. Under the terms of this act, a new department - the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction - was set up with responsibility, inter alia, for technical instruction in Ireland. The new department funded technical instruction committees in county and county borough areas throughout the country and these committees set up and administered technical schools where young people were prepared for agriculture and trades.