Glasnevin National School

Why an ink bottle? That’s the question many people ask when they first hear about Glasnevin National School. Glasnevin National School, affectionately known as “The Ink Bottle,” has a history as unique as its nickname. The school, you see, owes its peculiar shape and moniker to the sharp wit and generosity of none other than Jonathan Swift, the famous Irish satirist and author of “Gulliver’s Travels.” In the early 1700s, Glasnevin was a shadow of its former self, notorious for its poverty and lawlessness. Appalled by the lack of educational opportunities for the area’s children, Sir John Rogerson, a prominent Dublin merchant, resolved to establish a school here. He found a willing donor in Dean Swift, who, touched by the plight of Glasnevin’s youth, pledged a considerable sum of £40 towards the school’s construction. But Swift, ever the wit, attached an unusual condition to his donation: the schoolhouse had to be built in the shape of an ink bottle! His reasoning? “Out of the Ink Bottle comes Ink – Ink is ideas put on paper. We need Ink Bottles.” And so, in 1709, on the site of a medieval bullring, arose Glasnevin National School, a testament to Swift’s peculiar brand of philanthropy and a beacon of learning for generations to come. The original “bottle” structure, with its circular design, housed classrooms on two floors and served the community for almost three centuries. While modernization efforts in 1902 led to the demolition of a part of the old building, the spirit of Swift’s “Ink Bottle” lives on. Glasnevin National School stands today as a proud reminder of its quirky past, a place where the pursuit of knowledge continues to flow as freely as ink from a bottle.