St. Enda's School (()) was an Irish language secondary established in 1908 by Irish nationalist Patrick Pearse. Originally Pearse's school was established in 1908 at Cullenswood House, Ranelagh before moving to the Hermitage in Rathfarnham in 1910. After Pearse was executed for his part in the 1916 rising, and due to increasing financial worries, the school closed in 1935. Today the site is occupied by the Pearse Museum. Background Pearse, one of the leaders of the Easter Rising in 1916, had long been critical of the educational system in Ireland, which he believed taught Irish children to be good Englishmen. He had for years been committed to the preservation of the Irish language, mostly through the Gaelic League, and was dearly concerned about the language's future. A trip abroad to Belgium and his observations of bilingual education there inspired him to attempt a similar experiment at home. Pearse also simply enjoyed educating boys, writing: "To me a boy is the most interesting of all living things, and I have for years found myself coveting the privilege of being in a position to mould or help to mould, the lives of boys to noble ends." Pearse was not a practical businessman, but did not let lack of finances get in the way of his plans. With promises from prominent nationalists that as proponents of Irish heritage they would provide whatever limited financial support they could, and, where applicable, enroll their children, Pearse officially opened his school on 8 September 1908, in Cullenswood House, Ranelagh, a suburb of Dublin. The school proved a successful experiment, but was never to fully escape the shadow of looming financial woes. In fact, the school would not have survived the crucial first few years without the devoted aid of his good friend and assistant headmaster Thomas MacDonagh, and the solid dedication of Pearse's brother Willie. Move to Rathfarnham St. Enda's taught many of the classes in Irish, and particularly stressed the arts and dramatics. Everything was given an Irish approach. After two years the school was doing quite well. Thrilled with his creation, and concerned that Cullenswood House was not a location that did St. Enda's justice, Pearse found what he believed to be the perfect home for the school. The Hermitage in Rathfarnham, substantially further from Dublin than Cullenswood House, caught his imagination and he decided that the school would have to move there. The