The Boy Scouts in Ireland: Urbanisation, Health, Education, and Adolescence, 1908–1914

Abstract

This chapter investigates the development of the Boy Scouts in Ireland, focusing on a number of issues surrounding urbanisation, health, education, and how these were integrated with ideas relating to adolescence as a distinct stage of development. Power shows that in Ireland as well as in the rest of the UK, perceptions of the urban environment were a key determinant of the concerns that the Boy Scouts embodied and was central to how they constructed a particular vision of adolescent life. The desire to engage in rurally orientated activities was seen as a powerful antidote to the perceived deficiencies of urban life. These included diminished physical health, the effects of technological advances, the unregulated environment for adolescent leisure, and concerns surrounding inadequate socialisation.