While the United Irishmen were in the throes of revolution in 1798, a school was being founded in Waterford which was to put into practice the ideal of embracing Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter. As Wexford commemorates its battles next year, Newtown School will be marking 200 years of education in the Quaker tradition.
The bicentenary will highlight the unique contribution to Irish education of a tradition the central values of which have been tolerance, independence, mutual respect between different traditions, and a regard for the worth of the individual.
The Quaker historian, Maurice J. Wigham, wrote in 1988: "It is the hope of Friends that their desire for toleration and understanding will be passed on through their schools."
Newtown, originally set up only for the children of Friends, opened its doors to others from 1874 on.
It became, and remains, a genuinely multi-denominational coeducational school, serving a growing demand in Irish society for an education which is not tied rigidly and exclusively to one particular denominational approach, yet which is still informed by fundamental Christian values.
Its bicentenary will be an occasion, also, for recalling the strong association of the Quakers with the development of Waterford.
The city grew extensively during the 18th century, and among the businesses which developed, many were of Quaker origin.
The Society of Friends had started in the 1650s, most notably in the north of England, but soon spread throughout Britain and Ireland and extended to the American colonies, where Pennsylvania was a Quaker foundation.
Much of the wool trade that passed through Waterford was in Quaker hands. They were also involved in the export of butter, meat and corn, in brewing, glassmaking, the provisioning of ships and, later, with engineering and shipbuilding. The town of Clonmel was a Quaker banking centre.
The strong Quaker view that all men and women were equal before God and that true religion required no intermediary priests or clergymen soon got them into trouble, Wigham records.
"They would not use titles or take oaths. For them, Baptism was to be in the spirit and water was unnecessary. With these views, and the outspoken comment on injustice in church and state, they soon came into conflict with the authorities.
"For a period they were severely persecuted, but eventually became accepted as harmless citizens, though still excluded from the universities, the professions and Parliament."
In Waterford, however, the Quakers grew in affluence and, in order to ensure that their simpler origins and central values of tolerance would be transmitted into future generations, Newtown was set up to serve the children of Friends in Munster.
Other Friends schools were established at Mountmellick, Co Laois; and Lisburn, Co Antrim, for the provinces of Leinster and Ulster respectively. The Mountmellick school closed early in this century, but the Lisburn school survives.
While Quaker family names are still prominent in Waterford and elsewhere in Ireland, the number of Friends has steadily declined.
At their greatest, the Quaker numbers reached about 6,000. By the beginning of this century, however, they were down to some 3,000 and now number approximately 1,800.
Many of those associated with Newtown made a significant impact on Irish society.
Sir Thomas Wyse, born at Newtown in 1791, was MP for Waterford in the 1830s and the driving force which led to the establishment of the universities of Cork, Dublin, Galway and Belfast.
He tried strenuously but unsuccessfully to see implemented the National School system on an inter-denominational basis.
As Newtown School was in serious decline and threatened with closure in the 1920s, a new headmaster, the much-travelled Arnold Marsh, was appointed and provided the energy and vision required to revive the school and ensure its integration as a thriving scholastic institution in the newly emerged Irish State.
A strong believer in the freedom of small nations, he guided the school to support all that the new State was attempting to do. His wife, Hilda Roberts, was an artist, whose work will be the subject of a retrospective exhibition during the bicentenary year.
In recent years, the school has flourished, with its pupil numbers growing to around 350 and an extensive development programme in train. Its liberal and inter-denominational character remains firmly embedded, but it continues to adapt and innovate in response to changing educational needs.
"Newtown has broadened its horizons and has relationships with schools in France and Germany, for example," says school bursar, Sean Murphy.
As well as historical lectures, exhibitions, sports and musical events, the 200th anniversary year will address another subject which has been of central concern to Quakers, as the school will host a "Caretakers of the Environment" conference in June.
There will also be a conference of headmasters and deputies of the remaining Quaker schools in these islands - the two in Ireland and just seven in England.