A study of model school preparatory training institutes in mid-nineteenth-century Ireland involves, by way of background, tracing government awareness of the need for regulation and training of teachers. This stemmed from concern that education - then viewed as a powerful agent for either good or evil - be in the hands of those whose loyalty was beyond question and who were capable of effectively imparting it. The alarm with which the rapidly increasing number of ‘hedge’ schools was viewed by the authorities and the degree of suspicion in which their teachers were held made this a most pressing matter. More immediately, this study seeks to examine the rationale behind the favouring by the National Board of Education of the model school matrix for teacher training as developed by the Kildare Place Society, to detail the problems that had to be addressed in order to put in place a country-wide network of model schools, and, primarily, to assess the impact of these schools as preparatory training institutes. From its inception in 1831 the Board was anxious to raise the standard of teaching and teacher in all schools connected with it. From the last quarter of the eighteenth century, government disquiet over the rising demand for elementary education and its perceived potential to destabilise society prompted the search for a regulatory body that would oversee the development of an extensive school network under an acceptable system of local management, offering a curriculum that would, on the one hand, satisfy the demand of the masses, and, on the other, promote satisfaction with their lot. In this scheme of things the role of the teacher was seen as crucial. Government confidence in the voluntary Kildare Place Society to superintend such a network proved to be misplaced. An illiberal stance on the part of a controlling element within the Society led to a fuelling of religious suspicions. However, its successor, the government appointed National Board of Education was quite happy to adopt much of its underlying philosophy which drew heavily on the approach of Joseph Lancaster, to avail of the services of some of its personnel, and to build on its achievements. This was particularly the case with respect of the approach to teacher training to which the model school was regarded as indispensable. The very success of the national system quickly highlighted the inadequacies of the Board’s early provision for training - a central residential training institute in Dublin for practising teachers - and prompted the development of a country-wide network of model schools with the aim of providing a preparatory course of training for candidate teachers. Lack of funds and the failure to establish the Board as a corporate entity delayed the implementation of this objective until 1846. Over the next twenty years the establishment of this network was influenced by a number of factors, both internal and external. Difficulties of a practical nature encountered by the Board from the outset, particularly its inability to control costs, meant that progress was much slower than was originally planned. Gathering Roman Catholic clerical opposition, focusing on the Board’s failure to provide a role in management for any but its own officers, eventually denied the model schools the support of many of its laity, and skewed their final geographical distribution towards Ulster and the larger urban areas outside of that province. Candidate teachers in the model schools were either pupil teachers or paid monitors. The former were invariably males and boarded in the schools under the supervision of the headmasters. Paid monitors were predominantly females and resided in the neighbourhood of the schools. Those seeking selection for either office were expected to meet exacting moral and academic requirements. The preparatory training programme received generous funding, was detailed in its content, and its impartation was closely monitored. But its inherent imbalance - favouring the candidate’s academic advancement over practical competence as a teacher - tended to undermine its very function. This, when combined with the lowly status then accorded the national teacher and, from 1863, the hostile attitude of the Roman Catholic Church to all aspects of the Board’s training programme, called into question not only the effectiveness of the preparatory training but its very raison d 'être.