James Brenan

[5] James Brenan began his educational career after his study at the "South Kensington Training School" where he sparked an ambition for promoting design to be applied specifically for industry as per the beliefs of the South Kensington school method,[6] noticing a need for art education to boost vocation in the arts.

He took up teaching art in schools around the United Kingdom, namely in Yarmouth and Liverpool, before returning to Ireland where he would hone his enthusiasm for design education in a seat of advantage.

In his thirty-some year tenure as headmaster in Crawford, he set into motion his promotion of art design for industry in the form of workshops - the first of which was for the Convent of Mary in Kinsale, County Cork in 1884.

In the fifteen years serving the DMSA as headmaster, Brenan was largely responsible for shifting the focus of the school's teaching methods away from being centered on fine arts education and theory for single, practical application, to implementing craft design classes for industry use.

These classes, like the ones he offered to the convents, followed the ideals of the South Kensington teaching style[10] which Brenan so admired - fostering a sense of practical application of the skills learned to train future artisans in lace-making, metalwork, sculpting, etc.

In the twilight of his role as headmaster, Brenan remained interested in good lace design, passing published comment on the product coming from the Munster region,[11] and travelling around Europe to learn educational techniques to be applied to his domain.