The school acted as a feeder to the British Army, where In the mid-19th century, children as young as 12 could enlist in the Army but generally enlistment began at 14. By the 1900s 50 per cent of pupils were going straight into the army. By this stage the school was not only an orphanage; for instance, the Army Non-Commissioned Officer father of Liam Mellows entered him there to get a good basic military training which he hoped would lead to an army career, instead it was used during the Easter Rising and the Irish War of Independence, both in fighting and in training the flying columns in guerrilla warfare.