The act says that the following is a "reasonable excuse for the
non-attendance of a child, namely, ... being engaged in necessary
operations of husbandry."[18]

Ten-year-old Margaret Duncan can be found sitting hunched up on a doorstep
in a back street in Belfast. Her skirt and the step are webbed with threads
clipped from machine-embroidered linen, or pulled from handkerchiefs for
hemstitching. A few doors away little Helen Keefe, all elbows, is scrubbing
her front steps.

"But school's on."

"Aye," responds Margaret, "but our mothers need us."

The act plainly states that another reasonable excuse is "domestic
necessity or other work requiring to be done at a particular time or
season."[19]

William Brady has a twelve-hour day in Dublin. He's out in the morning at
5:30 to deliver papers. He's at school until three. He runs errands for the
sweet shop till seven.

"You get too tired for school work. How does your teacher like that?"

"Ash! She can't do anything."

Intuitively he knows that he can protect himself behind the fortress of
words in the school attendance act: "A person shall not be deemed to have
taken a child into his employment in contravention of this act if it is