Patrick Pearse moved his boys' school, St Enda's, Scoil Eanna, to The Hermitage, Rathfarnham, in 1910. The school continued there until 1935. In 1910, in response to parents' requests he started a companion girls' school, St Ita's, at Cullenswood House in Oakley Road, Rathmines (the 19th century family house of the Lecky family, and in which St Enda's had been established in 1908). St Ita's closed, for financial reasons, in 1912. The museum holds copies of the school magazine, An Macaomh, which does have some comment on the girls attending and their activities, and on Pearse's general educational ideas and hopes for the schools ('I do not think that a purely Irish-speaking school is a thing to be desired; at all events, a purely Irish-speaking secondary or higher school is a thing that is no longer possible.').

In the first term St Ita's visited the Dublin mountains, Municipal Art Gallery ('We all like modern pictures better than old masters'), Dublin University, the Botanic Gardens, the Abbey Theatre, took part in Language Procession (the only girls school which did. Costume described), held an All Saints' Day ceilidh and fancy dress ball, after which some of the girls dressed up and deceived the Mistress into thinking them visitors. Exercises in self-expression included camogie, which the less daring pupils found challenging.
Photographs of some of the girls, also of some of the staff.

The Museum has very little material for the girls' school, Scoil Ita: A prospectus for the academic year 1910-1911 shows it was run as a boarding and day school for Catholic girls, in association with St Enda's School in Rathfarnham. It aimed to provide primary and secondary education, 'Irish in tone and bilingual in method' and to 'ground its pupils in sound moral and religious principles', and occupied Cullenswood House, the original home of the boys' school. Fees for day pupils and boarders and for compulsory and optional extras are given. 'All clothes and other articles are to be, as far as possible, of Irish material and manufacture.' The curriculum also promoted practical subjects, as gardening and needlework.

Names of staff given:
P.H. Pearse, BA, Barrister-at-law, the director, House Mistress Mrs Bloomer, Miss Mary Cotter, a Cambridge educated Celtic scholar, the assistant resident mistress. Miss M.C. Maguire, BA, later wife of Padraig Colum, was an assistant mistress. One pupil and head girl, was Kitty Kiernan, fiancée of Michael Collins. Pearse's brother Willie taught art, and there is a statuette in the archives of Maire Bulfin, captain of games, 1910, done by him, also a photograph of the same girl as the Virgin in a passion play written by Pearse and produced at St. Enda's.

A number of photographs of women are in the house, especially of his mother, Margaret Pearse, nee Brady. She took over his role of fundraising for the school after 1916, travelling to America, and newspaper exhibits show that she was well-received there as the mother of Ireland's first President. Both mother and her daughter, Margaret, were Senators in the Irish Senate. There are also photographs of Mary Bridget Pearse, Patrick's other sister.
The schools were much involved in theatrical productions, and there are photographs of some of these productions.

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