Unlike British schools, corporal punishment was used regularly to “encourage learning” i.e. for not knowing your lessons. The teachers seemed to take the view that the only reason for not knowing your lessons was laziness which could only be corrected with a “dose” of the leather strap.
Also, this was all done in Irish, and so pupils would stand in “an lina” and would get “an leathair” . As school boys we always referred to being biffed to indicate punishment.
Comparing my sisters and I’s experience with our cousins Ireland seemed to have more in common with Glasgow than Walsall. My female cousins in Walsall mentioned caning only by the headteacher and only in private and neither had ever received it. I am unable to remember if this was because girls were not subject to the cane. In Glasgow, the tawse( a word peculiar to Scotland I think) was used on the hand and it seemed to be used as the leather strap in Ireland.