Oxmantown’s Blue-Coat School presents charity as both relief and governance: poor children received food, clothing and education, yet Protestant instruction and discipline were integral to the institution’s purpose. The admission of three girls further complicates its significance, suggesting limited inclusion within a system shaped by strong gender assumptions. Set against financial strain, religious coercion, grain anxieties and insecurity elsewhere, the school appears simultaneously humane and politically symbolic. It may therefore reveal how Restoration authority sought legitimacy through local welfare while reinforcing confessional and social hierarchies. How should we assess the school’s charitable achievements alongside its Protestant civic purpose in Dublin?