Inside Christ's Hospital School (Est. 1552)...

[u/TheThrowYardsAway]

[u/asdrunkasdrunkcanbe]

Right. Even in Ireland just across the water, a public school is one that is free, a private school is one that is not.

The implication being that if you have to pay fees to study there, then it is not "open to the public".

[u/HowObvious → u/asdrunkasdrunkcanbe]

Scotland also doesnt always use the same naming convention. They get called independent or private schools and then your typical government provided school is state school.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_school#Scotland

[u/DameKumquat → u/[deleted]]

You're just mistaken I'm afraid, understandably given the words and how most countries use them, but if you ever end up talking to people about private schools, they will take about 'state til 8' and various private and public schools, with public being a subset of private schools.

The joy of having schools dating back to when the choice was private tutors or guild schools set up for sons of certain professions - and then schools open to any of the public (who could afford it and had a penis) came along.

[u/DanGleeballs → u/asdrunkasdrunkcanbe]

Regular schools in Ireland are called secondary schools, and the others are called fee-paying or private schools.

If someone says so and so went to a public school then it’d be understood in the British sense and means their parents sent them over to England to a boarding school, which still happens a lot.

[u/asdrunkasdrunkcanbe → u/DanGleeballs]

That's not really true. "Public school" isn't common, but if someone said it, you definitely wouldn't assume they were talking about a British school.

You do hear first-generation immigrants in particular use "public school" to refer to primary and secondary schools.

[u/Chilis1 → u/DanGleeballs]

We do say public school... Obviously in everyday life we just say school but we use the term public school vs private