The Politics of Irish Primary Education

I. Introduction

On 26 May 2018, thousands of people flooded into the courtyard of Dublin Castle, the former seat of British power in Ireland, to celebrate the victory of the ‘Repeal the 8^th’ campaign that legalised abortion in Ireland. Similar scenes occurred in the same location three years earlier when the right to same-sex marriage was achieved in Ireland. The legalisation of abortion so soon after victory in the same-sex marriage referendum was, for many present in Dublin Castle and around the world, a defining moment in dismantling the control of the Catholic Church, which had dominated much of Ireland’s recent history. Unlike the independence from British rule that was marked by a violent struggle, freedom from the perceived undue influence of the Church was a focused, yet gradual and sustained campaign that was waged over decades to change the minds and hearts of Irish citizens and eventually to pass new laws.

The campaign for the liberalisation of Ireland’s laws, and wider society, had its first significant victory in 1979 with the legalisation of contraception, followed in 1993 with the decriminalisation of homosexuality, and the 1995 vote to legalise divorce. The two more recent victories on same-sex marriage (2015) and abortion (2018) cemented the nation’s liberal shift from the conservatism that marked early decades of the State. In the words of then Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, this was ‘the culmination of a quiet revolution that’s taken place in Ireland for the past 10 or 20 years. This has been a great exercise in democracy, and the people have spoken.’¹ The ←3 | 4→New York Times was more pointed, calling the vote to legalise abortion a ‘rebuke to Catholic conservatism … the latest, and harshest, in a string of rejections of the church’s authority in recent years’.² In Ireland, known as a bastion of Catholicism for so long, it may incorrectly be seen as having been fuelled simply by a singular desire to throw off the last vestiges of a Catholic sexual morality viewed by many as outdated and repressive. The growing liberalisation that has taken hold in Ireland over recent decades is a result of both a corps of dedicated and focused campaigners, many of whom committed large parts of their lives to such issues, and the slow and unrelenting march of secularisation that has been witnessed across Europe over the same period.

The irony of the victories of recent years is that most of the millions who voted yes, and those who filled the cobbled square of Dublin Castle to celebrate both referenda victories, were themselves the products of Catholic schools. They had been the recipients of years of religious education on the teachings of the Church, and yet attitudes towards social and moral issues had significantly evolved for many Catholic school graduates. In the days that followed the abortion vote, many of those who had contributed to the success of the Repeal campaign, including civil society leaders, academics, individual citizens and even politicians, began pondering a similar question, ‘What’s next?’

For many, the answer centred on the monopolistic control of the Catholic Church in education, specifically primary education where the Church controlled almost 90 % of all schools. Michael Barron, a key civil society activist in the marriage equality campaign, tweeted in support of the Labour Party’s demand for a Citizens’ Assembly to debate Church control of education.³ University College Dublin political scientist, Aidan Regan, tweeted: ‘Irish public opinion is clearly pro-choice. The next policy challenge is to translate this into education policy. @FineGael must legislate to force the Catholic Church to divest from taxpayer funded schools. It’s ←4 | 5→time to secularise education.’⁴ Countless individuals tweeted similar calls for education as the next policy to be reformed: ‘Repeal the 8th Right [,]‌ next on the to do list, let’s get the Catholic Church out of our school system.’⁵ Politicians weighed in as well. The Social Democrats echoed Labour’s calls for reform, claiming that ‘it is time to take religion out of the school day entirely’ as they proposed establishing a fully secular education system.⁶

These demands for reform were spirited and widespread. There was a palpable feeling at the time that if individuals, civil society activists, the media and academics maintained the intensity and frequency of their demands for change, then politicians would support reform. Perhaps there would be another day of celebration mirroring those days in May 2015 and 2018 in Dublin Castle. Reducing or eliminating the role of the Catholic Church in education seemed achievable during those days of ‘What’s next?’ conversations. Less than eight weeks after the abortion referendum, the Dáil (Irish parliament) passed the Education (Admissions to School) Act in mid-July 2018. This act barred Catholic schools from admitting students to their schools based on their religious beliefs or practices. No student from then on could ever be denied admittance to a Catholic school based on their religion. This was a tangible victory for educational reformers seeking to weaken the Church’s role in Irish primary schools.

That this reform victory came on the heels of the abortion referendum encouraged those seeking even further reduction of the Catholic Church’s role in primary schools. Immediately, attention turned to moving religious education and sacramental preparation outside the school day altogether and moving one step closer to a secular educational system. This would be a dramatic change from the current state-funded educational system run by private denominational and non-denominational patrons, where nearly 90 % of Irish primary schools are Catholic (Table 1.1).