Episode 28: Catherine O'Brien - Secular Education in Ireland
Catherine O’Brien (pictured left with Paul Rowe) has served as Chair of Educate Together and represented the organisation in drawing up the white paper on education. She has also served a full term as Chair of the Humanist Association of Ireland. Here she gives us a personal exploration of the “Highs and lows of Seeking a Secular Education in Ireland.”
Many thanks to Eamon Murphy who recorded the event, Gill Bell, convenor of the North West Humanists and host, and Chair of the HAI Steve Rawson who opened the event.
Comments
Thank You Catherine. I was elected on to the BoM of a catholic patroned 'National' School in Ennis , County Clare as a Parents Rep. . However. the result was overthrown by members of Opus Dei. I am in favour of integrated education and in the taking away of the patronage of our National and publicly funded schools from religious institutions. It is important that our children are sent to schools which are now 'Catholic' etc. so that we can reassert our rights from inside that rotting system.
This is what Catholic Bishop James Doyle said in 1832:-
"I do not see how any man wishing well to the public peace, and who looks to Ireland as his country, can think that peace can be permanently established, or the prosperity of the country ever well secured, if children are separated at the commencement of life on account of their religious opinions.
I do not know of any measures that would prepare the way for better feeling in Ireland than uniting children at an early age, and bringing them up in the same school, leading them to commune with one another and to form those little intimacies and friendships which subsist through life. Children thus united know and love each other as children brought up together always will and to separate them is I think, to destroy some of the finest feelings in the hearts of men".
It is time for to listen to him.