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This paper charts the development of one of Ireland's first comprehensive schools located in Carraroe in County Galway. Through a systematic, historical analysis of Department of Education and diocesan correspondence, this article provides a unique insight into how official policy was reconciled at ground level. The analysis exposes the ambiguity of previous studies surrounding the role of the church hierarchy in educational reform during the 1960s and seeks to clearly identify key personnel involved in consolidating policy concerning the comprehensive school scheme. Underpinning this narrative, is the deliberate exclusion, by both church and state, of local school authorities from policy decision-making regarding the comprehensive school in Carraroe. In particular, this paper illustrates how a paradigm shift in Department of Education negotiation tactics provided the government with an effective means for introducing new educational policy measures in the future.

This paper makes a novel and important contribution to scholarship by developing and presenting a set of concepts and questions for those researching student voice in Ireland to consider and explore in their studies, and specifically in relation to classroom practice at post-primary level. Here, a distinction is drawn between consultations that take place inside classrooms between students and teachers and consultations that take place between management and students and cognisance is paid to school patronage, school socio-economic context, and the career stage of teachers and positions in the school hierarchy. This paper ultimately offers a heuristic device as a starting point for future research on student voice in Irish post-primary schools and sets out to bring about more critical thinking regarding how student voice plays out vis-à-vis classroom practice.

This study reports on findings from an online survey which was carried out in Ireland, in May-June 2019, as part of the Adult Religious Education and Faith Development (AREFD) research project being conducted at the "Mater Dei Centre for Catholic Education," Dublin City University. Data provided by 738 respondents to the survey are reported upon in this paper. The three areas focused on are the profile of the respondents, the content areas and skills in religious education and faith development they said they would like to engage with, and the forms and modes of delivery they preferred. The key findings point to the importance of identity, influence, and language, the broad and diverse interests expressed by participants, and the preferences they indicated for blended learning, evening engagement during the week, and local discussion groups. The findings of the study will be beneficial to those involved in developing new and creative approaches to adult religious education and faith development.

Historians have observed that the period 1860-1890 was educationally progressive. This paper identifies the renaissance with the creation of the General Synod of the Church of Ireland in the aftermath of Church Disestablishment. Disestablishment legislation facilitated the inclusion of the laity in Synod. The paper argues that the lay-clerical dynamic generated educational reform at all levels of provision. Post-Reformation denominational divisions qualify the discussion. The structure of Synod--General Synod, Diocesan Synods, Boards of Education and Education Committees--was the outcome of an intense debate as the post-Disestablishment Church of Ireland sought to reinvent itself. The 'art' of the title refers to Synod's adroit use of this structure in promoting educational reform that mitigated tensions surrounding the religious-secular conflict which characterised Irish post-Famine modernisation. Synod's role as agent of educational reform constitutes the theme. The paper aims to contribute to what, regretfully, remains an undeveloped historiography.

This paper highlights the need for studies to be undertaken on Irish women who became 'female religious' in Roman Catholic religious communities and who taught in Australian schools up until 1922. The paper is structured in three parts. It opens by outlining the international context that gave rise to the existence of these personnel in Australia. The more specific background is then sketched out. A broad overview of the literature on the distinct group of teachers in Australia in question follows and the fact that the current research base on them is somewhat unwieldy and disjointed is highlighted. This contention in turn, it is argued, indicates the need for engagement in a major research programme which takes a macro perspective on Irish female religious as teachers in Australia.

In the years either side of Federation in 1901, Australia's Irish Catholics balanced two often contradictory impulses: their determination to retain their cultural and religious links with Ireland in the face of an often unsympathetic Protestant majority, and the desire to become 'good' Australians in order to make 'a go' of their lives in the new land. This paper explores how this process played out at St Joseph's Nudgee College, a Christian Brothers' day and boarding school in Brisbane, the capital of the Australian state of Queensland, and how sport played a central role in satisfying both imperatives. This discussion will be framed by the intersection of the social/political/economic context of Queensland during the period 1891-1914. It will focus on the educational context in which the Irish Christian Brothers operated as they struggled to make the College a bastion of Irish Catholicism and a vehicle for the socio-economic advancement of their community.

Education is not a neutral process, it can be used to establish and maintain conformity or be part of a process of liberation and social change (Freire, 1979; hooks, 1994). The Irish State's failure to acknowledge this lack of neutrality has characterised the formal education system in Ireland since its inception. From the introduction of the National School System of education in 1831 to the present day, the ruling force of the Catholic Church within education is evidenced in the gendered and conformist nature of this formal education landscape. Systems of privilege have been maintained and reproduced through education, in which power is exercised by means of exclusion, coercion and control. However, simultaneously individuals and groups of women have challenged this formal, religiously infused conformist education system. Their demands for full and equal access to mainstream education at all levels, including within the academy, served to challenge this hegemonic force. They also pioneered the development of innovative and radical forms of adult and community education as a means toward individual and community empowerment. This paper seeks to highlight women's educational interventions historically and socially through an explicit gendered lens and with a particular focus on community-higher-education. (A bibliography is included.)

This paper critiques the idea that secular education policy can neutrally recognise children's non/religious identities at school. It also empirically analyses how one child becomes restricted by, and eludes, classed, gendered and adult-centred moral codes enacted through local school recognition. The concept of "policy assemblage" is first used to problematise postsecular, market-led enactments of non/religious school community recognition transnationally. I argue postsecular policy enactments in Ireland and elsewhere produce viable and non-viable forms of non/religious school community, thus containing, rather than facilitating school plurality and (re)creating social hierarchies. However, drawing on Deleuzian ideas of "becoming" and "partial objects," I argue children are not determined by the sense-making moral codes of the policy assemblage. To demonstrate this argument, I map instances of how one girl alters and eludes the meanings of austerity, choice and authenticity moral codes. I do not privilege this girl as an example of child resistance, as I argue against using children as barometers of policy authority and secularist authenticity. Instead, I contend that alongside naming and opposing policy's unjust effects, we need to cultivate attention to our capacity to affect and be affected by the partial objects (e.g. moral codes) and becomings of postsecular neoliberal policy assemblages.

A strong current in contemporary Catholic thought -- the theology of interreligious or interfaith dialogue -- stresses the importance of dialogue and collaboration with followers of other world faiths. This article proposes that religious education in Catholic schools, particularly at post-primary level, needs to engage more with this theological resource in order to promote mutual understanding and collaboration in today's climate of growing cultural and religious pluralism in Western Europe. Such work, it is also argued, is particularly challenging and urgent given the reality of the limited and limiting approaches to religious education, especially in regards to Islam, currently found in state schools in England and France. The paper proposes the development of models of religious education predicated on valuable theological insights inherent in the teaching of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) and subsequent post-conciliar and theological reflection. It begins with some comments on Western Europe's changing social, cultural and religious circumstances.

The homogeneity of the teaching profession is an international, as well as national, phenomenon. In an era of significant demographic change in schools and education policy development in Ireland and across Europe, the lack of solid data about the backgrounds of teachers and initial teacher education (ITE) applicants and entrants has hindered informed policy development, including in relation to ITE application procedures, selection criteria as well as teacher supply and demand. In this paper we discuss findings from the Diversity in Initial Teacher Education (DITE) national project. We present analyses of application (N = 2,437) and survey data (N = 530) to explore 2014 undergraduate primary (UG P) ITE entrants' socio-demographic backgrounds. Key findings confirm that primary teaching remains a popular career choice attracting high academic achievers in Ireland. We note the continuing underrepresentation of males and of people from minority national and ethnic backgrounds. Roman Catholics and students without disabilities are overrepresented in the UG P cohort compared to postgraduate post-primary ITE cohorts and the general Irish population. Findings are discussed with reference to Irish and international literature on teacher diversity.

As legal structures for same-sex relationships are introduced in many contexts, the politics of sexuality are negotiated along religious/secular lines. Religious and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer (LGBT-Q) rights are pitted against one another such that LGBT-Q lives often assumed to be secular. Schools are crucibles of intermingling religious, secular and equality discourses and this complexity is carefully negotiated by LGBT-Q teachers in their everyday lives. Drawing on a study with LGB teachers as they entered into a Civil Partnership in Ireland (a legal structure in place for five years prior to enactment of Marriage Equality in 2015), this paper captures a 'structure of feeling'--new cultural work done as sexuality norms were in a state of flux. The teachers' accounts unravel the religious/secular binary and provide insight of universal interest into the ambivalent, messy ways in which the politics of sexuality are (re)negotiated across the overlapping social fields of religion and education.

To date no major study exists on the impact of the Great Famine on patterns of participation in superior education in Ireland, or on the impact of superior education on the life courses and inheritance potential of boys from small farming families. This paper provides a historical analysis and interpretation of patterns of participation in superior education in post-Famine Ireland. It explores the impact of superior educational attainment on the life courses of boys from farming families and examines the strategies of inheritance adopted by their families in the post-Famine period. It is argued that micro-level research, utilising family reconstitutions and school records, is key to examining and understanding the relationship between the Famine, family background, strategies of inheritance and educational attainment in rural society.

This ethnographic study examines deaf people's experience of the Roman Catholic Sacrament of Confession in two Catholic schools for deaf children in the Republic of Ireland from 1950 to 1990. The article fills a gap in Catholic deaf education literature that fails to uncover the experiences of deaf children. It provides space for their storied lives based on a total of 10 loosely structured individual interviews conducted with a purposeful sample of deaf adult participants who were past pupils of Catholic schools. Using ethnographic data, the study illuminates the views of participants concerning the learning obstacles created by a school policy dominated by oralism which prohibited use of Irish Sign Language. The article uncovers children's experiences of the Sacrament of Penance for disobeying classroom rules against signing. Participants found their schooling experiences exemplify notions of stigma and stereotyping. As children, their response was to either subvert or submit to their school's policy and religious practice. The findings make a useful contribution to current debates on language issues pertaining to teaching, learning and communication in deaf education. This paper concludes that, although heavily stigmatised in the past, Irish Sign Language has an important role in cultivating equitable access to Religious Education.

Owing to a variety of complex historical and socio-cultural factors, the Irish education system remains heavily influenced by denominational mores and values [Ferriter, D. 2012. "Occasions of Sin: Sex & Society in Modern Ireland." London: Profile Books], particularly those of the Roman Catholic Church [O'Toole, B. 2015. "1831-2014: An Opportunity to Get it Right This Time? Some Thoughts on the Current Debate on Patronage and Religious Education in Irish Primary in Primary Schools: Reflections from the Republic of Ireland." "Irish Educational Studies" 34 (1): 89-102. doi:10.1080/03323315.2015.1010704; Faas, D., M. Darmody, and B. Sokolowska. 2016. "Religious Diversity in Primary Schools: Reflections from the Republic of Ireland." "British Journal of Religious Education" 38 (1): 83-98]. Unsurprisingly, with the declaration by the Church that homosexuality was "intrinsically disordered" [Libreria Edittrice Vaticana. 2003. "Roman Catholic Catechism." Accessed January 18 2013. http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s2c2a6.htm], the professional identity and practice of lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) teachers working in denominational schools is often (in)formed by fear, as well as perceived, or actual, harassment and discrimination [Gowran, S. 2004. "The Experiences of Gay and Lesbian Teachers in Irish Schools." In "Primary Voices", edited by J. Deegan, D. Devine, and A. Lodge, 37-56. Dublin: IPA; Fahie, D. 2016. "Spectacularly Exposed and Vulnerable--How Irish Equality Legislation Subverted the Personal and Professional Security of Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Teachers." "Sexualities"]. This paper examines the lived-experience of 23 self-identified LGB teachers who work(ed) in Irish Roman Catholic primary schools. Their unique experiences and perspectives of faith-based schooling are examined against a backdrop of the complex processes of rationalisation and reflexivity these teachers undertake as they endeavour to reconcile their sense of personal integrity--as members of the LGB community--with their professional responsibilities. The study draws particular attention to those LGB teachers who hold deeply felt, and sincere, beliefs in the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church but who, nonetheless, express a level of discomfort at the language and tone of church dogma in respect of minority sexualities.

The key purpose of this paper is to offer an exploration of the career paths of a number of Irish school principals. The information presented is part of a comparative study in the area, involving three island states: Cyprus, Malta and Ireland. The study provides an insight into how individuals become principals and how they perceive themselves in the role. The information is sourced through personal narrative. Qualitative in-depth interviewing is employed as the primary method of data gathering. Participants are posed a range of open-ended questions about their personal lives and about their initiation into their professional responsibilities. The results show that participants offer a variety of reasons for becoming teachers initially and a variety of reasons for seeking and achieving promotion to the post of school principal after a time. Family members and family experiences have an important function in influencing the lives of prospective leaders. With no formal training to prepare newly appointed principals for their roles, most report significant difficulties initially, particularly with managerial tasks and bureaucracy. In spite of these difficulties nonetheless, all participating principals report that they enjoy their roles. The results of the study demonstrate that the Irish principals interviewed in this research, experience similar challenges and rewards to those interviewed in earlier and concurrent studies internationally.

The Good Friday Agreement (1998) between the UK and Irish governments, and most of the political parties in Northern Ireland, heralded a significant step forward in securing peace and stability for this troubled region of the British Isles. From the new-found stability, the previous fits and starts of education reform were replaced by a determination for modernisation and innovation, infused with a new energy and momentum. This sense of purpose embraced a complex weave of ideas and ideals; all designed variously to smooth, celebrate and harness community differences for the collective good. Much progress has been made in the intervening years since 1998, particularly in political structures and relationships. However, the euphoria of the new dawn of the Agreement had barely begun to shape the future before entrenched "tribal" tensions reproduced the same political and legislative impasses of former years and visited their all-too-familiar blight on the economic, cultural and educational landscapes. This paper focuses on two signature dimensions of education that have been sustained by this partisanship: segregation by religion and segregation by academic selection.

The moral and practical regulation of sexuality and associated risk has been in some ways traditionally bound by Catholic religious doctrine in the Republic of Ireland. Over the last century, however, the emergence of professional social work as a state risk management strategy around sexuality is evident. This tallies with the disrepute of the Church following high-profile abuse scandals and publicized tragedies tied to institutional segregation. This paper presents theoretically informed critical commentary, through uptake of the Foucauldian notion of discourse. It concludes that critique of the regulation of sexuality, should be qualified on three counts. Firstly, tensions between Catholicism and social work remain. Secondly, wariness towards the operation of power is requisite. Thirdly, both that which is said, and unsaid, enlightens present debates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the time of Irish independence in 1922 until the mid-1960s, a cohort of small, lay-run Catholic secondary schools operated in Ireland. They functioned to fill a gap that had existed in the network of Catholic clergy- and religious order-run secondary schools and catered for the minority of the population attending the majority of the secondary schools in the country. The (Catholic) Church authorities, who monopolised secondary school education and resented the intrusion of other parties into what they considered to be their sacred domain in this regard, only tolerated the establishment of lay-run schools in districts where it was not anxious to provide schools itself. This indicated the preference of the Church for educating the better-off in Irish society as the districts in question were mostly very deprived economically. The paper details the origins, growth and development of the lay-owned Catholic secondary schools. The attitude of the Church to their existence is then considered. The third part of the paper focuses on a particular set of lay schools established amongst what had been, for a long time, one of the most neglected areas in Ireland in terms of secondary school provision by the Catholic Church, namely, the Irish-speaking districts in the remote and impoverished areas in the north-west, west, south-west and south of the country, which were officially called the Gaeltacht districts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent studies of Anglicanism during the "long" eighteenth century have illuminated the fundamental role played by sermons, both as evangelistic and political tools. Virtually no scholarly attention, however, has been devoted to the preaching and publication of recantation sermons in post-Restoration England and Ireland. By exploring these sermons, this paper highlights the changing ways in which former Catholic and Dissenting clergymen represented their experiences of conversion. Also, by analyzing the reception of these sermons, it elucidates popular perceptions of clerical converts. Finally, by exploring discussions of "popery" in these sermons, it illuminates the paradoxical nature of anti-Catholicism during this period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Post-Medieval Archaeology is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Irish bishops found themselves part of a conservative minority when the Second Vatican Council embarked on a radical overhaul of the Catholic Church between 1962 and 1965. The Irish Church hierarchy generally implemented the resultant changes in a hesitant and unenthusiastic manner. Criticism of their performance was generally muted but the spirit of Vatican II was not entirely without enthusiastic Irish advocates. REALITY, a Redemptorist monthly with a large and mainly young readership, experienced ongoing conflict with clerical censors in the second half of the 1960s. Material in the Archive of the Dublin Catholic Archdiocese show clashes occuring over ecumenism, Vatican II's new conception of the duties of the Catholic lay person and the issue of whether church teaching ought to be enforced by state law. A complicating factor inhibiting repressive action by the Archdiocese was the links forged by this religious magazine with the secular world of Dublin journalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dwight Lyman Moody (1837–1899) established the blueprint for modern evangelical revivalism. He targeted a broad audience and so avoided contentious points of theology and local political issues. The result was that how Moody was interpreted by those who heard him is often more revealing than the content of his addresses. Moody's three evangelistic campaigns in southern Ireland (1874, 1882–1883, 1892) offer a suggestive case study of how his brand of modern revivalism was accepted and challenged in a particular context. His first tour was significant because it was the first time he had worked in a location with a Catholic majority; his second and third missions took place against a background of political unrest associated with the growing demand for Irish "Home Rule". This article examines the effect of Moody's brand of modern revivalism on unity amongst southern Ireland's protestant minority. It also investigates the impact of Moody's missions on Catholic Ireland, and the extent to which he was able to transcend religio‐political divisions. It demonstrates that Moody promoted evangelical unity yet generated friendly criticism as well as opposition from Protestants, and that the efforts to convert Catholic Ireland that he stimulated provoked a variety of responses that ranged from tolerance to outright hostility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines a Cork merchant family, Terry, with particular attention to the causes of their exile to Spain about 1700. Their significant sway in the civic and commercial affairs of Cork City at the beginning of the 17th century, and their downfall by the mid 17th century due to the impact on Catholic families of The Cromwellian Wars are detailed. After their exile to Spain, the success of this Irish family is linked to the recognition by the Spanish crown of their proofs of nobility, and the rights they gained to trade with the Indies. Their descendants quickly rose to influential positions in Spain and in South America where they moved to during the 18th century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 'two worlds of morality politics' framework suggests that the historical structure of the party system has a major influence on the politics of morality issues. This study uses the case of Ireland to examine that proposition. Ireland is unusual in that it combines the absence of an historical church-state conflict in its party system with an historically strong Roman Catholic Church. It is therefore a 'critical case' for the 'two worlds' framework, which brings to the fore the interaction of the Church and the party system. It is also a puzzling case in the timing and sequence of its reforms. Focusing on the politics of contraception, abortion, same-sex marriage, and divorce, we show that the Church had no strong secularising opponents ('enemies'); however, when public attitudes changed and when liberalising interest groups mobilised, nor did the Church have parties who were close allies ('friends'). Case studies of abortion and same-sex marriage show in greater depth how, in the presence of changing attitudes and mobilisation, the Church lacked a foothold in the party system that would allow it to obstruct reforms. The study's findings open a conversation between the heretofore separate literatures on morality politics and Church influence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores John Wesley's relationship both to Ireland and to the Roman Catholic faith and argues that Wesley's reputation as a proto‐ecumenist needs to become more muted and less idealised. Many in Ireland drew the intellectual content of their grievances against British rule from the rhetoric of liberty employed to support the Americans. Wesley's opposition to the rebellion of the colonists, as well as his support for the Church of Ireland and the Protestant landed gentry weakened the appeal of his message to the Catholic Irish. Wesley's ministry among the Pietist diaspora communities in Ireland, shows that he preferred their form of piety to that of the Catholic population. Wesley's anti‐Catholic sentiment was in keeping with widely‐held fears about Catholicism as a threat to Protestant liberty, and is considered here in the context of the rising strength of the Irish Catholic population in England and corresponding Acts to grant them greater liberties from the late 1770s. Wesley's support for the Protestant Association and the false accusation that he was an instigator of the 1780 Gordon Riots, his numerous anti‐Catholic pamphlets, and his correspondence with the Irish Capuchin monk Arthur O'Leary bring together an outline of Wesley's approach to Roman Catholicism which he saw as both a false religion and a threat to Britain's role as a global Protestant power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of ABEI Journal: The Brazilian Journal of Irish Studies is the property of Associacao Brasileira de Estudos Irlandeses and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Ireland's Catholic-Protestant conflict rests on multiple, overlapping differences: religious, ethnic, colonial, political. To better understand it, and in particular its religious aspect, I trace Europe's long Catholic-Protestant conflict, how it began, reproduced itself over time, and finally came to an end in the twentieth century. I then use this to generate insights into Ireland's long conflict, how it began, how it developed, why it ended in the Republic, why it has continued in Northern Ireland, and how the latter conflict might end. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]