Nano Nagle (1718-1784), the pioneer of education in Ireland, founded, despite legal prohibition, free schools in Cork City for the education of poor girls and boys. Nano also established night classes for the mothers of her pupils. Nano used her vast wealth to finance her schools so that, in her own words, “the pupils might…
Recently, while teaching an undergraduate course on contemporary issues in Catholic education, I became aware of how constrained freedom of speech has begun to feel for many young adults. These are final-year Catholic student teachers who are intelligent, thoughtful and on the cusp of professional life. The class encouraged them to engaging with complex and…
The recent Dáil vote on abortion is a reminder of the volatility that still surrounds the issue – but also of the possibilities now emerging for further pro-life wins, writes Eilís Mulroy The defeat of Paul Murphy’s extreme abortion proposal in the Dáil just before Christmas was a significant and timely boost for the…
Recent statements by the Ministries of Education, on both sides of the Irish border, have left a solemn warning that the end of religious education in Catholic schools could be around the corner. This calls for a serious, positive, and radical response. I dare to propose a national plan of action in this article. Restore…
Once upon a time it was entirely realistic to expect that one day you would marry and have children. I was born in the 1960s, for instance, and about 85% of my age group eventually married. Hitting this kind of milestone was completely normal and more or less taken for granted. But it can no…
There has been remarkably little serious discussion about how Irish schools are supposed to respond to the sudden rise in children identifying as transgender. This is not something teachers were trained for, and it is not an area in which teachers’ unions or school management bodies have any real expertise. Yet schools have been left…
When we were growing up, my mother always insisted that we didn’t discuss religion or politics at family gatherings. On asking her why, she would say that those subjects always ended up in a row. Of course, she had grown up in the immediate aftermath of the civil war, and politics had divided families and…
I was ‘today’ years old when I discovered what the trending hashtag #YOHO stands for. For those, like me, not fluent in the constantly evolving language of social media, #YOHO stands for awe and wonder — moments when something interrupts our momentum, catches our attention, and gently reminds us that life is deeper and richer…
Here are some of the posts I’ve shared, or followed, on the social media platform ‘X’ over the last few days (at the time of writing). A wonderful ballet performance in the streets of Paris, accompanied by a pianist playing Tchaikovsky; a posting about Ireland being No. 1 among the “most educated countries” in the…
There is a great temptation to accept religious decline as inevitable. It does not help that much of the mainstream media seizes on any indication that faith is dying and amplifies it. For example, in 2022, the Central Statistics Office issued a press release stating that “more than 3.5 million people, or 69% of the…
Eilis Mulroy
David Quinn
Mary Kenny
Breda O'Brien