David Quinn
Photo: iStock. For obvious historical reasons, the vast majority of primary schools in Ireland are Catholic. The same applies to about half of secondary schools. The national school system arose out of the parochial schools. The vast majority of Irish people prior to independence in 1922 did not want to send their children to State schools because they did not trust the British State. Therefore, the Catholic Church developed a big network of its own schools instead. Protestant Churches did something similar.
When Ireland became independent in 1922, the new State faced a choice. It could either set up an entirely new school system of its own, or it could support the existing denominational one. It made perfect sense to do the latter. It would have cost money the State didn’t have to set up a brand-new national school system and people wouldn’t have sent their children to those schools anyway. It was the hard-earned money of ordinary people that helped to build the parochial schools that had served them well. Why would they suddenly abandon that in favour of new State-run schools?
It was also out of the question that the State would simply take over the denominational schools. People would never have tolerated that, and only the most anti-clerical regimes have carried out actions like this in any case.
Divestment
Therefore, we still have a very large number of denominational national schools in Ireland, but for years now, this arrangement has had its critics, especially on the left of the political spectrum. They believe our schools should be secular, non-denominational and, ideally, State-run. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael generally take their intellectual lead from the left and therefore the leadership of both parties believes more or less the same thing, except generally not with the same zeal as the left. The exception was Fine Gael’s Richard Bruton, when he was Education Minister.
In order to move towards the system our political leaders would prefer, widespread divestment of Catholic primary schools will have to occur. By divestment is meant their transfer to other management or patron bodies, for example the State or Educate Together.
It remains the case that very little divestment has occurred, and this is despite the bishops supporting the process”
The demand for divestment has rarely been led by parents, it should be noted. There are campaign groups here and there like Education Equality, but there is little evidence they have big grassroots support outside of areas where parties like the Social Democrats tend to be strong.
It was when Ruairi Quinn became Education Minister back in 2011 that the campaign for divestment really got going in earnest. He set up a ‘Forum for Patronage and Pluralism’ to examine the whole issue, but it never really got anywhere.
When Richard Bruton became Education Minister later on, he hoped that maybe 400 Catholic schools would be divested out of the 2,800 Catholic primary schools around the country, but this hasn’t happened either. (Those 400 schools would likely have large number of children. As we know, many primary schools are tiny).
And so here we are in 2026, and it remains the case that very little divestment has occurred, and this is despite the bishops supporting the process. The simple fact is that, in practice, there is little real public demand for it.
Demand
In order to finally move the process along, the Department of Education recently conducted a survey of all parents of children of primary school age or below to see what kind of school they want. This resulted in a turnout of about 40% and on average 40% of respondents expressing a wish for their local Catholic school to divest to another patron body.
When the proposal to divest is put to all the parents, we could easily find a lot more resistance than expected”
The highest percentage in favour of divestment was in Wicklow (50%), and lowest in Donegal (29%).
Needless to say, most of the media trumpeted the figure of 40% of parents wanting to see divestment. On the surface, wouldn’t this seem to indicate that 40% of the 2,800 Catholic primary schools ought to divest? Actually, no, that is not the case.
For a start, we don’t know what the 60% who did not take part in the survey think. Demand for divestment in a given area might seem high, but then when the proposal to divest is put to all the parents, we could easily find a lot more resistance than expected. This is what has often happened in practice, for example, when a proposal to divest was put to parents in the Malahide / Kinsealy area of north Dublin a few years ago.
Support
But now we have some more details from the survey. A press release last week from the Catholic Education Partnership revealed that there is probably only enough demand for a few dozen schools in practice to divest, and in mainly middle class, urban areas. These would often be quite large schools.
There is very little real demand for divestment in working class or rural areas. In other words, divestment is mainly an issue among some middle-class parents who are very likely to be the types who vote for the Social Democrats (the current flavour of the month) or the Greens, or Labour.
I would like to see a lot more divestment take place so that the remaining Catholic schools could be more Catholic”
But of course, those who support these parties are massively overrepresented in the media, in academia, in the law, and in the NGO sector. This hugely magnifies their voices and makes them seem more numerous than they are in practice. If you are a left-leaning journalist who lives in a left-wing bubble you can easily be fooled into believing everyone thinks the same way as you, apart from a few ‘knuckle-draggers’ here and there whose views (they feel) deserve only to be dismissed.
What’s curious, in some ways, is that Ireland’s growing multiculturalism isn’t increasing demand for divestment more than it is. But a lot of immigrants are Christian or Catholic, and many are happier to see their children educated in a Catholic school, than one that has one religion at all, except perhaps for ‘woke’ ideology, which is a kind of substitute religion. The fact that a lot of migrants like Catholic schools has totally blindsided those on the secular left who imagined a lot more migrants would be on their side.
In theory, I would like to see a lot more divestment take place so that the remaining Catholic schools could be more Catholic. But a big part of me is happy to see that the general public has not turned against the Catholic Church so much that they want to see the back of Catholic schools. That is good news at least.