Protestant Schools in Ireland -
A French View

Marie-Claire Charon

Issue 345, vol.87, Spring 1998

From the early beginnings of the independent Irish State, the Protestant school which was meant to transmit the heritage of the community, became of particular importance in the eyes of parents who, more often than not, had retained unionist sympathies. It was regarded as a shelter from the gaelicizing policies of the new State and, up until 1940, Irish was not a compulsory subject on their syllabus.

Due to the growing number of mixed marriages the school now often emerges as the major place for the transmission of the community’s ethos. The term “ethos” very often comes up when referring to denominational schools especially Protestant ones. However to give a clear and concise definition of it remains a challenge!

The structure and functioning of the Church of Ireland is, according to its representatives, a good example of democracy at work in the sense that it is run by an assembly which is democratically elected and in which two thirds of the members are lay people. The school system is regulated by the same democratic principles which determine actual practices and a specific way of thinking, living, acting and interrelating.

The fact that there are fewer pupils in classes is also seen as very positive in the sense that it may mean a smaller teacher-pupil ratio resulting in better working conditions and a more personal tuition.

However, the other side of the coin is that the growing number of non-Protestants in those schools may appear to some members of the Protestant Community as a threat to the survival of the Protestant ethos, with the possibility of their becoming Protestant in name only.

In a report dated August 1989 entitled “Protestants’ Secondary Schools, Is There an Alternative?” Dean Woodworth wondered whether they could still be called Protestant. According to him these schools had become “academies of liberal education” with no clear denominational orientation.

In a survey among seven hundred Church of Ireland parishioners, almost a quarter of the parents declared that their children were not given sufficient religious instruction.

Even if the Irish state has always tried not to antagonise religious interests, it must, nevertheless, face a number of pressures from Teachers’ Unions and that part of public opinion, which has publicly declared itself in favour of a full separation of Church and State.

The campaign to separate Church and State launched by David Parris who denounced what he perceives as the sectarianism of a state-funded and religiously-controlled system has largely failed in the face of the unprecedented opposition that the Education Bill caused among religious interests. In the field of education as in other areas, the Irish solution, to a large extent, takes the form of a compromise between the respect for tradition and the willingness to respond to the pressures that new trends and circumstances dictate.

Marie-Claire Considère-Charon is a member of the Department of English Studies at the University of Haute-Alsace, Mulhouse, France. She has been frequently in Ireland carrying out research, interviews and a survey on the Protestant minority. A member of the French Society of Irish Studies (SOFEIR), she is now doing research on the role of Ireland within the European Union.