Openness with Roots: Education in Religion in Irish Primary Schools

This book considers the historical legacy and current debate concerning Education in Religion in the Republic of Ireland with specific reference to the primary school sector under Catholic denominational patronage. Given Ireland’s increased religious, non-religious and cultural diversity today, it is no longer tenable that approximately ninety percent of the country’s schools should remain largely under the control of one particular patronage. On the one hand, it is the duty of the State to provide for diverse forms of school management in order to cater for the educational needs of Irish school children. On the other hand, it is the business of the Catholic Church to realise its moral responsibility towards children in their schools whose parents and guardians do not wish for them to be educated in, or witness celebrations of, a faith tradition or set of values other than that to which they espouse. The purpose of the book, therefore, is to consider two contrasting issues by way of contribution to the current debate arising from the complexity of Ireland’s relatively unique context. The first questions the appropriateness of Irish State primary schools to continue to provide for denominational religious education given the changing situation in Irish life. The second enquires if it is appropriate to expect denominational schools to provide an exclusively phenomenological programme of religion without undermining their mission to educate in a given faith tradition. Therein, however, is the kernel of the problem and one which the book explores.