How did the church get such a firm hold on Education in Ireland?

Z

Can anybody elaborate on this for me?
Both Protestant and Catholic churches have a unique grip on education, and I'm wondering if anybody could direct me to some literature or such that I can read up on.

thanks.

Quality

You may want to read up on Catherine McAuley of the sisters of Mercy.

She did a lot for the poor sick and uneducated in this country, The sisters of Mercy not only looked after hospitals but set up schools in this country!

User45701

em so some people like this catherine mcauley helped the sick and all but dont you think the reason your religion takes such a interest in education is to make it easyer for them to condition young children into catholic beliefs?

Nevyn

When the country was founded the staqte was broke and didn't know how to go about setting up schools with out incuring huge debts that and they had no idea how to tackle the teaching of religion in schools.

So they settled on the patronage system where by the local communites would call for a school to be set up and a Patron would step in to sponsour the school.

Being the patron of a school incurs certain costs and so ti was that the catholic church and the anglican church become patrons of the schools for thier communities/parishes.

This the then government tought killed two birds with one stone and it was left that way
to the detrement of those who are not christain. It is only recently with the church not having such a hold and the increase of non christian children in the school system that
the indoctriantion of children is being questioned.

http://www.citizensinformation.ie/categories/education/primary-and-post-primary-education/going-to-primary-school/types_primary_school

National schools/primary schools

The national school system was established in 1831. The national schools were originally meant to be mixed religion or multi-denominational as we would describe them today. In practice, that did not happen and virtually all national schools are under the management of one church.

There was no legislation governing how they were to be run. Circulars and rules issued from the relevant department instead. The Rules for National Schoolsreflect the fact that they are largely denominational schools.

The Education Act, 1998 does not use the term "national school" and instead uses "primary" school. The name is not particularly significant except that national school clearly denotes that the school is state aided while a primary school can be private or state aided. Most relevant schools actually describe themselves as "national" schools. The following initials are frequently used to describe schools

NS - National School

GNS - Girls National School

BNS - Boys National School

SN - Scoil Naisiunta (appears before the name rather than after it)

Some schools use the Irish form of their name but that does not necessarily mean that they teach through the medium of Irish. Gaelscoileanna are national schools that do teach through Irish and they usually, but not invariably, include Gaelscoil in their title.

Multi-denominational schools sometimes include that description in their title.

Some national schools are run by religious orders - they are sometimes called convent or monasteryschools. They operate under the same rules as other national schools except for some special rules relating to the appointment of principals and the choice of teacher representatives on the Board of Management.

The Department of Education and Science (DES) has published a "List of National Schools" in the country.

Quality

Yes I do agree with you it had a lot to do with conditioning...



However... I just wanted to point out one lady who set up an order to help educate the young children of Ireland in a time where the heads of state had no interest in educating the less fortunate at that time.

User45701

Also a fiar point, i dont deny that some very nice/good human beings have worked for orginished religion and done good work but i think orginsihed relgion as a whole is bad for our species

PDN

User45701 wrote: »

Also a fiar point, i dont deny that some very nice/good human beings have worked for orginished religion and done good work but i think orginsihed relgion as a whole is bad for our species

Evidently bad for our education system as well, particularly in regard to spelling.

Michael G

User45701 wrote: »

em so some people like this catherine mcauley helped the sick and all but dont you think the reason your religion takes such a interest in education is to make it easyer for them to condition young children into catholic beliefs?

First of all, could you spell-check your messages to make them less painful to read (I am not referring to the content, just the simian spelling).

Second, at the time Catherine McAuley and Edmund Rice and others, including Protestants both here and in Britain, started their work, all education and health care for poor people was done by charity.

Third, almost everyone in the nineteenth century took religion for granted. People (whether in Ireland or Britain) were either Protestant or Catholic and assumed that children should be brought up with some kind of Christian belief.

Actually, having written all of this, I am wondering why I think I should bother answering someone who is both ignorant and illiterate. Read some history and go to one of the free reading-and-writing classes that my taxes are paying for.

Z

Thanks everybody those are great replies.
Can anybody direct me to any further reading?

cheers

is_that_so

You might want to go back a little further to when the religious were the only ones providing education in the likes of hedge schools, post Cromwell. That period fostered a very strong association of the clergy with teaching. While there is a debate about the current influence of the religious on our education, the likes of Edmund Rice et al were the only ones prepared to offer it in the early 19th century.

PDN

Z wrote: »

Thanks everybody those are great replies.
Can anybody direct me to any further reading?

cheers

The Consolidation of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, 1860-1870. by
Emmet Larkin. (University of North Carolina Press, 1987).

Education under British rule was used as a way of undermining Catholicism. Therefore we had 'hedge schools' where children were taught unofficially. This mistrust of State education caused the Catholic Church in Ireland to oppose all government controlled education and all mixed (Protestant & Catholic) education.

When I was growing up in Northern Ireland my best friend at school was a Catholic, but his family were censured by the priest for allowing him to be educated in a State-run school. They were refused sacraments or ceremonies of some kind as a stick to bring them back into line.