“Audacious and brave?” The early days of multi-denominational education. The setting up of the Dalkey School Project N.S. in 1978

Hyland, Áine

“Audacious and brave?” The early days of multi-denominational education. The setting up of the Dalkey School Project N.S. in 1978

Files

Educate Together - article for The Leader Oct 2018.pdf(165.03 KB)

Accepted Version

Date

2018

Authors

Hyland, Áine

Publisher

National Association of Principals and Deputy Principals

Abstract

A headline in the Irish Times on 23rd August 2018 read: “Principal resigns in protest over entry policy”. The article, by education correspondent Carl O’Brien, opened with the sentence: “A principal has resigned from a Church of Ireland primary school in protest over moves to prioritise the enrolment of children who are actively involved in the parish and attend church services”. The story related to the resignation of principal Eileen Jackson from St. Patrick’s National School, Greystones, Co. Wicklow on the basis that a decision had been taken that priority access would be given to children who are “accustomed members” of the Church of Ireland parish of Greystones. The school’s Board of Management had decided that children who were “active members of the parish”, as certified by the parish rector, would be given priority admission to the school. Reading this article brought me back almost 45 years to a similar situation which occurred in another Church of Ireland National School, St. Patrick’s, Dalkey, Co. Dublin, in 1974. St. Patrick’s, Dalkey had been a small one-teacher national school from the early 1890s until the 1950s. A new dynamic and forward-looking principal, Florence Armstrong, was appointed in the early 1960s and under her visionary leadership, the school grew rapidly until it was a five-teacher school by the early 1970s. It was a pilot school for the then new and progressive Primary School Curriculum of 1971 and had become increasingly popular with families of all religions and none from the area. Many of the parents of St. Patrick’s, Dalkey would like the Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin, who was patron of the school, to endorse what had become a de facto multi-denominational school, but this was not to be.

Keywords

Educate Together , Multi-denominational education , Ireland

Citation

Hyland, Á. (2018) '“Audacious and brave?” The early days of multi-denominational education. The setting up of the Dalkey School Project N.S. in 1978', Leader - Journal of the National Association of Principals and Deputy-Principals, Winter 2018.