The debate that surrounded the preparation and enactment of the Education Act took up a lot of the campaigning energies of this association all through the nineties. The debate went on so long and apparently produced so little that it could all too easily have been forgotten. Not so, however. The story has been told in a concise and readable book. The lessons and insights of that debate will not now be lost.
The book is written by John Walshe, education correspondent of the Irish Independent and is entitled, A New Partnership in Education. Not surprisingly, the role of CSCS is understated but there are some interesting references. One thousand associations made written submissions in response to the Green Paper, forty-two of these were invited to attend the National Education Convention and seven of these are singled out by Walsh as having made lasting impressions at the Convention. CSCS is among the seven.
John Walshe also refers to Justice Declan Costolloe's judgement in the High Court that the payment of school chaplains was unconstitutional. In the judgement Costolloe defined community schools as Catholic. This point was taken up by the Teachers Union of Ireland. There is also a reference to the Campaign's efforts to mount a legal challenge to the integrated curriculum.
On the question of the denial of minority rights implicit in the primary curriculum Walshe states:
The issue was also dealt with at the National Education Convention in Dublin Castle in October 1993. A representative of the Campaign to Separate Church and State fully accepted the rights of the majority in denominational education but pointed out the conscientious dilemmas which existed for non-believing parents who had no choice but to attend religious run schools.
A New Partnership in Education is well worth reading for getting a clear picture of the main issues in the education debate.
As was the case last year, the AGM will be divided into two sections: a section dealing with company matters, and a section on the political business of the Campaign.
The "Campaign to Separate Church and State Ltd" is in effect a dormant company. There are no legal cases pending and there are no plans to take new court actions. So this section of the AGM should not take up more than five minutes.
The remainder of the AGM will be taken up by the political business of the Campaign, which is ongoing. The Campaign's finances are on a sound footing, but we would ask all members to pay their 1999 subs so that we can continue to do our work.
The subscription rates remain the same as in previous years: £20 for family membership; £15 for individual membership, and £5 for unemployed/pensioners. Please send cheques/postal orders by post to: John Martin, 1 Corbally Rise, Westbrook Glen, Tallaght, Dublin 24. The cheques/postal orders should be made payable to : 'Campaign to Separate Church and State'. If you are attending the AGM, John Martin will accept subs before the meeting.
As this newsletter goes to print the first of a three part documentary on the Church-run industrial schools, States of Fear, has been broadcast on RTE. Even for a viewing public that has become inured to Catholic Church scandals the extent of child abuse revealed in this programme was deeply shocking. It was not so much that the programme depicted children being made to suffer, although plenty of evidence of that was provided. What was shocking was the scale of the abuse and the lies that were necessary to cover it all up.
Practically every medium sized town in the Republic had its own industrial school. Those for boys were run mainly by the Christian Brothers, those for girls by the Sisters of Mercy: all were run by Catholic religious orders. Between the forties and the seventies there were more children incarcerated in the Irish industrial schools than in those of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland put together. The religious orders were paid by the State per child incarcerated, an arrangement which caused the numbers to rocket.
The most common reason by which the judiciary consigned young people to the institutions was lack of proper guardianship. Thus hundreds of children who had one parent living were incarcerated. The much vaunted Catholic reverence for family values rang very hollow alongside the testimony of a middle aged Cork woman who was forcibly separated along with her seven sisters from her mother. The reason? A parish priest decided that the mother, who was a widow, was having a relationship with a man.
The Church has traditionally maintained that it ran the industrial schools because no one else would run them, that the conditions were harsh as a result of insufficient funding from the State. The documentary revealed that Dept. of Education officials had been critical of the schools because of the sadism and malnutrition which the children were subjected to. The institutions were paid half the wage of an agricultural labourer per child, an adequate amount in relative terms. In response to calls from the religious orders for additional funding, Dept. of Finance officials had requested access to the financial records. Of course the Church authorities were indignant at such insolence! They could have received extra funds but they would have had to show how little of the money went towards its proper purpose.
An interesting point made by the producer of the documentary, Mary Raferty, helps to place the scandal in context. An American priest, Fr. Flanagan, founded a movement in the US called 'Our Boys', about which a film starring Spencer Tracy was made. Fr. Flanagan came to Ireland some time in the fifties or sixties and visited the industrial schools. He was shocked and made his criticisms public. He said that the Christian Brothers had been involved at an early phase of the Our Boys movement but when they discovered they couldn't chastise the children they left.
We have insufficient space to summarise the documentary properly. It revealed that the system of Church run industrial schools in Ireland was a system of slave labour in which child abuse was rampant. It lasted so long because the State was subservient to the Catholic Church and because it was concealed behind a smokescreen of lies. In providing footage of a sermon by Archbishop Desmond Connell the documentary showed, commendably, that the lies are still being told. The Campaign will be issuing a press statement in due course seeking that the outrage is channelled into constructive reforming activity. These revelations demand that we all take a new look at the Church/State relationship.
Church and State is an independent journal which was founded in the early seventies. Since the formation of CSCS the journal has provided comprehensive coverage of the Campaign's activities.
While we have attempted to keep members informed through this newsletter there is no doubt but that the complexity of many Church and State issues requires a lengthier discussion than the newsletter allows. For that reason we are glad to state that the producers of Church and State have agreed to provide Church and State free of charge to all paid up members of the Campaign.
We hope that members will make use of Church and State by reading it and expressing their views.
The Campaign has been relatively quiet since our very successful function at the Temple Bar Music Centre in November. We made £400 at the gig. Those in attendance included Proinsias De Rossa TD, and the comedian Brendan O'Carroll. A formal letter of thanks was sent to Don Baker, Mick Hanly and Frank Gallagher who made it all possible.
The main activities in the recent past have been a number of letters sent to the Minister for Health regarding non-religious persons being pestered by religious chaplains while in hospital. This can be a major worry for people when they are feeling vulnerable. Also a letter to the director of the Central Statistics Office requesting that the next census should include a question about what type of school parents would wish to send their children to as well as the traditional question concerning religious beliefs.
Dave Alvey did an interview on Louth Meath Radio following the publication of his letter in the Irish Times defending Annie Murphy. Malachi Lawless had several discussions with Dept. of Education officials on the progress of the Relationships and Sexuality programme. Our parliamentary questions on RSE have been answered (see the latest Church and State).
The current issue of Church and State which is presently being printed contains articles on the Industrial Schools Scandal; the Fr. Fortune affair; reviews of John Walshe's book, Phyllis Hamilton's book, and the movie In The Name Of The Father; Northern News and the Minister for Education's answer to PQs by Eamonn Gilmore TD. This issue will be available at the AGM.
If you wish to subscribe to the Irish Political Review, Labour & Trade Union Review, Church & State or Problems Of Capitalism & Socialism please go to our secure sales area. Postal delivery is free within the European Union.