Bishop warns cuts may harm ethos of Protestant schools

RECENT EDUCATION cuts “hit very hard at an agreement which had, since the foundation of the State, enabled Protestant people in the Republic of Ireland to provide and to experience education in accordance with the Protestant ethos”, Church of Ireland Bishop of Clogher Right Rev Michael Jackson has said.

“One fell administrative swoop has cut at the root of this and the devastation of its impact raises serious and ongoing questions about respect for Protestant identity as an interwoven component in national identity,” he said.

He was speaking yesterday in his presidential address to the Clogher Diocesan Synod at Drumkeeran, Co Leitrim.

“If education was once dismissed as a nursery for indoctrination, it is now being trumpeted as the place where market forces must rule and regulate. This is a particularly attractive argument from privatisation in a world of crumbled public finances and at the heart of a philosophy which seeks to tax our way out of recession,” he said.

His own particular concern “and deep affection” was for Monaghan Collegiate School (MCS), “our oldest secondary education foundation dating back to 1570 and George III as the Clogher Diocesan School”. He said that “in no sense do I celebrate the life of MCS in a spirit of rank sectarianism or Protestant triumphalism – but I do celebrate it.

“In no sense do I seek special status for a peculiar corner of Irish society tragically misunderstood as religion itself becomes increasingly devoid of meaning and its intentions for good repeatedly rubbished – but I do seek understanding and respect.”

He said he had “grown to understand more fully what is meant by a Protestant ethos lived by young people in their formative years in secondary school . . . in a way which is respectful of heritage and principles, faithful to God and neighbour, eager to play its part today and ready for tomorrow.”

He said his appeal to Minister for Education Batt O’Keeffe “is that there be a recognition that Protestant secondary schools such as MCS are not the fat cats of the system”. It was “not our wish either to prop up the past or to live in the past. It is our concern, in fulfilling educational aspirations for the children and young people in our care, to make through them an open-ended contribution to public life and active citizenship. Our capacity to do so has been seriously endangered and needs to be safeguarded,” he said.