During the autumn of 1976 Lord (Peter) Melchett took over from Roland Moyle as minister of state with responsibility for education. This flamboyant self-confessed punk rock enthusiast - known to civil servants as "Peter lend-me-a-tie" - arrived with a fiery determination that Northern Ireland should follow the rest of the United Kingdom in adopting comprehensive secondary education.
Furious howls of dismay from Ulster's establishment followed. Leading unionists stepped forward to declare that academic excellence would be imperilled by the demise of the grammar schools. Amongst those backing Melchett was All Children Together (ACT), an organisation campaigning for integrated schools.
Catholic bishops lost no time in defending their church-run grammar and secondary schools. Civil servants had been stunned by the ferocity of the Catholic hierarchy's opposition to ACT's shared schools proposal.
They had met the "Armagh Three" - Cardinal William Conway of Armagh, Bishop William Philbin of Down and Connor and Bishop Edward Daly of Derry - in July 1976, and reported: "Cardinal Conway's attitude was one of complete intransigence. He dismissed the idea as trivial, irrelevant and without popular support."
A senior NI department of education official wrote a minute suggesting that Melchett meet Bishop Daly. A handwritten note, probably from the political adviser Roger Darlington, was attached: "Peter: This would be a v. good idea - Daly is far and away the most liberal of the 'Armagh Three' - it may be useful to get him away from Conway on shared schools."
Any expectation that the Bishop of Derry would be flexible on the issue of comprehensive schools or differ from Cardinal Conway on shared schools was dashed on January 24th, 1977. On that occasion Melchett travelled to Derry to meet Bishop Daly and Msgr Coulter, headmaster of St Columb's College.
According to the "note for the record", the bishop said that Northern Ireland was a conservative society ("with a small 'C' if not a large one") and that he felt both communities would resent major social innovation of this nature; the big grammar schools were justifiably famous and should not be changed. Msgr Coulter quoted Durkheim, saying that it would be wrong to impose an alien educational system on a society that was not structured for it.
Msgr Coulter proposed that the 11-plus qualifying examination be replaced by a system of "election", by which parents chose which schools - grammar or secondary - their children attended. Lord Melchett commented that this was unrealistic, as more parents would opt for grammar schools than there were grammar school places. It was also socially retrogressive, since all middle-class parents would opt for grammar schools and most working-class parents for secondary schools.
Under the heading "Integrated Education", the note for the record continued: "In a general discussion on integrated education Bishop Daly and Msgr Coulter said that there were so few parents who wished their children to be educated at an integrated school that it was hardly an issue worth worrying about. Certainly hardly any of their own community wanted children educated in other than Roman Catholic schools . . . it would be divisive to force integration on the community - the playground would become a battle ground."
Lord Melchett said there was no intention of forcing integrated education on anyone, although he did point out that religion was the only field in which parents had this freedom of choice; they did not, for example, have any say whether their children attended a grammar or a secondary school.
At the end of the meeting Bishop Daly advised Lord Melchett to tell any supporters of secondary reorganisation whom he might meet to "come and have a word with me".
On June 14th, 1977, Melchett announced that the 11-plus examination would be scrapped and that education would be reorganised on comprehensive lines. No provision was to be made for shared schools.
Now, 30 years later, comprehensive education has still had not been introduced. In December 2007 Caitríona Ruane, the Minister of Education - with the full support of Catholic bishops - announced the abolition of selection of any kind at 11-plus and the introduction of a comprehensive system.
There are now 62 integrated schools educating more than 18,000 children in Northern Ireland.