Madam, – Having spent a lifetime of professional service in a rural Protestant school I was dismayed when I read the article by Sean Byrne (Opinion, June 3rd). Mr Byrne’s failure to understand or to appreciate the contribution which the 26 Protestant schools have made, and continue to make, to the rich tapestry of education in the Republic is typical of those who wish to jump on the popular bandwagon of “fee-paying school bashing”.
This rich tapestry of second-level schools in the Republic gives our parents (unlike parents in Northern Ireland), as of Constitutional right and enshrined in the Education Act, freedom of choice in the second level school to which they enrol their child. This incidentally, contrary to what Mr Byrne would have us believe, includes choices for parents from a purely non-religious/secular background in the very sector in which he is employed.
I grew up and went to school in Dublin in the 1950s and 1960s. As a result of wearing the uniform of a Protestant school frequently I had to endure sectarian taunts and jibes from those who, like Mr Byrne, allowed their feelings about Irish Protestants to be tainted by limited knowledge of selected incidents in Irish history. I am again reminded of these unsavoury childhood experiences as I read Mr Byrne’s naive attempt to compare the activities and attitudes of the modern Church of Ireland to those of the pre-disestablished Church of Ireland as far as education is concerned.
Throughout my professional career, and in the rearing of my own family, I have always sought to ensure that the values of tolerance and respect for people’s race, gender and religion, regardless of what had happened in the past, were taught and emphasised.
Thereby I hoped to make a contribution to harmony in our country and to do my utmost to influence generations of Irish schoolchildren not to engage in any kind of tribal sectarian activity. How dismayed I am to see, with the peace process now safely completed in Northern Ireland, the old tribal sectarian prejudices, once so evident here in the Republic, emerge from the closet and take root in the pages of your esteemed newspaper.
– Yours, etc,