Why is curriculum Religious Education a ‘core subject’ in Irish schools? Catholic and ETB schools say it is in order to uphold the religious ethos of the school. But is this necessary and proportionate to pursue this aim? Before the curriculum Religious Education course and examination was devised, the Department ...
The state pays out approx 10 million a year for mainly catholic chaplains in ETB schools (there are some COI chaplains). Chaplains are paid by the state to help Catholic parents with the religious formation of their children. We know this because there was a court case in 1998 about ...
The phrase ‘faith formation’ in schools is not in the Constitution. Whether you refer to faith formation classes, or faith formation in the general atmosphere of the school, there is simply no Article in our Constitution that uses the term ‘faith formation’. It is not possible to remove what is ...
The Irish National Teachers Association has voted to lobby to remove a religious education qualification that is required by all teachers who wish to teach in Catholic primary schools. They will also form a task force to look at the future of primary school patronage. This highlights one of Atheist ...
The recent referendums have shown that words in the constitution matter. The Supreme Court has found that children have a Constitutional right to not attend any course in religious instruction. The Supreme Court also said that this right is based on the conscience of parents. Despite the fact that the ...
The CSO figures report that there were 3,350 Spiritualists in the country in 2022. That is, 3,350 people ticked the ‘other religion, if any’ box and wrote in ‘spiritualist’ as their religion. Yet the marriage figures from the Central Statistics Office show that in 2022 there were 4,504 marriages performed ...
Atheist Ireland has made a pledge to the United Nations Human Rights 75 initiative to oppose laws against blasphemy and promote freedom of expression. 1. Background to Atheist Ireland Atheist Ireland is a voluntary advocacy group based in Ireland. We have Special Consultative Status at the United Nations. We promote atheism, reason, ...
The Catholic Education Partnership has issued Guidelines and Resources for Boards of Management and teachers regarding the teaching Catholic sex education during curriculum SPHE in second level schools. You can access their Guidelines and Resources here. Guidance for Catholic Post-Primary Schools: Republic of Ireland Living Love – Relationship and Sexuality ...
Atheist Ireland has obtained figures from the CSO showing the 62 types of wedding ceremonies in Ireland in 2022. They range from Roman Catholic to the Rites of Passage of the Indigenous Wisdom Tradition of Celtic Druid Temple. Only about 44% were some variation of what would currently be considered ...
One in five Irish weddings last year were spiritualist ceremonies, according to information obtained by Atheist Ireland last week. This is twice the number you would think from the published CSO statistics, which hide half of the spiritualist marriages under the label ‘other religious’. This means fewer than 45% of ...