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 ...
The number of Catholic weddings has recovered from its dramatic drop during Covid, and has returned to the pattern of steady decline that has been happening for the past decade. In the decade since 2012, the percentage of Catholic weddings has dropped from 65.2% to 40.5%, and nonreligious weddings (civil ...
The Artificial Intelligence app ChatGPT wrote a nursery rhyme about God, but it would not write a nursery rhyme about atheism, because it said it cannot generate inappropriate or sensitive content. After a lengthy discussion about AI training data, freedom of religion or belief, discrimination, and ethics, ChatGPT then said it ...
In Ireland, organisations with religious privilege live in a bubble. They never have to change their ways, because they can get away with giving lip service to equality, diversity, and inclusion and get lauded for it. The right to freedom of conscience, religion and belief protects those with philosophical convictions ...
Atheist Ireland has sent the following response to a letter from Bernie McNally, Secretary General of the Department of Education, regarding our correspondence with the Oireachtas Education Committee about the right to not attend religious instruction in schools. Dear Secretary General, We refer to your letter dated 1st of March ...
One of the issues that Atheist Ireland raised in our recent meeting with the Catholic Education Partnership was that schools are refusing to comply with the legal requirement to include in their admission policies arrangements for children who exercise their constitutional right to not attend religious instruction classes. Atheist Ireland has ...
The Court of Appeal found that, when it interprets the obligations of a Board of Management under the Education Act 1998, it must have regard to the terms of the European Convention on Human Rights. Probably no Board of Management in the country is even aware what obligations they have ...
Atheist Ireland had a constructive meeting this week with the Catholic Education Partnership, the body that coordinates Catholic education in Ireland. We met in Maynooth with chief executive officer Alan Hynes and chairperson Marie Griffin, and we have arranged a follow-up meeting to further discuss these issues: The right to ...
Yesterday the Minister for Education, Norma Foley, introduced the New Primary School curriculum framework. You can find the framework here and frequently asked questions here. This new Framework could mean more time spent on religion in primary schools, not less. Officially, the new curriculum reduces the time spend on the ...