Editorial: Who do we want as patrons for our schools?

This week a press release from Educate Together highlighted to me the ongoing struggle to even get a good idea of what parents in Ireland want when it comes to the patronage of our schools.

Educate Together called on the Department of Education and Youth to “live up to the promise made repeatedly over the last three years, to launch a national survey of parental preference in school patronage.

The multi-denominational patron body is asking the Government to formally announce the survey, including a specific launch date as well as facilitating a public discourse and information campaign about school patronage and multi-denominational education.

They also want the Government to announce and ring-fence adequate funding for schools wishing to transfer patronage.

It remains the case that most schools in Ireland are set up by Catholic bishops. In the Irish national school system, each school has a patron. Usually, the patron sets up the school, defines its ethos and has an ongoing relationship with the school. Individual schools are managed by boards of management on behalf of the patron.

This has left us with the unusual situation that while a huge amount of parents are non-religious, most schools remain in the patronage of religious bodies. This can be seen from a number of recent photos in this paper on school celebrations which featured Catholic bishops. See page 21.

It’s time that we really found out what Irish parents want from Irish schools. There is still little choice in Cork in terms of alternative school patronage, particularly away from the city.

Finally, it’s yet another milestone for Kieran McCarthy’s fantastic local history column in this paper and its predecessor.

Kieran’s column is actually older than this paper itself!

This week his column hits an incredible 26 years, while The Cork Independent celebrates just 20 years in existence this year!

Kieran’s columns are a weekly delight and cast a spotlight on such a diverse array of stories in Cork’s past. He has just written another book, 'A-Z of Cork, Places, People, History’, which brings his tally of books on Cork history to an amazing eight publications. Most of these are at least in part based on his weekly columns.

'A-Z of Cork, Places, People, History’ published by Amberley Publishing (2025) is his latest publication on the rich history of Cork city. The book aims to showcase just over 100 short histories or themes which have always intrigued him. There’s extracts from it on page 29 this week and there may be more in coming weeks.

In Kieran’s own words, he has discovered and re-discovered his city, he still feels he is just scratching the surface on the histories which have led to the development of Cork.

In many ways, he is writing Cork’s history while we try to tell Cork’s story. Bravo Kieran!