Hi Tommy, thanks for your interesting reply.
You ask whether or not I support the concept of children from different religions growing up together in shared educational institutions. It is clear in my previous article to Listenderry that the worthwhile ideal of an integrated education isn’t new in Ireland and the stated purpose of integrated education in the 1832 Education Bill was that catholic and protestant children be educated together so that they will form friendships that will last throughout life. This cannot be faulted and was intended to eradicate sectarianism in Ireland which was as prevalent in Ireland in 1832 as it is today.
A heavy weight of history has intervened and sectarianism in Ireland won the day. Protestant Ulster violently opposed the 1832 Bill and established the principle that the individual be educated according to personal conscience in state schools. This principle is the foundation of faith schools in the U.K. and was put into Canon Law by Cardinal Cullen after the Irish famine. Are the integrationists in N. Ireland now saying that the individual should not be educated according to conscience in a state school? Surely not!
Nowadays the adherents of integrated education see it as a cure-all of the sectarian sickness that infects N. Ireland/Ireland but this theory could be flawed. Integrated education didn’t cure sectarianism in 19th century Ireland nor will it eradicate sectarianism in 21st century Ireland. The flaw in this theory is that it places too much emphasis on the importance of schooling in the formation of character out look and attitude of the individual. In the formation of these educationalists give weightings of 60 to the home, 30 to the community and 10 to schooling so if the sickness of sectarianism is to be eradicated in N. Ireland/Ireland one should look first at the primary educators, the home and community. To change outlook and attitude which are forged mainly in the home and community will require governmental intervention. The Government of Ireland Act condoned and enshrined sectarian division in Ireland and David Cameron still does. Just as government can change outlook and attitude to smoking through legislation it will take government legislation to change out look and attitude to sectarianism in this country. Integrated education will prove to be a weak blunt tool to achieve this. What is needed now from Westminster is The National Government of Ireland Act
It is my thesis that what divides the people of Derry and creates sectarian discord is the constitution. In Protestant Derry Queen Elisabeth is welcome but in Catholic Derry it is President Mc Aleese. The Union Jack is flown in Protestant Derry while the Irish Tricolour is flown by Catholics. In the city ---God Save the Queen –is the national anthem of Protestants but Amhran Na bhFiain is the national anthem of Catholics. Generally Catholics travel on an Irish Passport but Protestants on a British one The Protestant loyalist Union Jack waving Apprentice Boys parade the streets eyed by a resentful contingent of Nationalist / Republican Tricolour supporters from the Catholic community. For as long as that constitutional set-up continues for that long will there be violence and sectarian discord in Derry and N. Ireland. in this sectarian constitutional set-up integrated schooling will not help as the constitutional root cause of sectarianism begins in the home and is reinforced by the adult community. To claim that sectarianism can be eradicated by engineering innocent children at school is a cowardly abdication by the adult population of their moral duty to resolve sectarianism in this, our own adult generation.
Changing the mindset of the people in Ireland requires action from Westminster by drawing up a written constitution for all Ireland expressed in The National Government of Ireland Act in a Federal Kingdom Context, the written constitution being made as acceptable to the Catholics of Kerry as to the Protestants of Derry. A full in-depth account of this can be found in the trilogy: -
(a) The Way Ireland Ought To Be ISBN 978-1-4295-5013-2
(b) The Rape of Virgin Munchindun ISBN 978-1-4490-4383-4
© Size Matters ISBN 978-1-4520-6860-2
These are available from Amazon, from the publisher Authorhouse or through any bookstore
Michael Gillespie Derry/Londonderry
Monday, 25 October 2010
Sunday, 17 October 2010
Integrate N. Ireland from the Top Down
Integrate the People from the Top Down Not from the Bottom Up.
IN his call for integrated education Mr Robinson has found another stick to beat the Catholic community with.
Integration isn’t new in Ireland and is fine in principle. In 1832 a liberal government at Westminster introduced a bill for the purpose of educating Catholic and Protestant children together so that “they form friendships that would last throughout life” This laudable ideal was violently opposed by the Protestant community in Ulster who objected to their children being brought into contact with Roman Priests. The Catholic bishops of the time backed the integrated ideal but in the Protestant defeat of the ideal the principle was established in British education that the individual can be educated according to personal conscience, apart in a state school. This principle still stands and after the Famine this principle, established by Protestant Ulster, was put into Canon Law by Cardinal Cullen.
Mt Robinson claims it would be ludicrous if Protestants and Catholics were educated in different universities. He has never heard of Maynooth and seems oblivious to the historic fact that U.C.D. was set up as a Catholic university when Catholics were denied access to the then Protestant Trinity. It is also true that until relatively recent times Catholics were denied access to the then Protestant Oxford. There are Catholic universities in America and on the continent so Mr Robinson is talking through his hat.
Why not integrate the people of N.Ireland from the top down by having an integrated Orange Order which accepts Catholics into its ranks? Mr Robinson should call for the abolition of divisive religion in schools to be replaced by unifying Christian ecumenism. He should also devise a politics which is acceptable to all on this Island and abandon a politics for protestant unionists and rid Ireland of sectarianism. He should rid N. Ireland of sectarian ghettoes. Perhaps if the full story were known maybe Mr Robinson sees in integrated education a mechanism whereby a future Catholic population will be converted to unionism and the border copper-fastened.
Derry/Londonderry
IN his call for integrated education Mr Robinson has found another stick to beat the Catholic community with.
Integration isn’t new in Ireland and is fine in principle. In 1832 a liberal government at Westminster introduced a bill for the purpose of educating Catholic and Protestant children together so that “they form friendships that would last throughout life” This laudable ideal was violently opposed by the Protestant community in Ulster who objected to their children being brought into contact with Roman Priests. The Catholic bishops of the time backed the integrated ideal but in the Protestant defeat of the ideal the principle was established in British education that the individual can be educated according to personal conscience, apart in a state school. This principle still stands and after the Famine this principle, established by Protestant Ulster, was put into Canon Law by Cardinal Cullen.
Mt Robinson claims it would be ludicrous if Protestants and Catholics were educated in different universities. He has never heard of Maynooth and seems oblivious to the historic fact that U.C.D. was set up as a Catholic university when Catholics were denied access to the then Protestant Trinity. It is also true that until relatively recent times Catholics were denied access to the then Protestant Oxford. There are Catholic universities in America and on the continent so Mr Robinson is talking through his hat.
Why not integrate the people of N.Ireland from the top down by having an integrated Orange Order which accepts Catholics into its ranks? Mr Robinson should call for the abolition of divisive religion in schools to be replaced by unifying Christian ecumenism. He should also devise a politics which is acceptable to all on this Island and abandon a politics for protestant unionists and rid Ireland of sectarianism. He should rid N. Ireland of sectarian ghettoes. Perhaps if the full story were known maybe Mr Robinson sees in integrated education a mechanism whereby a future Catholic population will be converted to unionism and the border copper-fastened.
Derry/Londonderry
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