The Department of Education in Northern Ireland is reviewing the core Religious Education syllabus. It has also issued Guidelines on withdrawal from Religious Education. The Review follows the recent UK Supreme Court judgment in relation to JR87. That found that the current religious education syllabus...
Five years ago, the government proposed a new public holiday to mark the heroism of frontline workers during Covid, and to remember those who died during the pandemic. This was a welcome commemoration of national grief, dedication, and resilience. Instead, the idea morphed into a...
A Northern Ireland primary teacher has used a little-known law to withdraw from delivering Religious Education. The teacher, Javed Love, is now partnering with Northern Ireland Humanists to guide other teachers in how to do the same. But the situation is different in the Republic...
The Irish government has a duty under the Good Friday Agreement to take “comparable steps” to strengthen human-rights protection in Ireland, in line with developments in Northern Ireland. A recent UK Supreme Court case found that religious education arrangements in Northern Ireland schools breached the...
In a recent Irish Times article, Mary McAleese argues that infant baptism undermines the human rights of children. Specifically, she argues that: “It restricts children’s rights as set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in 1948 and United Nations Convention on the...
Here are ten important points about the right to not attend religious instruction in Irish schools. This right is enshrined in Article 44.2.4 of the Irish Constitution. Its purpose was and is to protect religious minorities in the education system. Constitutional rights are not worth...
Seamus McKenna, an early member of Atheist Ireland, has had hundreds of short letters published in the Irish Times over nearly fifty years. He has now compiled them in a fascinating book, the Reconstitution of Ireland. You can buy it at Amazon. Seamus is a...
Next Tuesday, 16 December, is the closing date for parents to respond to the Department of Education’s misleading survey on the future of primary schools. If you are thinking about responding, please be aware of the following facts. The survey misleadingly implies that you are...
Parents have the right to not be put in a position that they must reveal their religious or philosophical beliefs to their children’s school or teachers. This is one of the human rights principles that the UK Supreme Court raised in the recent case regarding...
Some Christians including Peadar Tóibín TD want Dublin City Council’s Winter Lights to be renamed Christmas Lights. This is not about people changing a religious festival to a secular one. It is about some Christians trying to force a religious meaning onto a secular display...
