‘I had to fight for my children’s right to opt out of religion classes’

Searching for a school without a religious ethos often yields few options. Here, parents share their experiences of trying to opt out of religious instruction, and why this is a challenge in a system dominated by faith-based schools

Barbara Neeson. Photo: Frank McGrath

Barbara Neeson

Having only recently made Dublin my home, I confess that I knew little about the Irish education system before relocating from Belfast. As a Republic, I had assumed the Irish system to be more progressive than the religiously segregated one I had gone through in the north so it was a surprise to learn that, according to the Department of Education’s July 2022 Statistical Bulletin, 88.6pc of all Irish schools still remained under the control of the Catholic Church.

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