> Wow. I really cannot agree with you on this. The Church still has an
> enormous amount of power and influence here, a key example being its
> control of something like 95% of the schools in the 26 Counties -
> which, among other things, allows it to essentially control what Irish
> people are taught about abortion (etc).
I was educated in a Catholic school, albeit one in the six counties. It's easy to overstate the indoctrination that goes on in them. I was shown anti-abortion videos as a teenager. They didn't change my mind one bit. The Legion of Mary wingnuts all came from Legion of Mary families. We did get sex education in science class, by the way, and were fully aware of what condoms were despite the Pontifical position on perfidious prophylaxis. The super-religious had the option of opting their kids out but I don't recall anyone doing so. My religion classes, which I voluntarily studied to A Level despite my atheism, were centred around philosophy, theology, ethics and politics, not the life and teachings of Christ or, for that matter, angelology.
Incidentally, the Catholic school I attendend had was run by a community of religious. Only a single religious was teaching there by my last year. The year I left he retired and so did the principal (who has since abandoned the cloth and married) and there are now no religious in the school at all. This was over ten years ago.
Obviously I would prefer a secular education system though.
More broadly I would nitpick a bit on "power and influence". Influence I would conceed, but not power. Lone self-flagellators in government are not the sole preserve of Holy Ireland, as Ruth Kelly probaby won't tell you.
> You can't overstate the effect
> of this. I'm regularly shocked by the number of people I come in
> contact with in Ireland who are otherwise left-wing but nonetheless
> hold strong anti-abortion views. I am convinced this is due to the
> Church's influence because I simply never encountered it in the US or
> England - *except* among devout, pacifist Catholics, which is a good
> example of an exception proving the rule, I think. And I've heard the
> same surprise expressed by expats I know from the US, England, Canada,
> Australia - abortion is basically a left-right issue in most of those
> countries. Why isn't it here? Because of the Church. Why else?
Because of morality that has come from the church's teachings but not because of church attendence or any real belief in anything. A greater problem is the absolute lack of conviction in the arguments, aside from a few ridiculous anti-abortion activists who ocassionally have stalls outside the GPO - yes, I agree, moronic in a country that already bans abortion (though quietly sanctions it when it suits so long as the operations are performed legitimately in Britain but constitiues malpractice in Ireland). Nevertheless, I'm not seeing much sign of 1980s style racicalism on the issue, pro or con.
Something by me from an as yet unfinished piece of academic writing on the Irish Times:
"Anticipating the charge of drifting to the right, Brady notes that the Irish Times's historical positions are now mainstream (Brady 2006, p. 103). This may be the case but it obscures the fact that in many ways Ireland remains a conservative country. Firstly, abortion remains illegal in Irish society – outlawed 'forever' by a bizarre constitutional amendment more suited to a totalitarian dictatorship than a liberal democracy. Moreover, Ireland has also become a model of the new moral authoritarianism in politics. The Republic of Ireland was the first country in Europe to introduce a widespread ban on smoking in public places. Victimhood weighs heavily on the political agenda, particularly in light of clerical sex abuse and the conflict in the North, to the point where questioning whether emotional distress confers any enlightenment is virtually forbidden." To portray Ireland as an open and shut case of a country whose population is in its sacredotal dotage falls short of the mark, for my money anyway. The problem is more one of people ignoring things than being actively in favour of them. Disengagement.
> It's also been in the news lately that in a number of areas, children
> are being denied access to their local school - which is almost always
> a Catholic school - unless their parents can produce a baptismal
> certificate.
What has not been in the news is the surprisingly high spurious conversion rate to Protestantism. Middle class Catholics seeking to get their children into the local Church of Ireland school due to its low pupil-to-teacher ratio and the professed scholastic benefits thereof have been undergoing unconvincing conversions leaving the poor old Protestant priests worrying about giving their guaranteed places to secularised Protestants or Protestantised Catholics.
That doesn't suggest any great belief in dogma to me, other than the dogma of individualism that is. Seeing as I'm having a veritable orgy of self-quotation today here's the nub something I wrote a while ago and my opinion hasn't changed since:
"Which is to say: the growth in faith schooling is driven by a privatisation of the social and educational spheres, not by an attack on secularism and modernity - but it may well cause one."
Getting all of the churches out of education would be a useful start, I agree.
> And I have a friend who is a qualified language resource
> teacher - a skill that is *desperately* needed in schools today - who
> has been unable to find work because she lives in a western county
> where all the schools are Catholic and she isn't. The law allows them
> to discriminate against her on that basis (even though she wouldn't be
> teaching religion!) and the Minister, who is generally believed to be
> a member of Opus Dei, has flatly refused to intervene.
>
> The Taoiseach said in the Dáil just last week that he believes there
> is a role for the Church in the running of the State and the most
> likely alternate Taoiseach, having recently described Ireland as a
> Christian country, is hardly going to challenge that position if he
> gets into office.
I wouldn't expect it from Fine Gael considering their rural conservaitive base.
Wojtek, while I wouldn't argue with your charcterisation of "religiosity, conservatism, income level, education, and residence" being related I don't think I could accept a "Southern Strategy". That would be abandonment of a great many people to the views of a small minority and the received wisdom they have imparted.
Jason.