Catholic schools in Northern Ireland secured the top 11 places in league tables for 2014/15, it has been revealed. The success of Catholic schools was laid out by The Belfast Telegraph which gained the tables as a result of a freedom of information request. The good results have led to a call for the Department of Education to examine what makes Catholic schools such a success story. “They should be asking what is the magic ingredient which is making all the top performing schools in Northern Ireland Catholic schools,” said Sean Rafferty, head of St Louis Grammar in Ballymena in County Antrim. Meanwhile, DUP education spokesman Peter Weir MLA said lessons could be learned from Catholic schools.
A new group is calling on Catholic schools to set aside 10% of places for unbaptised children and those of minority faiths in the event of overcrowding. The Faith in Our Schools group, consisting of leading Catholic educationalists and a Senior Counsel, says it fully supports the ethos of Catholic schools but also recognises that communities served by the schools have changed significantly in recent years, leading to its call. “A change to admissions policy along the lines suggested would be fair to both the faith community and those who do not belong to it,” the new body said, adding that it also supports faster and wider divestment of Catholic schools.
There have been 412 same-sex marriages in Ireland in the year since the passage of the marriage referendum one year ago. Of these, 223 were pre-existing Civil Partnerships. Figures released by the Department of Social Protection show that all but one county – Clare – registered at least one same-sex marriage. Dublin recorded just over half of all marriages, with 43 in Cork, 25 in Limerick and 17 in Wicklow.
Irish doctors too readily accept negative perspectives on Church involvement in healthcare, a leading member of the Irish Medical Council (IMC) has said. Quoted in The Irish Catholic newspaper, Dr Ruairi Hanley, commenting on media coverage of the governance conflict between the National Maternity Hospital and St Vincent’s University Hospital, said some of his younger colleagues “rarely miss a trick when it comes to denouncing Catholicism via Twitter” while “many GPs seemingly prefer the official narrative of the violent Christian Brother and the sadistic guardians of the Magdalene Laundries”. Dr Hanley went on to praise the role played in healthcare by the Church which “deserves better than to be routinely condemned for its very existence”.
