I Don’t Want a Support Group — I Want Representation
Why the absence of diverse voices in Irish education isn’t an accident
In 2017, I raised concerns with my union about the lack of minoritised voices in Irish education, particularly in discussions about school patronage. The response I got didn’t surprise me. I was told the issue needed a “suitable face” — someone who looked like your mammy or auntie. Someone familiar and non-threatening. Someone who wasn’t me.
After securing my position in 2008, I remain — to the best of my knowledge — the only primary school principal in Ireland from an ethnic minority background. I’ve said this many times in public and private forums, yet it never seems to land. I once mentioned it to a journalist who replied, “How do you know you’re the only one?” As if the burden of proof lies with me, not the system that has failed to record, reflect, or respond to this fact. Perhaps it’s because I don’t look like what people expect a minority to look like.
Earlier this month, the union announced a new taskforce on school patronage. I applied to be part of it. I’ve campaigned on the issue for more than a decade. I lead a school outside the denominational mainstream. I’m not only qualified; I’m one of very few people in Ireland whose perspective is shaped from outside the dominant cultural and religious framework of our education system.
I was not selected.
Every member of the taskforce was white, Irish, and works in a denominational school. There was no one from a minoritised background. No one from a multidenominational school. And certainly not me.
This isn’t just a personal disappointment. It’s systemic. It’s about who gets to shape the future — and who gets asked to stay in their place. The best I’ve been offered was a support group for people like me. As if what I needed was a quiet space to talk about my feelings. Minoritised teachers don’t want a support group. We want a seat at the table.
Last week, two new documents were released by the INTO — a major survey on religion in schools, and the report of the very taskforce I wasn’t selected for. The survey confirms what we’ve known for years: most teachers oppose faith formation in the classroom, and want more inclusive alternatives to religious instruction. Yet most still work in Catholic schools, and the system remains structurally shaped by denominational control.
The taskforce report echoes some of these concerns, for example, the repeal of Section 37.1 of the Employment Equality Act. It admits the teaching profession is overwhelmingly white, and that the requirement for a Certificate in Religious Education blocks entry for those from non-majority backgrounds.
And yet, the very people whose exclusion is described so clearly in the report were excluded from writing it.
To add further insult, INTO Congress has just voted against a motion calling for the union to advocate for stronger legal protections against religious discrimination. More than half of delegates said no.
We are not dealing with a lack of information. We are dealing with a profession that knows the facts and chooses to look away.
This pattern of soft resistance — of embracing inclusive language while keeping the doors shut — doesn’t just affect me. It affects anyone who doesn’t fit the traditional mould of the Irish teacher.
We claim to want diversity, but only when it comes with no challenge. We say we value inclusion, but only if it’s tidy, polite, and delivered by someone who “looks the part.”
I often think of Groucho Marx’s line: “I don’t care to belong to any club that will have me as a member.” In my case, it feels like the club says: We care about inclusion. Just not if it makes us feel uncomfortable.
There’s a real risk here — not just to me, but to the profession itself. If we continue to shut out the people whose perspectives are most needed, we will end up with education policy shaped by people who don’t see the full picture. Who don’t know what it’s like to teach a curriculum that excludes your own identity. Who don’t understand what it feels like to be the only one in the room — again and again and again.
I’m not asking for sympathy. What I’m asking for is simple: that we stop pretending these exclusions are accidental.
They are not. They are a choice. And the profession keeps making it.
It’s time the profession looked in the mirror and asked a harder question: not whether we believe in inclusion, but whether we’re prepared to give up power in order to practise it.
