Why don’t you just send your child to a multi-denominational school?

96% of all primary schools in Ireland have a religious ethos, mostly a Catholic or Christian one. Ireland is a multicultural country for many years but the education system would make one think otherwise. A growing number of people do not want their child to be evangelised in a Christian faith but the number are stacked against them. However, if someone questions the religious control of schools in conversation, they are usually met with the following response at some point:

“If you don’t like the system, why don’t you go to another school,” is the mantra by many in the system. (They also tell them to set up their own school but this is not a possibility in Ireland.) In this article, I want to answer that question. Why don’t these families go off to a non-religious school?

I looked at all 3,200+ primary schools and broke down how many of them are not patronised by a religious organisation. These schools are generally patronised by Educate Together, the ETBi (Community National Schools) or Foras Pátrúnachta na Scoileanna Lán-Ghaeilge to find out how many schools people can go to in their county.

There are 3 counties in Ireland where there are ZERO options for families — Monaghan, Longford and Leitrim. There are 7 counties in Ireland where there is only ONE option; and there are 5 counties where there are only TWO options. In fact in 20 out 26 counties there are FIVE or fewer multidenominational schools for families.

There is only ONE county in Ireland where more than 10% of schools are multidenominational — Dublin at 15%. This is still an incredibly low percentage and can’t be considered a real choice.

Here is a full breakdown of multidenominational schools by county.