ABSTRACT
Although school psychology in Ireland is of relatively recent origin (the Department of Education’s school psychological service was established in 1965), the Irish educational system has a long and complex tradition that reaches back to the 7th and 8th centuries. To appreciate this complexity, two factors must be borne in mind. First, for centuries Irish schools served as a vehicle for the preservation of the country’s culture and sense of national identity before national independence was achieved in 1922. Second, 95% of the population is Roman Catholic. For historical reasons most schools are denominational and private rather than secular or state-owned. This means that although the schools are almost totally financed by the state, they remain “private” in the sense that the land and buildings remain the property of the particular religious denomination that operates the schools. Ireland has a population of 3.5 million, approximately 50% of which is below the age of 25. This statistic helps to explain the unusually high rate of participation in full-time education, which is 23% of the total population (more than 800,000), giving the country one of the most highly developed educational systems in the world (Tussing, 1978).
