ABSTRACT
Understandings of ‘publicness’ in education are time-specific and linked to wider contextual and societal factors. Using Ireland as a case study, this chapter traces the evolving understandings of publicness in primary education over the past two centuries as represented in key legislative and policy documents. While acknowledging the importance of relational and ethical questions, the focus in this chapter is on structural issues relating to the ownership and management of the primary education system. One distinctive feature of Ireland’s colonial context is the historical involvement of the religious denominations in education as a counterbalance to state control. An exploration of the pathway leading to 93% of ‘public’ primary schools being owned and managed by religious authorities in Ireland in 2022, and how these impacts on society’s relationship to the education system, is a central purpose of this chapter. The interface and tensions between these evolving structures and understandings and how they both supported and resisted neoliberal ideology will be critically analysed. The concluding discussion proffers some suggestions and signposts for a new publicness of primary education in Ireland. The analysis reveals that some of the core characteristics of public education (e.g., funded by public means, accountable to the public, and accessible to everyone) have not been core to the operation of primary education in Ireland, either historically or contemporaneously. Ultimately the chapter argues that the twin influences of Ireland’s colonial/post-colonial context and the integral involvement of religious denominations at all levels of the education system have impacted, and continue to influence substantially, the understanding of the publicness of the primary education system.
