Sir, – Every now and again, this issue is raised (Opinion, August 16th) by complaints from the proponents and beneficiaries of subsidised, exclusive education; and every time the answer is the same. There is no rationality to, or validity for, special treatment for “Protestant” secondary schools when a very significant proportion of both pupils and teachers in them are now non-Protestant.
The colonisation of these schools has been going on apace since the 1990s, as Catholic middle-class parents seek People Like Us for their children to mix with. This has been enthusiastically supported by the schools themselves, as they’ve run out of Protestant customers.
How, then, can one usefully speak of a “Protestant ethos” in most of these schools, that still requires special treatment? – Yours, etc,
IAN d’ALTON,
Rathasker Heights,
Naas,
Co Kildare.