Becoming ‘everything rolled into one’: understanding how sister-teachers experienced the immediate impact of the free education scheme, c. 1958–1968, an oral history approach

ABSTRACT

Based on the oral history testimonies of Sister-teachers, this study provides an insight into the impact of the Free Education Scheme (1967) on the lives of women religious in Ireland. This major initiative was generated and driven by men; however, it had a direct impact on the professional lives of thousands of women who ran schools. The article outlines the development of Irish convent schools as a form of ‘voluntary secondary schooling’ and the roles performed by women religious (nuns). It then considers the impact of the Free Education Scheme on convent schooling and how Sister teachers and Sister principals responded and adapted to these changes and increased demands. The article draws on oral history accounts, in which women religious articulate their own thoughts on this period of dramatic change in their lives as educators.

KEYWORDS:

• Oral history
• Irish education
• women religious
• convent schools
• free education scheme

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the cooperation of the numerous Irish Sisters who have provided oral history testimonies for this research. The authors acknowledge with thanks the helpful responses of the peer reviewers of the draft article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributors

Catriona Delaney is a post-doctoral fellow at the School of Education, University College Dublin. She completed her PhD at the Department of History, University of Limerick. Together with Deirdre Raftery and Catherine Nowlan-Roebuck, she co-authored Nano Nagle: the Life and the Legacy (2019). She and has contributed articles to several journals and is a member of the steering committee of the H-WRBI.

Deirdre Raftery is Professor of the History of Education at University College Dublin, and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. She was co-editor of the international journal History of Education for five years. Deirdre has thirteen book publications and has given keynotes and lectures in the USA, Australia, Germany, Switzerland, India, Canada and the UK. She is PI of UCD ConventCollections, and co-PI of UCD PINNACLE. She was Visiting Fellow at the University of Oxford (2010), Fulbright Scholar, Boston College (2015), and Visiting Fellow at the University of Notre Dame (2019–2020), and the University of Toronto (2020).