CEIST: the first 10 years of a lay Catholic educational trust in Ireland

Abstract

In the first half of 2007, Catholic Education an Irish Schools Trust (CEIST) was established when several Religious Congregations handed trusteeship of their schools to a lay company. As CEIST – in the Irish language the word ‘CEIST’ means ‘question’ – completes 10 years serving the needs of its 110 secondary schools, it seems an appropriate time to take a retrospective and a prospective look at that experience and the questions it raises.