Comprehensive Liberalism and Civic Education in the Republic of Ireland

Abstract

Civic education has become an important issue in the Republic of Ireland. The new pluralism of Irish life, the encouragement of active citizenship by the government and the proposals for a new Leaving Certificate subject in civic education all require a number of difficult normative and institutional choices to be made. Although the direct inculcation of particular values characterises most of these proposals, I argue that such attempts to directly form students’ characters are ill‐suited to a diverse, liberal polity and explore the consequences of a comprehensive Millian liberalism for the civic education curriculum and the structure of schooling in contemporary Ireland. I conclude that Ireland’s educational institutions are peculiarly capable of responding to the diversity of a modern liberal society.