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Updated 8.40pm
TRANSITION YEAR STUDENTS at Coláiste Eoin in Stillorgan, Dublin, are planning a protest this week over the school’s decision to cancel a workshop on homophobic bullying.
The school cancelled the workshop, due to be hosted by voluntary organisation ShoutOut, just half an hour before it was due to go ahead, reportedly saying that “both sides should be represented”.
The workshop, which has been given in schools all across the country, focuses on encouraging students not to discriminate against LGBT people. However when the group of volunteers arrived at the boys’ school today, they were told that the event had been cancelled.
Declan Meehan, the schools co-ordinator for ShoutOut, said that the group was originally not given any explanation, before an unidentified person told them that the Board of Management had decided that “both sides of the argument should be represented”.
“My colleagues were baffled by this and questioned what he meant, but it wasn’t forthcoming”.
Meehan said that workshop had been booked several months ago and the cancellation was “out of the blue”.
“We’ve been out at Colaiste Eoin before back in 2012 and 2013,” he told TheJournal.ie. ”It was actually the first school we ever did a workshop in and they’ve always been very hospitable to us.” It is the first time that the group has ever had a school cancel.
Protest
This evening, students at the school began organising a protest to make it known that this decision does not represent their views. The discussion started on a Facebook group page for Coláiste Eoin and Coláiste Íosagáin, the girls’ secondary school on the same grounds:
One student at Coláiste Íosagáin told TheJournal.ie that she and her classmates will be supporting the protest by the transition year boys at Coláiste Eoin which is expected to take place during their first break.
“We saw that the talk was cancelled and nobody’s happy about it,” she said. “We want to show that it’s not the students’ choice.”
All the boys are going to wear rainbow flags on their school crest.
No comment
A person who answered the phone at the school earlier today said that the principal “doesn’t want to comment” on what happened.
She said that the incident will be “going to the Board of Management” but did not elaborate on what exactly this meant.
Declan Meehan said that he has repeatedly tried to contact the school but that he has not been given any explanation, beyond the fact that the school has not changed its position.
ShoutOut was due to speak to Transition Year students at the school about transphobic and homophobic bullying. The group is apolitical and does not speak about issues such as the upcoming referendum on same-sex marriage.
The Department of Education has issued guidelines asking teachers to provide information on homophobic bullying, but many schools instead choose to bring in groups such as ShoutOut to talk to students instead.
“My concern now is that I don’t want to discourage any schools from getting involved. I just want to let people know that this can still happen – that parents and teachers can object to these things,” Meehan said.
- Additional reporting by Michelle Hennessy.
Originally published 4.07pm
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Interesting that some of the arguments for abortion being legalized in this country has connotations around eliminating the possibility of children being born with conditions that society finds undesirable. Has anyone studied the pain of aborting an unborn on the unborn, or is this being also sanitized to make the procedure palatable for our comfortable society? The Nazis did it to the born, is society about to legalize doing it to the unborn in this country? It revolves around the right to life and the right to live.
@Micheal S. O’ Ceilleachair: If you did your research you’d there is no developed nervous system till week 23 which is why that’s a cut off point.
Big difference in the right to life of an independent sentient person and that of a foetus that is in a woman’s body affecting her physical, emotional and physiology wellbeing while using her circulatory and pulmonary systems.
@Ciara Ni Mhurchu: Just wondering Ciara, if a baby is born premature, requires an incubator and medical intervention to keep the baby alive would you be ok with the parents having a choice to kill the baby if they decided they no longer wanted it? I’m just trying to understand your point using that logic. So what you are saying is that the unborn has no value due to the level of dependency it has on the Mother? I’m not sure if your aware but all babies are still dependent on its mother when they are born. They may not rely on their circulatory and pulmonary systems when they are born but they still solely rely on the parents to survive.
Will the pain ever cease for the Jewish community, time and time again the past horrors rise from the shallow grave of nazi horrors.. Time to answer and end the endless questions, may they rest in peace
@David Dineen: only the jews? Slavs and Roma didn’t fare too well at the hands of the nazis, Armenians suffered greatly at the hands of the turks, Ukrainians under the Russians, even us in the mid 19th century at the hands of the British. All attempted genocides in Europe in recent history, but only the one perpetrated against the jews seems to exist in an oft referenced shallow grave, why is that?
@Liam Doyle: @Liam Doyle: Liam, you answered your own question but you’re too thick to see it. It’s because the regimes that carried out the atrocities, Turks, Russians and British, are still in power and control their history – and in particular how it is taught in school. Guess – go on Liam, try and guess – which regime fell and was held accountable? And the stories of atrocities keep coming out because no matter how deep the bones are buried, they eventually rise to the surface. You can read books about all this stuff – it’s called ‘history’.
@Fiona Brown: when I said Russians I was obviously referring to the soviets. When I said turks I was obviously referring to the ottomans. But I’m sorry, you were saying something about me being too stupid to realise that these regimes remain in power. Do they?
See what the Japanese did in Unit 731
@The Bull McCabe: yes, I remember when I first stumbled over this stuff. It was more unnerving than Frankenstein, Dracula, The Wolf Man, Daleks, Cybermen and any other monsters you can think of, either mythical or actual, rolled into one. The Spanish Inquisition, even, would have been petrified. In all seriousness, I had to leave the light on to get to sleep after reading what went on in the “facility” – if that’s the right word, in Harbin, Manchuria. The real sting in the tail is the Americans letting the Japanese off with a slap or two on the wrist if they surrendered their findings on the phenomenon of “experimental surgery without anaesthetic.” And then set up the surviving directors in top level positions with “Green Cross” medical research. “The (good) doctor will see you now…”
These fine doctors must’ve been homeopathic Doctors surely?
Modern dive tables used by scuba divers have their origins in data that was captured by allied forces after the war and the data was a result of pressure tests on Jews, not by any means condoning what was done but it’s an example of how the atrocities have spread into society.
Didn’t know anything about the Natzweiler-Struthof camp until recently,a lot of history ignored.
Why anyone would want to align their beliefs with the s(um that committed such atrocities on other humans all in the name of national identity?
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