Stanley letter

The Stanley letter is a letter written in 1831 which helped the British Government to establish legal basis for national schools in Ireland.^[1] The letter was written two years after Daniel O'Connell had brought Catholic Emancipation to Ireland and was penned by the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Edward Stanley (later Prime Minister of the United Kingdom as Edward Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby) and was addressed to the Duke of Leinster.

In line with the Letter's suggestions, a Board of Commission of National Education was established which disbursed funds for school building, the hiring of teachers and inspectors and provided grants for schools.^[2] The Board tried to mix Catholic and Protestant students by favouring applications for 'mixed' schools.^[2] However, in the years after the 1830s, different religious denominations begin to apply separately for control of schools^[2] to the extent that in 2010, approximately 1% of schools (34 out of 3279) are not under the control of a religious organization, with the remaining 99% under religious control.

The Stanley letter remains today the legal basis for all national schools in the Republic of Ireland, the predominant form of primary education in the country.^[2]

References

1. Irish Educational Documents, vol. 1, Áine Hyland, Kenneth Milne, Church of Ireland College of Education, pp.98-103
2. The Blackwell companion to modern Irish culture, W. J. McCormack, p.191

• The Letter was recently published in the book "We Declare - Landmark Documents in Ireland's History", Richard Aldous and Niamh Puirseil, 2008, Quercus,ISBN 978 1 84724 6721
• The text of the letter is online at http://www.education.ie/en/Schools-Colleges/Information/Boards-of-Management/Stanley-letter-1831-Boards-Of-Management.pdf