Submitted by Anna Donohoe, PPWP Grassroots Organizing Intern
“Don’t get your knickers in a twist over sex education” says Ireland’s Sunday Independent columnist Carol Hunt. This is not the attitude I expected before I got here, I must admit. I was imagining a very socially conservative and mostly Catholic society; and therefore I assumed everyone would be tight-lipped and prudish about sex education. Some background: I am in central Ireland visiting my relatives at the moment (all of my father’s family lives here), and that is why I decided to focus on sex ed in Ireland for this blog entry.
I asked two of my cousins about sex education (sex ed is called Relationship and Sexuality Education or RSE here) and what they were taught in school—one said that at his school it’s really up to the teacher’s discretion whether you get a comprehensive curriculum or an embarrassed abstinence-only approach. His sister agreed, saying her class at the same school got much less in-depth information than his. I’ve also been doing online research, and following day-to-day leads such as a television ad campaign.
