Celebrating 50 years of CPSMA in Kildare & Leighlin Diocese: 08.12.25
Mass at 7.30pm: St. Peter & Paul’s Church, Portlaoise
Seamus Mulconry – CPSMA General Secretary
Anne Fay – Chair of CPSMA Board
Fr. Frank MacNamara
Maeve Mahon
Bryan O’Reilly
Diocesan Education Council
First Reading: Eileen Moynihan
Psalm: Sr. Bernadette
Second Reading: Diarmuid Coonan
POF: Sr. Evelyn, John Kelly & Pat Doyle
Offertory Procession: Frank Hinch & DEC Member
Communion Reflection: Eimear Hennessy & Br. Matthew
Introduction:
We gather on the evening of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception to honour the 50th Anniversary of CPSMA supporting the work of Catholic education in our diocese through our Boards of Management. I welcome the Board of Management Chairs, Members of the Boards, Principals, Staff and Parents who join us here in St. Peter & Paul’s Church this special evening. I welcome our special invited guests. I welcome the priests and religious who gather with us this evening.
Our liturgical space is filled this evening with a tree and the names of all schools on the different branches of the tree. Boards are very much rooted in Christ; CPSMA is very much rooted in the heart of the parish community. The graphic of the tree works perfectly this evening, what is visible to the eye represents the visible work of the board, policies, decisions, governance, care of the entire school community. What lies beneath the ground are the roots that keep the tree grounded, rooted in Christ, in seeing every person involved in the school community as another Christ.
This feast celebrates Mary’s ‘Yes’ to God’s will, tonight we celebrate the thousands of ‘Yes’s’ made by volunteers who have over the past fifty years served on Boards of Management across the diocese.
And so as we gather we call to mind our sins …
- Is tusa Tobar na Trócaire – you are the wellspring of mercy:
A Thiarna, déan trócaire
- Is tusa Slí na Fírinne – you are the way of Truth:
A Chríost, déan trócaire
- Bí linn i gcónaí, ós ár gcomhair amach – be with us always, showing us the way.
A Thiarna, déan Trócaire
Homily:
The first Board of Management I served on was in September 1988. It was a Christian Brother’s school, the CBS in Mullingar. The chair was one of the Christian Brothers, I was a patron nominee.
Boards and CPSMA were then just entering their teenage years! Back in October 1975 when Boards of Management were first established, there were around 3,400 Catholic Primary Schools in Ireland. For many years before then the Parish Priest on behalf of the Patron managed the schools.
In 1969 the Bishops first muted the idea that lay people should be involved in school management; it was not until 1972 that the Department of Education took up this idea. Fr. Tom Dooley tells me that with the benefit of hindsight there should have been better preparation of those who were asked to serve on those initial boards. In many respects the only ones familiar then with school management was the Chairperson of the Board who in many cases was the local priest or religious and the School Principal.
Rory D’Arcy in the Furrow says that “governance included not only the patron’s nominees but parents, teachers (including the Principal), and later members of the wider community – a small circle around a table that, in composition, told a bigger story about the Church and society learning to act together”[1]. Today in a Church that is synodal in its intention, the Boards of Management represent that aspiration powerfully.
There were Standing Committees of CPSMA across the dioceses. Fr. Nelus Crowley, Mountmellick was the first chair in Kildare & Leighlin with Fr. Gregory Brophy of this parish its first secretary. Two invaluable resources that have steadfastly supported schools boards over the year has been ‘the handbook’ or as its called ‘the manual’. Of course everything today is online! And the Solas, the newsletter which initially came out twice a year and later more frequently. Eight copies would arrive, one for each board member. In ways both the manual and Solas filled the gap of training in those early days.
And let’s not forget Florence at the end of the phone, Florence in CPSMA had the answer to every query! And of course Msgr Dan O’Connor has always been and continues to be a huge resource and very much so for those early boards. There were four meetings every year in the diocese in those early years, one in Kildare town, one in Mountmellick, one in Bagenalstown and one in Carlow. Each meeting chose two priests and two parents for the Steering Committee.
The management and support of our schools has been led very well over the past fifty years. It’s on the shoulders of names like Fr. Mattie Kelly, Fr. Jackie O’Connell, Fr. Pierce Murphy, Fr. Liam Merrigan, Sr. Bernie Breathnack, Betty Kinsella, Sr. Mary O’Connor, John Weldon, Maeve Mahon, Bryan O’Reilly, Damian White and Regina Doheny we stand this evening. The work of the Diocesan Education Council chaired in the recent past by Fr. Frank MacNamara and currently by Fr. Thomas O’Byrne and representative of the many stakeholders continues to advise me on all matters pertaining to the Primary Education landscape.
A landscape that is currently being surveyed by the Department of Education and Youth inviting parents, prospective parents, guardians, staff and board members to express their view on the future of our primary schools. This offers a unique opportunity to help shape the direction of your local school, and its your local school that is under the spotlight. The Catholic Church doesn’t seek a monopoly on education and welcomes diversity. I encourage all to participate, the closing date is tomorrow week, December 16th. It’s important that all voices are heard. I encourage all eligible to participate. Don’t let someone else speak for you.
Our Catholic schools are fundamentally committed to inclusivity, they are not exclusive clubs, but respect the diversity of faith and culture in the school community. Our Catholic schools welcome all, of all faiths and none, once there is capacity, once there is space. Our Catholic schools see in every child, in every member of staff, in every colleague around the board table, an image of Christ.
As patron of the 163 Primary Schools under my patronage I see a faith-based education as highly formative and valuable for our young people. To reduce Catholic schools simply to places where sacraments are prepared for, is to miss the point, a school living its ethos fully and completely, will allow such an ethos to permeate all aspects of school life for the good of all.
The image of the tree fits perfectly with tonight’s theme of thanksgiving. The tree through the different seasons mirrors the rhythm of the school year and the changing terms of our boards. Mary, the young Jewish woman from Nazareth found in her a ‘Yes’ that allowed Christ to enter our world. Mary chosen from before she was even born. Mary at her conception was selected, set apart, singled out by God to be very special. Our volunteers who serve on school boards find in themselves a ‘Yes’ that allows their school and those in it to flourish.
Sacraments are our ‘Yes’ to God, our way through the Church structures of saying ‘Yes Lord, I believe!’ We are blessed to have preparation programmes supported by schools and parishes. Mary’s ‘Yes’ recorded in Luke’s narrative threw her simple life in Nazareth into turmoil, a ‘Yes’ lived out in the simplicity of a thousand daily tasks and worries of each mother.
We say ‘Yes’ to God in our life by living the fruits of the sacraments we have received – a reminder of those fruits: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. It doesn’t mean we get everything right, all of the time, but let’s not make the perfect the enemy of the good. Mary was perfect. We give thanks this evening for our Boards over the past fifty years, for those who volunteered then and now and for CPSMA and all it does to assist our own diocesan structure of support over the years. My prayer is that our boards will continue to nourish the roots set down fifty years ago, so that the 35,000 children who attend our Catholic schools may grow in wisdom, faith and love. Amen.
[1] ‘A Million Reasons’, Marking 50 years of Boards of Management in Irish Catholic Primary Education, The Furrow, October 2025, pg. 492
