Publisher's Note: This column was originally published in The Wanderer on December 25, 2025.

The Wanderer, 12/31/25 — We put Christmas candles in the windows of our home the other day. The custom began during Ireland’s Penal Days, when there was a price on the head of every priest. The candle would light a priest’s way through the dark to a house where he could safely celebrate Mass. It’s become a pretty universal decoration today, and secular types call it a quaint folk custom.

But since I’m Irish, it reminds me of how deeply my ancestors cherished their faith — in spite of dungeon, fire, and sword. In Grandfather John O’Brien’s day, and indeed until recently, “Irish” and “Catholic” were almost synonymous.

Ireland has fallen from its proud past as a most Catholic country, only to become the most woke country in Europe.

We all lament how Ireland has fallen from its proud past as a most Catholic country, only to become the most woke country in Europe: a national referendum has approved gay “marriage,” abortion was made legal, and now the government has imposed a curriculum that normalizes disordered sexual behavior in the earliest grades.

But now is the season of hope, and this article is about hope — hope for Ireland and hope for the faith in Ireland.

The Irish government imposed a curriculum that normalizes disordered sexual behavior in the earliest grades.

A couple months ago I had the privilege of meeting an Irishman who is leading a quiet revolution in Irish education. He is pioneering something that we here in America take for granted, but is an absolute novelty in Ireland: independent, classical, parent-run, faithful Catholic education.

Today, the Irish government is pro-abortion, and pro-same-sex marriage — and the only Catholic school in the country that operates without state funding is Mater Dei Academy in Cork, that land of my ancestors.

Mater Dei Academy is a new model of education in Ireland, and it is a long term project, as education always is. If it succeeds, it can change the course of Irish history. To help it succeed, Catholics who love the faith and long for a truly Catholic Ireland should support it however we can.

If Mater Dei Academy succeeds, it can change the course of Irish history.

Pádraig Cantillon-Murphy is a professor of engineering at University College Cork, and his wife Grace manages a household that includes nine children — and Pádraig assured me that starting a school was the last thing on their minds!

Pádraig and Grace had courted at MIT; their first two children were born in America when Pádraig worked at Harvard Medical School. Upon returning to Ireland, Pádraig, who had grown up in a family of teachers, quickly realized that education in Ireland was no longer excellent — or Catholic.

Ireland had cast aside the 1,600-year tradition of Catholic, classical teaching. The Irish government adopted the "education for life" ideas of John Dewey in the 1950s, and the art of learning how to think through the liberal arts had gradually disappeared from the curriculum. Indeed, today European Union-style political correctness rules.

Ireland had cast aside the 1,600-year tradition of Catholic, classical teaching.

So Pádraig and Grace began home schooling. When their eldest child was approaching secondary school age, they could not find a school in Ireland that would not undermine the faith. Unfortunately, few had any challenging academic standards at all.

After much prayer and consultation with other parents who shared the same concerns, in 2020 they began Mater Dei.

From little acorns do great oaks grow. After listening to Pádraig, I felt as though I were present at the creation of a turnaround in Ireland. It will take time, yes, but the time is right to start.

There were more adult baptisms in Ireland this year than ever before — and there are more seminarians in Ireland than there have been in years. If education like Mater Dei Academy were available to more families in Ireland, actual numbers would increase even more!

The tide is just beginning to turn — and Mater Dei Academy is in the right place at the right time to be the leader of a thoroughgoing reform of education in Ireland.

Mater Dei Academy in Cork is the leader of a thoroughgoing reform of education in Ireland.

If you want an Irish history and culture curriculum in your homeschool, you can get one from MaterDeiEducation.ie. Its homeschool curriculum is now spreading across Europe.

Mater Dei Academy will graduate its first class next year. It is the only school in Ireland to have the recognition from Cambridge University, the coveted IGCSE Certificate, affirming the excellence of its classical curriculum.

And what a curriculum. Latin the first year, French added the second year; history, theology, philosophy, music, science, art, English, Irish (Gaeilge), and mathematics.

When some supporters created the Saints and Scholars Foundation to organize assistance to Mater Dei Academy, the first thing Pádraig asked for help with was to find a grammar teacher. Believe it or not, English grammar has not been taught in Ireland for 40 years. And thanks to the Saints and Scholars Foundation, a recent graduate of Christendom College is teaching grammar and helping Mater Dei fashion its own grammar curriculum.

Music and art are flagship subjects, Pádraig told me. "Music is an important part of Irish culture. What’s so special about Irish music is that it’s extremely social. The stereotype is in pub sessions, but its roots actually are in peoples' homes." He is often amazed at the quality of art that ordinary students are able to create after even a little teaching. Every day the whole school gathers in the morning and again at the closing of the day for fifteen minutes to chant parts of the Liturgy of the Hours - students report that it gives them a sense of peace, he told me.

If this sounds like a school you wish your children could have attended, be of good cheer: it might be possible for your grandchildren to have the experience. Mater Dei Academy already welcomes students from France and Spain. Students from America who have a commitment to the faith would also be welcome. The school’s website would be the place to start exploring: that’s MaterDeiEducation.ie.

I mentioned The Saints and Scholars Foundation a moment ago. Long-time readers of these pages might remember William Marshner, the fire brand reporter who documented the most outrageous scandals of the 1970s for The Wanderer, and then went on to become a founder of Christendom College. Many of those articles can be found at Marshner.christendom.edu, by the way. What you probably don’t know is that his wife is a great lover of Ireland and even teaches the Irish language.

You will remember the name Connie Marshner if you were active in the early days of the pro-life, pro-family movement, and read The Family Protection Report. That was the first publication to expose how the government was attacking the family.

Connie was a key organizer of the conservative resistance to President Jimmy Carter’s White House Conference on Families. Connie went to Ireland in 1985 to campaign against the first divorce referendum in Ireland -- the one that our side won. When Pádraig was starting Mater Dei Academy, someone who knew Connie through that work urged him to contact her. And the rest is history, you might say.

Connie immediately saw the possibility to repeat history and engage Irish Catholics in America in this revolutionary new movement in Ireland, so she set up the Saints and Scholars Foundation (www.SaintsAndScholars.us). (Donations can be made online or by U.S. Mail to 804 Rodney Ave., Front Royal, VA 22630.)

The foundation is small, with no staff, and the board of directors does all work on a volunteer basis.

God has blessed the work, and every year, the foundation has been able to send a teacher to Mater Dei. Since there is no other independent parent run school in Ireland, the cross-pollination of ideas and experience from American independent schools is very helpful to Mater Dei.

Last year, the foundation also began a scholarship campaign. One wonderful reader of these pages was so moved by that idea that she created a scholarship in honor of her father’s family from Skibbereen, County Cork. Anybody who donates the amount of a full scholarship can do the same — what an honor that would be to an Irish ancestor.

In reality, it is returning to Ireland the great favor that Ireland did for America a couple hundred years ago.

Think about it: Irish priests and nuns established the Catholic school system in America and built the strong Catholic social and intellectual foundation beginning during the time that Catholicism was persecuted in America. Isn’t it time for America to return the favor?

Pádraig Cantillon-Murphy has his priorities in order: "Our goal is to form our students in the faith, first of all, so that they know Jesus Christ, and in academic excellence so that they will be able to articulate the faith and enter successfully into dialogue with the world in order to evangelize it," he told me.

"Catholic education," he said, "has one goal only: to bring the student to a meeting with Jesus Christ. And if we can’t talk about that, and if we can’t say that Jesus Christ is the center of everything that happens in this school, then we will have failed." The first thing he and Grace did was to put the whole venture under the patronage of Our Lady of Knock, the Queen of Ireland. Her feast day is Aug. 21, the day that she appeared in Ireland in 1879. "Who better to lead young people to Christ than His Mother," he asks.

“We need to realize that we are in another Dark Ages -- and not just Ireland, but most of Western civilization. Ireland’s educated monks were able to rescue the rest of Europe from the first Dark Ages, so we've got the playbook already! Only now the first thing to rescue is our own next generation. That’s what Mater Dei Academy in Cork is setting out to do." A modest beginning, but with God's help, history in the making.

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Copyright @ 2026 by Christopher Manion and The Wanderer newspaper which published this article on December 25, 2025 with the title "Christmas Cheer, Irish Style."

Dr. Christopher Manion, a columnist for The Wanderer newspaper, is the author of the book, Charity For Sale: Has the American Catholic Church Become “Just another NGO”? (Catholics for Catholics, 2025, hardcover, 276 pages), which can be purchased at Catholics for Catholics or Amazon.

The book is a riveting account of how the Catholic Church has become so deeply entrenched in accepting government grants that it has come close to abandoning its primary mission: to save souls and lead people to Christ.

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