There are few policy decisions that have shaped Ireland more than the introduction of free secondary school education.
This historic announcement, made 60 years ago this week by then Fianna Fáil minister for education Donogh O’Malley in a Dún Laoghaire hotel, transformed the lives of a generation of Irish people and helped drag the country into the modern age.
It was a change that O’Malley himself did not get to witness. Just 18 months after setting the wheels of free education in motion, the Limerick politician passed away suddenly outside The Little Church in Sixmilebridge, Co Clare, while canvassing in a local byelection.
Hundreds of people gathered at The Little Church on Sunday afternoon to pay tribute to O’Malley and unveil a commemorative plaque created by the Sixmilebridge Historical Society.
Among them was Limerick city man Gerry Slattery, who says he would not have been able to stay in school had it not been for O’Malley.
“I was in sixth class in primary school and the consideration always in the back of our minds was the fees for the different schools in Limerick City,” he said.
“I can remember the discussions at home with my parents. One school was charging £33, another school was charging something else. Even at that age, I was conscious of the burden on my parents.
“All of a sudden this scheme came through and I was the first to benefit. I was part of that first wave.
“We were always aware of the financial burden on the family. This was the late 1960s, the economy just wasn’t strong.”
Another to benefit from the foresight of O’Malley was one of his successors in the Department of Education, former minister Jan O’Sullivan.
O’Sullivan had just finished her Leaving Certificate in the summer of 1968 when the first higher education grants were announced.
This innovation, started by O’Malley but completed by his successor Brian Lenihan snr, paved the way for thousands of Irish people to attend university.
“I was working a summer job after my Leaving Cert and I remember distinctly my father ringing me up and telling me that I could go to college,” said O’Sullivan.
“It was because of the grants. If that hadn’t come in, with my brother already in college, I wouldn’t have been able to go.
“I was a sixth-year student when he [O’Malley] died. I remember we all lined the route up to the graveyard in our school uniforms. All the sixth-year students from all the schools in Limerick did it.”
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Another significant innovation introduced by O’Malley was the introduction of free secondary school transport, or the yellow buses as they were known.
According to Teresa O’Doherty, president of Marino Institute of Education, O’Malley’s foresight transformed education from a luxury enjoyed by the rich to a right that belonged to everyone.
“If all of this hadn’t happened, I can absolutely see a different path that my life might have taken,” she said.
“My parents really valued education, but the concept that we could go to secondary school, that we could go to college, that wasn’t there.
“Free education made it an entitlement for everybody. The concept of the yellow buses was so important also. Something that could take people and bring them to their school. That was really massive, especially in rural areas.
“This move made education into a right. There would have been an ambition before, but that ambition was made so much easier because we actually were entitled to it now. It became a trajectory that was for everybody, it didn’t matter who you were. It was somewhere that everyone could go.”
Speaking at the event, Daragh O’Malley, the actor and son of Donogh O’Malley, said the changes brought about by his father were still recent and needed to be protected.
“This is not ancient history. This is only 60 years ago and the tracks of desperation are still quite fresh. The situation [with education] in Ireland in 1966 is certainly an ongoing stain on the Irish conscience,” he said.
“My father believed that this was wrong and that a child’s future should not be determined solely by their parents’ ability to find the money for school fees.
“But the free secondary education scheme did not merely remove the fees, it removed a barrier. It opened the doors of secondary schools to children who might not otherwise have passed through.
“It sent a message to the children of Ireland, that where you came from does not dictate where you can go. It changed the expectations of people and ultimately it changed Ireland.”
O’Malley warned that the progress brought about by his father’s innovations should not be taken for granted, and said the politicians of today needed to show a similar bravery and spirit of innovation.
Lessons from history – An Irishman’s Diary on Donogh O’Malley
“In 2026, all is not rosy for education in Ireland, with dark clouds gathering and education less accessible than it should be for children from disadvantaged areas due to static State grants and other financial burdens and barriers faced by families,” he said.
“My father never got to see the full consequences of what he had done. He never met even one of the tens of thousands of young Irish people who would go forward in their education. He never saw the Ireland that those children would help to build.
“I think he would have understood something very important: the work is never finished. Every generation has to decide if they will open doors or they will close them. Whether they will offer hope or surrender to despair.”
Current Minister for Education, Hildegarde Naughton paid tribute to Donogh O’Malley and the amount he was able to achieve in his 20 months in the Department of Education.
“The speed at which he was moving was extraordinary. He later explained that proposing bold new policies was essential for government,” she said.
“There is no doubt that without the changes that Donogh O’Malley introduced, we would not have had the economic change that we have enjoyed in the intervening years.
“We would not have one of Europe’s highest school completion rates and one of the highest numbers of university graduates anywhere in the world.”