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Irish Parents Review English Curriculum Blog

Welcome to the Irish Parents Review English Curriculum Blog. If you are a parent  concerned about what your child is actually being exposed to in the classroom, in their English class, under the guise of a relevant new curriculum, you have come to the right place. We are a team of concerned parents (some of us are also teachers) who have come together to highlight any objectionable, extreme or inappropriate material which is being introduced into the new curriculum for English at both Junior and Leaving (Senior) Cycles.   Since 2014, the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) has slowly been making some very significant and disturbing changes and additions to the texts (novels, plays and films) now read and studied in the Junior and Senior Cycle classrooms.There is no longer a wide choice of classics or more traditional texts, on the prescribed lists which teachers must choose material from. Instead the selection is widening to include more books and f...
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Recent posts

The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly

The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly, currently on theJunior Cycle prescribed list, recommended by the NCCA for 2nd and 3rd years, describes horrifc scenes of bondage and torture and promotes bestiality . In chapters XVI and XVII, a huntress captures and performs “surgery” on people and animals, in which she  chops, then fuses their body parts together to form new entities. “I thought how wonderful it would be if I could combine the body of an animal with the intelligence of a human”. No anaesthetic is given. The room in which the torture and “surgery” is carried out is described in graphic detail with tables  “ ...stained with blood…….chains and manacles upon them, and leather restraints.To one side of the table was a rack of knives and blades and surgical tools”. All around the room are mounted heads, both  of animals and humans. “David turned his head and saw dried meat hanging from hooks at the other end of the room. He could not tell if it came from animals or...
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1984: novel by George Orwell

Although it was written back in 1949, the story is set in a dystopian April  1984 , nearly 40 years after the end of the second world war, and a few years after the so-called Atomic Wars. Winston Smith is a middle-aged man who endures a squalid existence in the totalitarian superstate of Oceania under the constant surveillance of the Thought Police. Totalitarianism is one of the major   themes   of the novel,   1984 . It presents the type of government where even the head of the government is unknown to the public. This   theme   serves as a warning to the people because such a regime unleashes propaganda to make people believe in lies presented by the government.  (Dorrancepublishing.com) Every move and thought of the people is closely monitored by the thought police and no-one is allowed to think anything different to the government's propaganda. Jobs, free time and relationships are all closely controlled. People can be arrested for stepping out of ...
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The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

 Just because a book is getting a lot of publicity or is written by a famous author, does not mean that it is good, helpful or appropriate for our children to be studying in school. This is definitely the case with The Handmaid's Tale.  This is a dystopian, feminist tirade exploring (and graphically describing) sexual themes. Various scenes include rape (described as "Fucking") while the wife of the "Commander" rapist participates vicariously in the rape. Sex and violence are constantly linked and the Handmaiden (sex slave) in the story often fantasises in her head about murder and suicide. At the end of the book, a mob of women  are encouraged to viciously attack and kill a man and scenes include a club where the protagonist is dressed up as a prostitute and talks with a lesbian prostitute while she considers the possibility of signing up herself. The book portrays men as useless except for sex/creating babies and the mother-daughter relationship is again, port...
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The Lauras by Sara Taylor

The Lauras by Sara Taylor, contains a barrage of offensive words and phrases (crotch giblets in my pants, human-fucking being, would you let me suck your dick?, dick suck-er and suck-ee, pissed off, asshole, shit etc etc.),five descriptive scenes of/references to masturbation, several scenes of physical violence, drug-use and scenes set in Strip clubs and Drag clubs, where the minor in the story lets an adult “dress me like a doll”.  Every chapter is infused with references to sexual acts or sexual thoughts and has no other obvious theme or redeeming merit for the classroom.  On pages 56 - 60 there is a graphically described scene, in which  a minor is subjected to oral sex in a car by an older man, and decides afterwards she rather enjoyed the experience. This scene is explicit, describes in detail, the man’s penis (“dick”) and what he expects the girl to do with it, what she does to it with her mouth and tongue, what it felt/tasted like etc. etc . Verdict: This is un...
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This One Summer by Mariko Tamaki

  In 2016, libraries in   Henning, Minnesota   and   Longwood, Florida   removed   This One Summer   from their shelves after parents complained of the book's explicit and graphic use of profanity and mature themes such as teenage pregnancy and miscarriage, sexual references and crudity, explicit offensive name calling ("fucking prick/asshole etc) and drug use. The adults in this story are bad role models who call young women "sluts", dring beer and take drugs. The teenagers frequently use expressions such as " Fucking" and "jerky shit" and talk of "breasts", "Tits", and "sext ta-tas" . They rent the Chainsaw Massacre Dvd to watch, discuss (and watch) other horror movies, talk about oral sex "blow jobs", "getting laid", mock a pregnant girl about birth control and "..fucking condoms", and express the view that  "...it's stupid that (pregnant) girls can't take care of their ...
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Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood and The Story of a Return: graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi

  Marjane Satrapi's graphic memoir, Persepolis,  deals with her experiences growing up under the fundamentalist regime in Iran.  Satrapi shows herself, as a child and then as a young woman, dealing with violence, with sexuality, with moving away from her parents to the West and failing, and trying again. Persepolis    includes a certain amount of violence and (especially in its second volume) a certain amount of sex. In the first part of the story, Satrapi talks about how friends and relatives were tortured, both by the Shah and by the Revolutionary government. There's a picture of a man dismembered by the authorities. She also talks about the Iran-Iraq war, and there are pictures of wounded soldiers.  Most of the story however, concentrates on her life after she escapes from Iran to Austria, and talks about her sexual adventures as a young woman living on her own. This part is full of bad language: Satrapi tells her landlady to "go fuck yourself" and calls...
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