Staff and students from St Mary’s University College presented a range of research papers at the All-Ireland Conference on Immersion Education held in Mary Immaculate College, Limerick, on 15-16 May 2015. Five members of St Mary’s academic staff reported findings from five separate, recently completed research studies. A St Mary’s masters’-level student also presented the results of an action research study conducted with Key Stage 3 students.

This major event on the research calendar attracted participants from universities in Spain, Finland and the USA. Keynote addresses were made by Dr Diane Tedick and Dr Tara Fortune, both from the University of Minnesota, and by Dr Muiris Ó Laoire from the Institute of Technology, Tralee.

Introductory addresses all referred to the need for teacher education programmes for Irish-medium student teachers in the south of Ireland. In Belfast, teacher education for the Irish-medium sector had been introduced by St Mary’s University College in 1995 and has been developed over the past twenty years. Therefore, the conference provided a dynamic and stimulating opportunity for researchers, academics, other professionals and students to share insights from their research in immersion education with one another.

St Mary’s input into the programme included research presentations by members of the College’s Irish-medium Education Research Centre and by the Áisaonad’s Educational Officer. Research topics included developments in the areas of immersion pedagogy, language planning, phonics, assessment practices and initial teacher education, as presented by the following lecturers:


A report of research on models of Irish-medium schooling was launched at the event by Dr Muiris Ó Laoire. The report, funded by the North-South Standing Committee for Irish-medium Education, had been written collaboratively by Dr Pádraig Ó Duibhir, Dr Seán Ó Cathalláin and St Mary’s Senior Tutor, Dr Gabrielle Nig Uidhir.

It was interesting for St Mary’s staff to meet with the recent graduates from their Irish-medium initial teacher education course (TICO) who were attending or presenting research findings at the conference and building on some of the work they had carried out during the TICO (PGCE) year and had further developed in Masters’ programmes.

Mary Immaculate College, Limerick, is to be congratulated on this successful and enjoyable event. Members of The Irish-Medium Research Centre at St Mary’s have indicated their interest in hosting a conference in the future, providing a forum where researchers can present their work and continue to share in the growing corpus of knowledge in the area of Irish-medium education. The demand for further research into various aspects of Irish-medium education is well documented. Similarly, events for disseminating and debating research findings are also in demand.