The Lifetime Achievement Award is the ESAI’s highest honour and is awarded to individuals who have distinguished themselves as highly esteemed scholars, who have a profound depth of understanding and knowledge in their particular field but who have also combined that scholarship with service to the community of the Association, over a prolonged period of time.
In 2018 ESAI was delighted to honour Prof. Coolahan for his outstanding contributions to ESAI and to education. The first Extollatur of the Educational Studies Association of Ireland (ESAI) was then awarded to him. Since then at the ESAI Annual Conference, ESAI has developed a tradition of bestowing the special ESAI Lifetime Achievement Award for outstanding contributions to ESAI and to the field of education.
ESAI Lifetime Achievement Award 2024 – Prof Áine Hyland
Dr. Céline Healy, (President ESAI 2022-4) with Prof Aíne Hyland and Prof Judith Harford at the ESAI conference at Maynooth University 2024. Picture Conor McCabe Photography.
ESAI is delighted to present the Lifetime Achievement Award 2024 to Professor Áine Hyland in recognition of almost five decades of engagement and leadership in the association.
Áine Hyland is Emeritus Professor of Education and former Vice President of University College Cork. A true pioneer in her vision for education at all levels from primary to Higher Education, her contribution to research, teaching and learning and national policy marks a turning point in our conception of Higher Education in Ireland.
Áine was born in a teachers’ residence (in Athboy, Co. Meath in March 1942) where her father was principal of the national school. From a very early age, she wanted to be a teacher. Áine’s early schooling contributed to her lifelong interest in education. At primary level, she attended a convent girls’ private school, followed by a year in a two-teacher religiously mixed rural national school, and three years in a large convent national school. Having been awarded a county council scholarship, she spent six years as a boarder in a convent secondary school. A call to training in 1959 saw her entering Carysfort College to train as a national teacher but her stay there was short-lived and within months she had left Carysfort to take up a post as a civil servant in the Department of Education.
She spent five years in the Department of Education, initially in the Buildings Branch and subsequently as a research assistant to the Investment in Education team. There she met her husband Bill Hyland, who was the statistician on the team. As the marriage bar was in operation at this time, Áine had to give up her job in the civil service when she married Bill in 1965. Her interest in educational history and policy had, however, been ignited and in the subsequent decade, she combined rearing her three daughters, Fiona, Niamh and Sonja, with completing a B.A.,Dip, Masters and ultimately a Ph.D. in Trinity College Dublin. Áine worked very closely with the late John Coolahan, a former recipient of the ESAI Lifetime Achievement Award, and Susan Parkes, her Ph.D. supervisor. She spent a number of years as a secondary school teacher before her appointment as Admissions Officer and senior lecturer in Carysfort College in 1980.
Always committed to a more inclusive society, Áine was a founder member of the Dalkey School Project during the 1970s, Ireland’s first multi-denominational national school since the foundation of the state, which of course we now know as the hugely successful Educate Together movement. It was during this phase of her life that she became active in the ESAI, attending her first ESAI conference at the University of Ulster in 1978. Among those in attendance at her presentation were John Coolahan and Pádraig Hogan, both of whom would remain lifelong active members of the association and close colleagues of Áine’s.
Áine remained active on various committees of the ESAI in the subsequent decades and was appointed the first female President of the association in 1990. During her tenure as Chair of Education at University College Cork and subsequently Vice President of Academic Affairs, she continued to present at the annual conference and also publish in the association’s journal, Irish Educational Studies. It was also during this time that she produced a number of seminal publications which have significantly shaped scholarship and policy in Irish education, including the 3-volume Irish Educational Documents (1988-94) and Towards a Better Future (co-authored with John Coolahan and Sheelagh Drudy) published in 2017. More recently she has co-edited a special issue of Irish Educational Studies on the theme of educational disadvantage (with Judith Harford and Brian Fleming, 2022) an area in which she has always been active, having chaired the Educational Disadvantage Committee in the 1990s. Collectively, her publications spanning five decades testify to a blend of scholarly analysis and its application to policy which has been the hallmark of her international signature. This impact has been recognised by a number of prestigious awards including the conferring of a Fellowship of the National College of Ireland in 2005, a D.Litt. by University College Dublin in 2015, a D.Sc. by the Royal College of Surgeons in 2016, and membership of the Royal Irish Academy in 2018.
In addition to these honours and accolades, Áine has been a wonderful colleague and mentor to so many working in the field of education. An exceptional scholar, colleague, mentor and woman, her contribution to the ESAI, as to education more broadly, will resonate for generations to come.
Citation by Professor Judith Harford.
The Lifetime Achievement Award 2024 was presented by President Céline Healy.
ESAI Lifetime Achievement Award 2023– Prof Tom O’Donoghue
ESAI conference at Maynooth University Picture Conor McCabe Photography.
The ESAI Lifetime Achievement Award 2023 for services to ESAI and educational research, was presented to Professor Tom O’Donoghue, Emeritus Professor of Education in the Graduate School of Education, the University of Western Australia, and elected fellow of both the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia and of the Royal Historical Society (UK). Tom was one of the founding members of ESAI and despite spending most of his academic life abroad, has continued his interest in, and his rich contribution to Irish educational research. He continues to be an Associate Editor with the Irish Educational Studies journal – the prestigious journal of ESAI.
The ESAI is a community of researchers, and that community is only sustained through the generosity of academics who support the organisation and the annual conference. Community is important and that community spirit is something that sets ESAI apart from many of its contemporaries. Recognising that a paper at ESAI may be the first experience many researchers have in engaging with the wider academic community, we are always depending on our members to mentor, advise and support those taking their first, hesitant steps along this at times scary road. ESAI has a very specific ethos – we have always focused on creating community as well as ensuring academic excellence. Our first three recipients of this lifetime award are John Coolahan, Dónal Mulcahy and Elizabeth Oldham. To add to this formidable list, the ESAI is delighted to present the Lifetime Achievement Award 2023 to Prof Tom O’Donoghue for his outstanding life time contribution to the Association and the wider field of research in education.
Tom is an intellectual, and an historian, who although having travelled extensively and worked professionally in Ireland, New Guinea, Australia and Southeast Asia, is deeply rooted in Ireland. Unlike the Irish diaspora who left Ireland during the Great Hunger in the mid-nineteenth century, or during the recessions of the 1950s, 60s, and indeed the 1980s, in search of a better life, Tom left a permanent teaching position and a home in Waterford, to support teacher education within a developing country, and thereafter to build a career in higher education. Tom graduated from Thomond College in 1975 with a BA (hons.) and was the first graduate ever to be awarded a degree in what is now the University of Limerick. He was awarded his Ceárd Teastas Gaeilge (1976) followed by two masters degrees – an MEd at Trinity College Dublin (1984) and then an MA, from University College Dublin (1986). It was clear that Tom was on an accelerated academic track as he completed his PhD at University College Dublin in 1988.
The following year, taking a career break from his school, Tom along with his wife Margaret and two young children Deirdre and Sinéad, moved to Papua New Guinea where he was a lecturer in education studies at a teacher education college. The original plan was that the family would give just one year to this work, and then to return to Ireland. However, one year became two, and then Tom and the family moved to Australia. Tom began his academic career in Australia at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, and shortly afterwards he moved to The University of Western Australia in Perth, where he has worked ever since.
Since then, Tom has engaged in exemplary and sustained scholarship, and it is almost impossible to gauge the impact of his career to date. Over the last 35 years Tom has supervised 113 research students, 70 of whom were studying at doctoral level; authored or co-authored 40 books, 39 book chapters, 145 peer reviewed articles, and has secured over 1million Australian dollars in research funding. Despite having recently retired, Tom continues to publish across a number of areas, namely, History of Education, Leadership and International Education, Curriculum Studies, and Interpretive Research Approaches. He also is a consummate reviewer of books for academic journals, as well as examining doctoral theses, too many to numerate. Tom’s publications are in English and the medium of Irish, and he is a regular contributor to Radio na Gaeltachta (national Irish medium radio station).
His scholarship has greatly enriched the work of researchers on a global basis. When you engage with Tom and his writing, you realise that he has an immense capacity for interdisciplinary and rich intellectual conversations, and that he can situate his topic of research not only across a span of centuries, but also within a national and international context. Tom’s scholarship is thoughtful and through his writing, the well-known is presented in fresh and original ways, ensuring that we can look at events of the past and the present with greater understanding. Despite living in Australia for thirty-five years, Tom has remained very much rooted in his native Lismore, in his strong Irish identity and commitment to the language tradition and heritage of his home, his family and his community.
On a personal level Tom is a wonderful storyteller, conversationalist, who has a deep reservoir of songs, stories and folklore – he has a passion for the landscape, knowing the history of every townland and the characters who lived there. He is a runner – in previous times he ran marathons but now he just runs each day for 50 mins. Throughout his long career, and despite living in Australia, Tom has attended the ESAI conference each year since 1996. Building on the connections he makes at the conference, Tom has an amazing capacity to engage in long-distance communications, and to build lasting relationships with a range of scholars. In so doing, he has been a source of encouragement to successive generations of graduate students in History of Education and in educational research more widely.
While the substance, reach and broad arc of his research and publications serve as a foundation for this award, academic achievement in and of itself is not sufficient to be nominated. While the academic factors combine to position Tom as a most deserving recipient of our highest honor, for lifetime achievement, it is his dedication to the ESAI, his support of the community of researchers that make up the Association and his generous mentorship of others that forms the basis of this award. Tom’s admirable research record, combined with his continuing willingness to provide advice, guidance and support to other, offers a shining example of faithfulness to the best ideals of higher education, and focuses on creating community as well as ensuring academic excellence.
Citation by Professor Teresa O’Doherty.
The Lifetime Achievement Award 2023 was presented by President Céline Healy.
Prof. Tom O’Donoghue receives the ESAI 2023 Lifetime Achievement Award
ESAI Lifetime Achievement Award 2022: Elizabeth Oldham
Prof Teresa O’Doherty (President ESAI 2020-2) with Elizabeth Oldham and Dr. Céline Healy, (President ESAI 2022-4) at the ESAI conference at Maynooth University 2024. ESAI conference at Maynooth University Picture Conor McCabe Photography.
ESAI is delighted to present the Lifetime Achievement Award 2022 to Elizabeth Oldham for her contribution to the Association and the wider field of research in education.
Elizabeth Oldham was brought up in England by Irish parents. After completing her A-Levels in Nottingham High School for Girls, she attended Trinity College Dublin and in 1965 completed her BA in Mathematics. Her next move was to the University of London, where she gained an MSc in mathematics in 1967. She remained in London for two more years, working as a research student on mathematical logic and the foundations of mathematics, topics that enhanced her interest in mathematics curriculum and mathematics education. After returning to Trinity in 1969, she took her Higher Diploma in Education while teaching at Alexandra College Dublin. Her association with Trinity was continued; she completed an M.Ed. in 1974, by which time she had joined the staff of the School of Education. Her career was based there until her “retirement” – which she claims to have failed – in 2010. Since then, she has taught (and still teaches) on a part-time basis in the School of Mathematics, providing a module on Mathematics Education for mathematics undergraduates. Elizabeth also retains strong links with Alexandra College; she served on the school’s Council for over thirty years.
Elizabeth’s main work is in the field of mathematics education, and she has a long association with cross-national studies of curriculum and attainment. She was a member of the international Curriculum Analysis Group for the Second International Mathematics Study in the 1980s; she worked with the Educational Research Centre in Dublin with regard to curriculum aspects of the Third International Mathematics and Science Study in the 1990s; she was a member of the National Advisory Committee for the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), and remains on the National TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) PostPrimary Advisory Group. She served as an Education Officer (Mathematics) for the Irish National Council for Curriculum and Assessment while the school mathematics courses were being revised in the 1990s. Much of her current research still focuses on curriculum. She also engages with aspects of teaching and learning mathematics, particularly with regard to teachers’ and prospective teachers’ philosophies of mathematics and mathematical identities and with prospective teachers’ understanding of concepts.
Her other main field of interest is the use of ICTs in education. She served on the ICT Steering Committee of the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, and benefits from working with colleagues in the Trinity College Centre for Research in IT in Education. With the revival of interest in computer programming in schools, she is again contributing to research in this area. Elizabeth has been a member of the Educational Studies Association of Ireland since 1977 and was President of the Association from 2000 to 2002. Until recently she was co-chair of a Research and Development Community (“Science and Mathematics Education”) of the Association for Teacher Education in Europe. She is currently Treasurer of the Dublin Branch of the Irish Mathematics Teachers’ Association and has chaired the Dublin Branch of the Computers in Education Society of Ireland; she serves on the national executives of both bodies. On a lighter note, Elizabeth’s collegiality and good humour are legendary, and she is especially happy when Irish Rugby teams are winning Triple Crowns, Championships, and even the occasional Grand Slam! Elizabeth’s commitment to education and to her discipline over the last six decades is both impressive and inspiring. Elizabeth has always set the highest standards for herself and has generously mentored and supported colleagues and postgraduate students alike, enriching the lives of many generations of scholars. Elizabeth’s continued engagement with ESAI and other associations is testament to her enduring passion for all aspects of education. The ESAI is delighted to recognise and to honour Elizabeth’s outstanding contribution to Irish education.
Citation by Professor Teresa O’Doherty
The Lifetime Achievement Award 2023 was presented by President Teresa O’Doherty.
ESAI Lifetime Achievement Award 2021: Professor Donal Mulcahy
Prof Teresa O’Doherty (President ESAI 2020-2) with Prof Donal Mulcahy and Prof Judith Harford at the ESAI conference at Maynooth University 2024.Picture Conor McCabe Photography.
ESAI is delighted to announce that the ESAI Lifetime Achievement Award 2021 is Donal Mulcahy.
D. G. Mulcahy, CSU Professor Emeritus in the School of Education and Professional Studies at Central Connecticut State University, and formerly Professor and Chair of Education at University College Cork, is the 2021 recipient of the ESAI Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of six decades of engagement and leadership in the association.
His relationship with the association dates back to 1976, where he proposed the idea of the association at a conference organised by Jim McKernan and John Marshall in University College Galway.
Donal’s blueprint for a national educational association was subsequently taken up by a working party which included John Marshall, Jim McKernan, John Coolahan, Sean O’ hEigeartaigh and which resulted in the organisation of a conference the following year at University College Cork at which a draft constitution was presented and adopted and the association formally founded.
A founding member of the association, Donal served on the executive for six years, and was elected president of the association in 1980, a position he held until 1982. Donal was the author of a number of seminal works during this period including Curriculum and Policy in Irish Post-Primary Education (Dublin: Institute of Public Administration, 1981) and Irish Educational Policy: Process and Substance (co-edited with Denis O’ Sullivan) (Dublin: Institute of Public Administration, 1989). He served two terms on the Governing Body of Thomond College and he was also the recipient of two Fulbright awards.
Donal left Ireland for Eastern Illinois University in 1989 after which he published Knowledge, Gender and Schooling: The Feminist Educational Thought of Jane Roland Martin (Westport, CT: Bergin and Garvey, 2002), The Educated Person (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2008), and Gen Ed (Leiden and Boston: Brill Sense, 2021) among other works. His commitment to the ESAI did not wane, however, and he returned regularly for the annual conference, presenting papers and publishing articles in the association’s journal Irish Educational Studies. After a hiatus of almost four decades from the executive, Donal was re-elected to the executive in 2017.
Colleagues recall Donal’s passion for the association, his commitment to education as a discipline and to the philosophy of education in particular. Always scholarly, collegial and insightful, Donal set the highest standards for himself, his students and his fellow educationists. At the same time, Donal was always available to students and colleagues alike to share his wisdom and insight. A wonderful colleague, teacher, philosopher and mentor, Donal’s unique contribution to the ESAI will resonate for generations to come.
Citation by Professor Judith Harford
ESAI Honours Prof. John Coolahan 2018
At the ESAI Conference 2018, the Educational Studies Association of Ireland was privileged to honour Prof. John Coolahan for his outstanding contributions to ESAI and to education. Prof. Coolahan was a founding member of the Educational Studies Association of Ireland in 1975, was editor of the first volume of Irish Education Studies in 1981, and was President of the association from 1982 to 1984.
Below is the full text of the citation read by ESAI President (2016-2018), Dr. Conor Galvin for Prof. Coolahan during the presentation made at the conference dinner.
Citation Read to those gathered for Conference Dinner on the Occasion of the 41st Conference of the Educational Studies Association of Ireland, 6 April 2018, at the Talbot Stillorgan Hotel, Dublin. This, the first Extollatur of the Educational Studies Association of Ireland (ESAI), is today bestowed on Professor John Coolahan in recognition of his outstanding contribution to Irish education and to this Association.
A champion of teachers and teaching, John recognised early in his teaching life that research and scholarship were core to the development of the professional teacher. With his classmates from St Patrick’s College in Drumcondra, he established the Teachers’ Study Group in 1961 and over the following years, this group convened many lectures, conducted studies of reading standards and pushed for the revision of the curriculum. John was a founding member of the ESAI in 1975, was editor of the first volume of Irish Education Studies in 1981, and was President of the ESAI from 1982 to 1984. Through these and many other roles, John has made a singular contribution to creating a new cadre of teachers, who are research literate and research-led, and has actively led the transformation of the teaching profession in Ireland.
John has played a pivotal role in the development of policy in Irish education for many decades. His contribution to the OECD Report of 1991 marked a significant turn in the tide of Irish education. This document, which endorsed the life-long learning of the teacher, at initial, induction and in-service stages, promoted the establishment of the Teaching Council, and recommended a root and branch reform of the inspectorate and the Department of Education, was foundational to many of the developments of subsequent decades. Armed with a mastery of the history of Irish education, a capacity to analyse trends and movements in education, as well as a faculty to synthesise, interpret and integrate opposing views, John has been involved in the design and development of every piece of major legislation in Irish education. His approach has always been to promote, encourage, and stimulate change from within, to develop a network of change agents, and to be political, without engaging in politics.
Throughout all, John has been a treasured friend, mentor and colleague to the members of the ESAI. His sustained commitment to educational research, and to ensuring that this research has an impact on policy, is inspirational. Through his teaching, research, and policy work, John has led an exceptionally busy academic life, but has carried his commitments and erudition with ease and humility.
This award is a deserved acknowledgement of the visionary and inspirational leadership which John has given to many facets of Irish education throughout his career; and most especially to this Association; the ESAI.
On behalf of the Membership and Executive of the Association:
Conor Galvin, PhD (Cantab.)
President, Educational Studies Association of Ireland.
