The article below was the subject of a Press Council decision issued on June 18th, 2025. That decision can be read in full here.
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A recording provided to Gript reveals that participants in the SPHE course at Dublin City University openly talked about how “fisting” and “rimming” was discussed with pupils in a school classroom – and that it was great that the teacher had created the space for the students to get “dirty”.
The recording – which can be listened to below – features a discussion during a break in the DCU course which has been the subject of recent controversy and which was conducted partly over Zoom. The recording features three participants – a teacher and two academics, acting as instructors on the course. The identity of all three speakers is known to Gript Media.
In the recording, the teacher discusses how she had used materials covered in the DCU course – an intimacy lesson – in a classroom setting. She says that upon doing so, she received questions and queries from her students about “fisting” and “rimming”. She is then congratulated by one of the course facilitators, who says it is great that the students in her class wanted to get “dirty”.
The ‘intimacy’ lesson in question refers to material taught on the DCU course to SPHE teachers as an exercise which would encourage school children to rank acts as ‘intimate’ or ‘sexual’ – and featured “rimming”, “fisting”, “anal sex” and more. (Photos of the exercise can be seen below)
In addition, Gript has also obtained a message – which can be seen below – to the WhatsApp group for teachers participating in the DCU course, where the same teacher confirms she is teaching the ‘intimacy’ lesson to transition year students.
In the WhatsApp message, the teacher also lists another activity that had been taught on the DCU course, ‘Real World or Porn World’, where students were asked to read, discuss and sort statements such as “I’m a great big dick, and the star of the show” and “women like sex to be rough and mean”.
The recording appears to directly contradict the claim made by Minister Norma Foley that SPHE teacher Mary Creedon was spreading “misrepresentations” in a video in which she had said that teachers were brought through such exercises in order to upskill them for the classroom.
BACKGROUND
It has been four weeks since SPHE teacher, Mary Creedon, on a video that subsequently went viral, shared her experience of a Diploma course to upskill SPHE teachers she attended in DCU.
The course, which was promoted and fully-funded by the Department of Education, sought to assist teachers to be “at the forefront of change” and “bring their learning back to the classroom” a DCU report on the graduates said.
On the course, Mary Creedon claimed, teachers were brought through a series of exercises which were meant for the classroom. They included:
- An ‘intimacy’ lesson: where students were asked to rank words – including “fisting”, and “rimming” according to whether they were sexual or intimate
- A lesson which required students to write a detailed script about a “pleasurable sexual experience” , with “line by line dialogue”, and “notes on actions”, to include emotional and “physical pleasure”
- A lesson on Porn where students were asked to read, discuss and sort statements such as “I’m a great big dick, and the star of the show” and “women like sex to be rough and mean”.
- An animated video of a woman masturbating
- A sex map which showed sex taking place in an outdoor setting, featuring threesomes and masturbation amongst other sexual acts
- An exercise where sexual organs – breasts, penises, vulvas etc – were made out of balloons, clay, and other crafts
That the exercises took place is not disputed, and Ms Creedon has provided copious photographic and video evidence of the same, which can be seen below and here.
Both DCU and the Department of Education have denied that the exercises were meant for the schoolroom. They said that “material studied and viewed by teachers on the DCU course was provided to them as adults and it is clearly understood that no inappropriate graphic or explicit material would ever be used in a classroom setting”.
The most comprehensive response to Creedon’s claims came when Minister Foley was asked about the matter by Kieran Cuddihy of Newstalk on the 3rd of October. Cuddihy made his own views on the matter clear, stating that he was unwilling to say Mary Creedon’s name as he didn’t want people to go looking for her interview, before playing a clip of Creedon discussing an animated video of a woman masturbating she said she was shown during the course.
The Minister claimed that Creedon’s interview was “full of misrepresentations…the material provided were for adult discussion…no graphic or explicit is ever, ever shown in a classroom setting and that is being entirely misrepresented here”.
The Minister also claimed that a teacher who had attended the course had reached out to her and told her that Creedon was misrepresenting what had happened in the course, and that any resources used were purely for the purpose of discussion between adults.
The argument that the materials used were only for the purpose of critical discussion during the course, and was never intended for classroom usage, was made repeatedly, with repeated emphasis that graphic or explicit material would never be shown in a classroom.
Cuddihy, for his part, followed on the Minister’s denial not with any questions relating to the claims made by Creedon, but rather by saying “couldn’t be any clearer…best to ignore it. A complete misrepresentation.”
And Cuddihy wasn’t the only person in the Irish media to take that tone, one Gript reader sent us in an email they had received from a staff member on the Joe Duffy show, after they had emailed asking if the show planned to cover Mary Creedon’s claims, saying that “This is a total hoax – we have been contacted by SPHE teachers who say this is not the curriculum. I suggest you talk to your child’s school and get the truth for yourself.”
We put the Minister’s comments to Mary Creedon, who told Gript that were “absolutely false”, and “very upsetting.” Creedon told Gript “at no stage were we told by DCU that the activities we were engaging in were not for the classroom only…everything we were shown on the course was to be mirrored in our own classroom settings.” Creedon said that, during one particular exercise, she had told the lecturer that she felt it was inappropriate for such an exercise to be taught in a classroom, and that the lecturer responded by telling her that “that was merely her own personal opinion.”
Creedon also said that the Minister has made no attempt to reach out to her about the matter.
A number of course participants contacted by Gript agreed that the exercises were explicitly presented to them as being usable in a classroom and that they could be adapted to suit their own needs.
Some expressed incredulity when Gript asked them if they were certain the exercises had been intended for replication in Irish classrooms, asking what exactly the point of a training course would be if none of the exercises in it were intended to actually be used.
That position seems to be backed up by a review of the module, and course outlines which teachers were given, which repeatedly mention that the course was designed to give teachers new ways to teach SPHE/RSE and that “critical, creative, transformative and co-productive approaches to teaching, learning and assessment in SPHE/RSE at post-primary level will be actively modelled.”
Similarly a lecturer on the course, in a separate recording seen by Gript, told the assembled teachers that her “very hands on” module aimed “to provide opportunities for you to explore what it means to create and maintain safe, inclusive, and empowering SPHE-RSE learning environments.”
The module, according to the Dr, would therefore be about “sharing our pedagogical tools and strategies”, and “providing opportunities for you to critically explore what that actually looks like in a classroom space in a way that is relevant and responsive to the young people you’re working with.”
Creedon told Gript that, after hearing the Minister’s interview, she both called and emailed Newstalk asking for her to be allowed on the air to defend herself or for Newstalk to read out a written statement stating that she stood over all of her claims regarding the course content. She says that despite making herself available Newstalk had no interest in letting her on and let the Minister make statements which Creedon viewed as untrue without any push back. We put Creedon’s claim to Newstalk but we have not yet received a response.
Whilst the majority of teachers contacted by Gript agreed with Mary Creedon that the exercises detailed in this article were designed for use in the classroom it is worth noting that a number of teachers refused to discuss the matter with Gript, on or off the record. Several expressed anger with Creedon for having secretly recorded parts of the course.
One of the attending teachers, Pam O’Leary of Cork Educate Together Secondary School, told Gript that what Gript had written about the course “was appalling” and that what had been said about the course was “all false.” When offered a chance to detail which aspect of either our reporting or Creedon’s claims was false Ms O’Leary declined to provide any examples.
Ms O’Leary subsequently said that she would be reporting our call to her with the Gardai.
Ms O’Leary has previously said of the course that “The PGDip in SPHE and RSE was life changing for me both personally and professionally. The course gave me an opportunity to stretch my instructional capacity and to increase my confidence in teaching sensitive SPHE and RSE topics. I look forward to bringing these creative and inclusive methodologies back to my school.”
Pam O’Leary is one of the authors of the Junior Cert SPHE book “My Wellbeing Journey 2nd Edition” which Gript recently reported contains 8 pages of information on masturbation, which the book describes as a “biological reward system built into a human’s body before we even start to develop sexually.”
TIMELINE
Yesterday morning Gript reached out to DCU with a number of questions about a recording from their SPHE training course which showed course participants discussing the reaction of students to an ‘intimacy’ exercise.
We asked DCU to comment on a series of quotes from the recording, and to offer an explanation for why, despite claims that the exercises taught in the course were not to be replicated in Irish classrooms, a discussion regarding doing exactly that had taken place. We later followed that on with a call to a DCU spokesperson.
We were told that DCU would be making no comment on the contents of the video, or the matter more broadly.
It appears that, following that conversation and becoming aware of the existence of the recordings, DCU released a press statement claiming that there had been ‘targeted attacks’, ‘threats of violence’, ‘misogynistic and homophobic slurs’, and ‘libellous remarks’, made against their teachers after a ‘disinformation campaign’ “purposefully conflates what is taught to teachers on the Graduate Diploma programme so that they have a broader knowledge of the SPHE/RSE area, and what is actually taught to secondary students.”
DCU was, they said, also ‘exploring all legal recourse in relation to these matters.’
That statement was dutifully picked up by Muiris O’Cearbhaill of the Journal and Emma O’Kelly of RTE, including repeating DCU’s claims that Mary Creedon had “completely misrepresented” the class. Mary Creedon told Gript that, despite that, neither had made any attempt to speak to her, or offer her an opportunity to provide evidence for her claims, prior to publication. We put Creedon’s claim to both reporters, neither of whom responded prior to publication.
Given the apparent timing of the release we asked DCU if the statement had been released in response to them becoming aware that Gript possessed recordings of the course, the content of which was “in apparent direct contradiction to DCU’s claims that the material was not be brought into the classroom,” and if the release of the statement was designed to head off our story. We have yet to receive a response to that question.