The board of a prominent Dublin secondary school “instructed” the management to cancel renowned Oxford Professor and free speech advocate Nigel Biggar’s invitation to speak at the school today.
In an email seen by Gript, Principal of the prestigious High School in Rathgar, Andrew Forrest, informed Professor Biggar last night before his flight to Dublin this morning that he had been “instructed” by the Chairperson of the Board of Management, Dr Duncan Cole, to cancel his invitation to speak at the presentation.
The decision, according to Mr Forrest, was made in consultation with the Chairman of the Board of Governors, Ian Byrne.
Commenting on the decision to cancel his invitation, Professor Biggar said that it bespoke “bad management” and that terminating a visit agreed upon six months ago with just 12 hours’ notice, and without offering any explanation, was “extraordinarily inconsiderate” and “grossly discourteous”.
Professor Biggar, who is a member of the House of Lords of the British parliament and Chair of the UK’s Free Speech Union, had been due to speak to those in attendance, as part of which he had intended to address the virtues of free speech and the role it has to play in a healthy society.
Speaking to Gript about the development, Professor Biggar speculated that his invitation was withdrawn because of his views of colonialism.
“Or rather because of what ‘progressive’ ideologues assume my views to be, since they seldom bother to read what I write.
“In fact, my views are nuanced and carefully reasoned. Were that not so, the left-of-centre Prospect magazine would not have named me one of its Top Thinkers of 2024, on the ground that ‘Biggar’s willingness to question prevailing ideologies and contextualise moral concerns within a historical framework make him a valuable thinker in our polarised times’,” Professor Biggar said, adding that he assumes that what happened is that “some illiberal ‘progressives’ brought pressure to bear on Duncan Cole and he promptly caved in”.
Professor Biggar said that when he was invited to give the prizegiving speech in April, he thought “That’s wonderful. The High School must be a genuinely liberal institution, where intellectual diversity is prized, and pupils are taught how to handle controversy responsibly”.
However, he said that following last night’s “abrupt termination,” he now considers that unlikely to be the case, a fact he described as “very sad for the High School and, given the school’s national prestige, very sad for Ireland”.
Warning that if Ireland wants to be a genuinely liberal society, where controversial issues are negotiated “reasonably and peaceably”, Professor Biggar said that it “needs citizens who have been schooled to face viewpoints they don’t immediately like and educated to respond with a self-restraint that permits thought and dialogue”.
“Institutions such as secondary schools, therefore, have a very weighty civic duty to provide that kind of education. I am sorry to say that, under the present board of governors, the High School seems too scared to do what it should. WB Yeats famously wrote, ‘The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity’. If Ireland is to avoid the worst, Dr Cole and his fellow trustees need to acquire some liberal conviction,” he said.
Gript contacted the High School for comment, but as of the time of publication, no response was forthcoming.
If a response is received, this article will be updated to include it in full.