Actor Cillian Murphy and N.U.I. Professor Pat Dolan released Ionbhá: The Empathy Book for Ireland, on October 6. The book features essays from 89 contributors including Ireland’s President Michael D. Higgins, singer Hozier, U2’s The Edge, and singer/songwriter, Imelda May.
Published by Mercer Press and funded by the Irish American Partnership, the book will be made available to every secondary school in Ireland. The aim of the book is to help reduce bullying, racial profiling, violence, and increase young people’s sense of belonging in school.
In the words of Cillian Murphy, empathy “can offer an embrace to difference, and can bring connection in a disconnected world.”
The concept of the book began with Activating Social Empathy, an interactive, student-focused, social, and emotional learning program developed by Dr. Ciara Boylan and Professor Dolan in 2017 as a resource tool for post-primary schools.
“We are on the cusp of the development of empathy as a core part of education systems which will benefit not just youth but civic society as a whole,” said Professor Dolan whose is the director of the UNESCO Child and Family Research Centre at the National University of Ireland Galway
The Irish American Partnership supports this critical and innovative program. The organization believes, as school teacher Hugh Fitzmaurice writes in his essay: “empathy education is not an add-on — it is the heartbeat of who we are and needs to be a priority for our young people going forward.”
Ionbhá: The Empathy Book for Ireland is available on Amazon.
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