Padraig Cantillon-Murphy, age 41, is a soft-spoken man and modest about his many achievements and awards as a biomedical engineer, but his voice warmed with pride when he spoke with The Epoch Times about Mater Dei Academy in Cork, Ireland. “We’ll have our first graduating class this year, which will be a huge event in the life of the school,” he said. “We’re beginning to see that these young people are the future leaders. They’re the thought leaders, but also societal leaders in the culture, because they’ve been formed completely differently. They’ve been formed to think for themselves.”
Founded by Cantillon-Murphy, his wife Grace, and other interested parents, Mater Dei opened in 2020 with 12 students. Today, some 60 students in secondary school, the equivalent of grades 7-12 in the United States, sit in its classrooms, where they receive lessons in the Catholic faith, Irish and the history and literature of Ireland, science and math, and a classical education. Additional students are enrolling in the school’s online and homeschooling courses or ordering its materials, which also cover the primary grades.
