Towards a deep and reparative wellbeing in schools: confronting historical trauma in Irish education

Purpose This paper examines how historical and intergenerational trauma continues to shape wellbeing in Irish education. Drawing on trauma theory, collective memory, power and institutional betrayal, it interrogates whether Ireland’s current wellbeing policies can be meaningfully enacted without addressing the enduring legacies of colonialism, religious control and institutional abuse. Design/methodology/approach Our conceptual analysis situates contemporary wellbeing initiatives within the socio-historical context of Irish education and explores the intersection between historical trauma and current wellbeing reforms. Drawing on historical literature and trauma theory, it critically examines the gap between the policy aspirations of wellbeing frameworks and their enactment in everyday practice in Irish schools. Findings Current wellbeing initiatives in Irish schools risk being superficial or counterproductive if they ignore the deep-rooted structural and emotional legacies of the past. Advancing meaningful wellbeing requires religious orders and school managerial bodies to practise institutional courage – acknowledging past harms and committing to openness, transparency and meaningful redress. It also necessitates sustained attention to nurturing educators’ emotional and relational capacities, ensuring that entrenched institutional patterns that undermine relational safety are not unconsciously reproduced. Our analysis calls for a deeper, reparative approach in education that centres relational safety and commits to truth-telling. Research limitations/implications As a conceptual paper, this study does not present original empirical data. However, it highlights an urgent need for research that investigates how unresolved historical trauma and institutional legacies influence current wellbeing practices in education. Future studies should explore how educators’ own pedagogical experiences and socialisation within historically repressive systems shape their capacity to implement trauma-informed approaches. Originality/value Whilst most literature on wellbeing education focuses on student outcomes, we shift the focus, and the onus of responsibility, to institutional bodies that still hold significant control over the management of schools. We introduce the concept of “deep wellbeing” and offer a novel, contextually grounded framework for transforming educational wellbeing practice in post-trauma societies.