{"id":272747,"date":"2026-01-30T23:13:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T23:13:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/272747\/"},"modified":"2026-01-30T23:13:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T23:13:07","slug":"teacher-admits-lying-about-romantic-relationship-with-former-student-at-fitness-to-teach-hearing-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/272747\/","title":{"rendered":"Teacher admits lying about romantic relationship with former student at fitness-to-teach hearing \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A secondary<\/a> schoolteacher has admitted to a fitness-to-teach inquiry that she lied about her interactions and relationship with one of her former Leaving Cert<\/a> students.<\/p>\n

In a dramatic development on Friday, the inquiry was told that a current colleague of the teacher had contacted the Teaching Council<\/a> with new information.<\/p>\n

The inquiry heard that the teacher and her colleague were classmates in teaching college, where they had a number of mutual friends. <\/p>\n

Counsel for the Teaching Council, Eoghan O\u2019Sullivan BL told the inquiry that it was through this network of friends the teacher\u2019s colleague became aware of allegations that in 2018 the registrant had entered a relationship with a Leaving Cert student of her former school. <\/p>\n

He was further told that the allegation emanated from the registrant\u2019s then fiance with whom she had then bought a house, that the principal of her former school had been informed and that the registrant ultimately left that school.<\/p>\n

In a written statement provided to the director, the registrant\u2019s colleague said that in 2023 he became aware that she had a boyfriend and that until 2024 he only knew his first name. <\/p>\n

However, as he was friends with the registrant on Instagram and due to the algorithm, a profile of the same first name as the teacher\u2019s boyfriend came up on his Instagram in 2024. He believed this was her boyfriend. <\/p>\n

He said that after reading media reports of the hearings held in July, together with the information he had received regarding the allegations, he was 99 per cent certain that the teacher, the subject of the inquiry, was his colleague, the registrant. <\/p>\n

He also read in media reports that during the inquiry the teacher maintained that there was no relationship between her and her former student.<\/p>\n

The registrant admitted to a sexual encounter allegation in August 2018 but previously said it was a one-off, which the student in his evidence had corroborated. <\/p>\n

In September 2025 the registrant\u2019s colleague said he met her at Howth Maritime festival where she introduced him to her boyfriend. <\/p>\n

As it was apparent to him that the teacher was not telling the truth to the inquiry and that from media reporting that \u201cthe lie was holding up\u201d, he contacted the Teaching Council with evidence including screenshots of pictures and videos from Instagram. <\/p>\n

A video posted on the registrant\u2019s Instagram account in August 2022 showed a woman on a sun lounger and a young man on a separate sun lounger at the beach. Her colleague said he was confident that the woman was the registrant and that the man was the same person that she introduced to him at Howth Maritime festival in September 2025. <\/p>\n

On July 18th her colleague said that the registrant posted photos of her and her boyfriend at what appeared to be a wedding with both of their accounts tagged. <\/p>\n

The registrant\u2019s colleague said that the teacher also told him in May 2025 that she and her boyfriend were going to go on holiday to Greece. <\/p>\n

Screenshots of these Instagram photos and recordings of the Instagram videos were played at the hearing on Friday. <\/p>\n

The registrant\u2019s colleague said he could not understand how the registrant could treat the inquiry as \u201ca game\u201d. <\/p>\n

At Friday\u2019s hearing the registrant admitted that she and the student had been in communication after the August 2018 sexual encounter in the hotel. She also accepted the evidence provided by her colleague. <\/p>\n

She said that for a long period after the August 2018 sexual encounter she and her former student were not in a relationship and were \u201cmore friends\u201d. <\/p>\n

She said that when she told family about the August 2018 sexual encounter it was \u201ca very dark time\u201d for her as her family appeared to take the side of her fiance. Her group of friends turned her back on her and there did not appear to be \u201canybody on my side\u201d. <\/p>\n

She said that her former student became \u201ca close friend\u201d and got her through a dark time. <\/p>\n

The teacher said that in late 2019, early 2020, particularly with the onset of Covid, she and her former student began a relationship, which they both kept private and did not tell any family at first. <\/p>\n

She confirmed that they are still in a relationship, approximately six years in length, and that she loved him.<\/p>\n

When asked by her barrister, Eoghan Cole, SC what part her boyfriend played in her life she said: \u201ca big part of my life\u201d.<\/p>\n

When asked by Mr Cole if she was in love with him, she said, \u201cyeah\u201d.<\/p>\n

When asked by Mr Cole why she didn\u2019t tell the truth about her relationship with her boyfriend, she said, \u201cI think it was more that when I admitted about the one night [the sexual encounter in August 2018], the explosive reaction from my family, and that I was still in communication with him, the people I was closest to. I didn\u2019t know what was the right thing to do. Things snowballed out of control.\u201d<\/p>\n

The other allegations against the teacher include that she had a romantic relationship with the student during summer 2018. <\/p>\n

It is further alleged that between June 14th and 20th that year, while he was sitting his Leaving Certificate, there were daily communications between the pair via picture messaging service Snapchat, and subsequently until he received his results on August 14th. <\/p>\n

The director alleges that these allegations amount to professional misconduct and multiple breaches of the Code of Professional Conduct for Teachers. <\/p>\n

The committee will reconvene on a future date to announce its findings. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A secondary schoolteacher has admitted to a fitness-to-teach inquiry that she lied about her interactions and relationship with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":272748,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,542,60,3184,28205,112,40696],"class_list":["post-272747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-instagram","tag-ireland","tag-leaving-certificate","tag-second-level","tag-sports","tag-teaching-council"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272747\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}