A good friend of ours, Kia Sera, who writes an interesting blog, Acknowledging Imperfection, is an American living in Ireland. In recent times she has become involved in helping out with the Irish spanking project, Class Ireland.

To quote their mission: CLASS Ireland, the Continued Learning Academy for Switches and Submissives, is a school which strives to provide a well-ordered, caring, happy and secure learning environment, where the intellectual, moral and disciplinary needs of our pupils are identified and addressed. We seek to create an environment where students are given the attention they need to grow and thrive. We encourage students in their endeavours, and aim to assist students in finding appropriate direction for their creative energies.

If I am not misrepresenting it, it is a venue based ‘school’ for adults where participants role-play being students or teachers in a consensual spanking environment. There are real lessons and participants have a badge system to identify their top/bottom status and their level of permitted participation. In other words ‘I will be spanked,’ ‘I won’t be spanked’ and variously what they are comfortable with. Events are discreet and monitored, with aftercare and experienced tops and bottom mentoring.  I don’t know as much about this as I probably should be if you are visiting or living in Ireland you might want to check it out.

Here is what Kia as to say about the Irish spanking scene:

It’s really come along in the last five or so years since I’ve been active. Almost everything is organised through FetLife. There are regional munches throughout the country (Belfast, Dublin, Cork, Galway, Limerick, Waterford, Wexford, (few others that don’t look active at the moment but tend to come and go)) (and several additional special-interest munches and social events in Dublin- spanko, age play, bi females, etc). Most munches run monthly. Some munches or individuals also occasionally organise workshops.

For those looking to play, Nimhneach is the only publicly advertised general kink event- runs monthly and is open to anyone who meets the dress code.  The Goddessa Club (runs less frequently) is similarly open, but no male dominant play is allowed (I also can’t find a non-FetLife site for them).  Both of those are in Dublin. Apart from that, there is Cork Kink (general kink party, runs on a vouch system).

We welcome anyone who is interested in school role play, regardless of whether or not they have been to any other events or munches before. We wanted something that had a brighter atmosphere and a more relaxed dress code that could be another option for people looking to get involved in the scene. We also wanted to create something more specifically targeted to spankos and role players- though it’s possible to have this sort of play at other events, the atmosphere isn’t necessarily ideal.

Events are generally very light-hearted. (though, particularly in the detention-style events, the punishments can be quite intense for those who earn and desire heavier play). When we ran our first event in Dublin, the venue owners (who had never before hosted a kink event), said that they would look in now and again to see what we were doing.  They never did- I asked afterwards, and they said that every time they walked past the door all they heard was giggling and therefore assumed that we were fine.

We’ve put a good deal of thought into the Dublin event to help new participants feel comfortable. Every event starts with a review or procedures and consent policies.  We the do a uniform inspection- this is optional, and mainly a laugh. People can fail in remarkably ridiculous ways. This also serves as a warm-up of sorts, and to help establish that one can be spanked in front of a room full of people and it’s completely fine.  I’ve often seen new students initially sit this out, then join the end of the queue to be inspected once they see the first few students banter with the inspectors and receive a light punishment. The regulation underwear inspection serves a similar purpose- and again, students can be quite creative in what they try to pass as “regulation”.

We then have a series of lessons from the tops- some are proper lessons meant to impart knowledge- others are sillier and/or meant to tempt the students into misbehaviour (the recent life-drawing lesson, featuring a banana and two mandarins springs to mind). Another top serves as head teacher to deal with any more severe misbehaviour  Tops who are not teaching are welcome to assist the teacher in enforcing (or attempting to enforce) proper standards of behaviour. We occasionally also have a top serving as guidance counsellor, which allows for a slightly softer, more intimate 1-1 role play. Students wear badges to indicate which tops they’re willing to be punished by, and can change these at any time as they grow more comfortable and/or need a break.

More often than not, every single person from the event joins us in the pub afterwards for a drink- I take that as a sign of success!

The detention style events in Galway have a somewhat different format- though usually involve some form of warmup, a classroom where students spend the majority of the detention, and a staff room where students are called to read their notes explaining why they’ve landed themselves in detention- and to suffer the consequences. These events generally have some form of finale involving spanking games, demonstrations, or other closing activity.

We currently run events in Dublin in Galway, and have run in Cork before (hopefully again- currently looking for a new venue). Most events are a few hours only, though last year we ran our first weekend event (Summer Camp).  Our organisation is flexible so that we can run events wherever there is sufficient interest and an adequate space- and also to encourage members who would like to see additional events or different styles of event to get involved in the organisational side of the group. The group as it stands today is the result of the input and effort of more than a dozen individuals who have stepped up in some form of leadership capacity.

Here are some end results.