Special report: The story of a dysfunctional union

The ASTI is losing numbers and hamstrung by outdated processes - now it has picked a fight it seems unlikely to win

Ed Byrne , president, ASTI, and Kieran Christie, general secretary, ASTI, protesting with teachers outside Dominican College, Griffith Avenue, Dublin 9 Picture: Fergal Phillips

When the ASTI was formed back in 1909, one of the stewards at its meeting in the Mansion House in Dublin was a maths teacher named Éamon de Valera. Another founding member was fellow 1916 leader Thomas McDonagh. But for a union with a such long history, the ASTI seems curiously ...