IN the month of May 1962, I began my formal education in Cuilmore National School. Al- though one might describe it as a small two. teacher school, in the eyes of a six and a half year old girl, it was vast and awesome.
I cannot actually remember my first day in school, but I do remember getting ready for it. My mother had bought me a new dress and Ii white coloured blazer with a motif of a monkey on the breast pocket. My sister Mary, who took me by the hand to school, had put ringlets in my hair and tied it with a white bow.
Mrs. Kelly was my first teacher and she started us off with a small slate {clarin} and chalk {cailc}. I can distinctly remember learning to count on the long string of spools tied along under the blackboard. Each set often painted in different colours. On the side of the press there was a chart with two cats, three dogs, four cars etc. Underneath each group we would hang the corresponding figures 2, 3 and 4 etc. In the comer at the back right-hand side were the toys in the toy shop. An old doll in a bed made from a shoe-box, an old telephone and lots of other bits and pieces. We moved to this comer for our Irish Comhra. A well-loved comhra was Mammy calling the Doctor for a sick child.
Mamai: Hello, hello, an e sin an Doctuir?
Docttiir: An docttiir ag caint, ceard ala uait?
Mamai: T a mo bhabog ana-thin, an feidir leat teacht gan mhoill?
And so on. What a lovely way to learn a language.
In Cuilmore National School however, we learned more than the three Rs. We made some beautiful aprons, knitted sock (I don't think I could turn the heel of a sock now), caps, scarfs, and in sixth class I knitted an Aran cardigan and made a pleated skirt. This was nothing compared to the beautiful things my older sisters Margaret, Kathleen and Mary had done. Their embroidered tray-cloths made from the bleached flour-bags, cushion covers, made from the canvas sugar-sacks, and smocked baby-dresses, were always prize-winners at the Agricultural Show in Newport. We had classes for art and music also and learned our tonic solfa and latin hymns there. Religion too was a subject of major importance. Religion commenced each day with the Angelus at 12 noon and continued until lunchtime. We learned our Catechism off by heart. Questions and Answers as we did our Bible History. In those days we had the answers to everything - there were no grey areas. We never doubted whether Adam and Eve were really our first parents or not and never once questioned whether Jesus walked on water or not. The day of the Catechism Exam was probably the most important day in the whole school year. The days before were devoted entirely to religion. On the day itself our mothers made sure we had scrubbed behind the ears and we all wore our Sunday clothes.
Our physical education consisted of games in the yard at lunchtime. 'Tip' was the most popular, others included "High Windows/Low Windows," "Ring-A-Ring-A-Rosy" and Skipping. On wet days in wintertime we stayed in the cloak- room and chatted or played "Datlog." I can almost smell once again the damp of the wet coats hanging around the walls and also the centre rail supported by two steel posts with a wire mesh between them. I can almost feel the cold of putting on a wet coat at three in the afternoon, pushing an arm into the cold wet lining and setting out against the bitter wind and rain, up around the alley, down Cortoon road, then the shortcut down Joyces Molley, leaping across the flooded river up the "well-field" and home at last.
Many a time we were lucky enough to get a lift from Breege Keane in her car. She would pack us all in and leave us right to the door. I remember one such occasion, when there was terrible thunder and lightning and who should come along but Breege. When we got into the house there was my mother on her knees, under the Sacred Heart picture, a candle lighting on the table, and she praying for our safe return from school. Needless to say she blessed Breege.
After three years with Mrs. Kelly, I moved into 3rd Class to Mrs. Coughlan. Mrs. Coughlan had the name of being a cross teacher. I cannot say so, as I only ever got one slap of the rubber from her. Being a teacher now myself, I can understand how this came about. We were standing around the table for our mental arithmetic, maths was and still is a favourite subject of mine. The arithmetic posed no problem to me, until Mrs. Coughlan announced that the next one to get a problem wrong would be slapped. The fear of the stick was enough to upset me and sure enough I got it wrong. Mrs. Coughlan, applying the Golden Rule, had no choice but to carry out her threat.
Other vivid memories I have include putting clods of turf on top of the stove in the afternoon to dry them out for lighting the fire the following morning, fire-lighters were unheard of so we folded and platted sheets of newspaper to serve 'as fire-lighters. Sweeping the wooden floors and rising clouds of dust in the process was another daily chore. The red-brick tiled corridors had to be washed once a week. Making the ink and filling the ink-wells was another job for senior students. In the month of May, we always had a May altar, and students brought fresh flowers for it from week to week. Caretakers or cleaners were unheard of. We left school with a good practical as well as academic education.
I was in Cuilmore National School at a time of major modernisation -i.e. the building of the flush toilets. Before this we had no running water in the school and the old dry toilets, long since demolished stood in a corner of the boys and girls yards. Once a year an itinerant would come by and offer to clean them for a few bob.
On leaving Cuilmore School, the four girls - Kathleen Doherty, Rita Joyce, Mary Catherine Keane and myself went onto the Sacred Heart School in Westport. The three boys -Jimmy Walsh, Charles Keane and John Heneghan went onto the Vocational School. We were among the first to come under the Free Education Free Transport in the 1960s. If it wasn't for this, people like myself would never have had the opportunit to go on to second level education.
I went on from the Sacred Heart School to University College, Galway where I was conferred with a B.Comm. degree and H. Dip., in Education. Following this, I went to teach in Nigeria fo two years. There in a large co-educational highschool of 1,300 students, I taught Mathematics and Accountancy. These two years are probably the most memorable of my life to date. When a student in U.C.G. I had spent two summers working in the Hamptons, in Long Island, New York, as a parlour maid/waitress for a McCullough family who were millionaires. Going to Nigeria after this was seeing at first hand how the other half lives. One conclusion I reached was that riches don't buy happiness. I met more poor, happy Nigerians than I did rich happy Americans. In the Hamptons the rich fought for nudist beaches. In Nigeria, in some parts, it was customary for women to be covered only from the waist down. In the Hamptons, rich Americans lay on the beaches to tan their bodies. In Nigeria wealthier natives bleached their skin and straightened their hair.
On returning from Nigeria in 1980, I took up a teaching post in Davitt College, Castlebar. I taught there for eleven years until 1991. During this time I met Val Egan, a friend of my brother Tommie. They had worked together in New York and in Alaska on the pipe-line. We married in 1984 and lived in Corofin, Co. Clare. However, I still continued to teach in Davitt College. As a result of this, my oldest boy, Shane, spent his first year in Cuilmore National School where he was taught by the present principal, Mrs. O'Malley, a kind and motherly teacher. His love of school from the very beginning is no doubt due to the warm, welcoming atmosphere she created in the school.
My years in Davitt College were happy ones where I made good friends and pupils alike. Now teaching in Ennis I realise that Davitt College is well known and admired as is the name Joe Langan, a truly great educationalist.