On the weekend before last there was a reunion of my 1975 Leaving Cert class from the Patrician High School in Carrickmacross, county Monaghan.
It was, as Thin Lizzy use to sing, a case of “The Boys are Back in Town”! For we had such great fun together and it really felt like it was only yesterday that we all left the High School for the very last time after completing our Leaving Cert exams.
After the Leaving Cert, our career paths went in many different directions including into farming, the trades (plumbing, electrics), medical, business, construction, army, priesthood, engineering, teaching, law and scientific research. Some stayed in Ireland, some emigrated. To me, in spite of Ireland being in the 1970s a very poor country with a large uneconomical small-farming base, there were better options being considered by young people, in the sense that we understood that not everyone needed to possess what was then a traditional largely 'lecture hall' based academic degree (without real world practical experiences) to secure a job. The mass exodus over the last few decades away from farming and the trades professions has created an unsustainable society where many individual citizens are also sadly dis-empowered unable to fix a leaking pipe, repair a tyre puncture or wire an electrical plug.
I was born and lived in Dublin until I was 12 years old where my dad worked on the CIE buses and my mom had a grocery store. In my final months at primary school, my parents decided to reclaim the rural life of their childhood and we moved to my mom’s home town of Carrickmacross. I was heartbroken, having to leave the up-tempo urban lifestyle and all my childhood friends to move to rural Ireland. Though I would have known county Monaghan well from visiting the country cousins for ‘working on the farm’ summer holidays, nevertheless it was a culture shock for me when the smells and sounds of cattle, pigs and farmyard poultry replaced the familiar sounds of seagulls, crashing waves and boats of the Irish Sea as well as the buses, trains, parks and busy shopping streets of our capital city. I expected that I would never settle down on ”the stony grey soils of Monaghan” (to quote local poet Patrick Kavanagh).
How wrong was I!
For within days of moving to Carrick and starting school, I felt so at home, adopted quickly and made friendships that would last a lifetime. Though we as a collective have met rarely over the decades, nevertheless when it does happen it is always joyful as we happily reminisce about the days of our youth. We all agreed last weekend at our reunion that we never had a bad day in the High School run by the Catholic religious order of the Patrician Brothers, who also operated the BISH in Galway city.
A lot of scandals have come to light since the mid 1990s about the clerical sexual and violent abuse in Ireland towards children and young people during the 20th century. Yet thankfully none of us had encountered this at the High School where the teaching staff (except maybe one or two!) were excellent educators and the Brothers operated what we would now view as a very liberal regime for its time. Furthermore the progressive Christian teachings of giving active respect to others of all backgrounds, especially those who were suffering and in need which we were taught then, I have tried to live by ever since.
“The Times they were a changing”
Impacted by the rise of a distinct ‘youth culture’ in music, fashion, beliefs and politics worldwide, we often looked, behaved and had values so different than that of our parents. A generation gap was opening up in this era. For it was the time of ‘flower power’, civil rights’ struggles, liberation movements and teenage rebellion. As a young idealistic lad, I believed the then Labour Party leader when he promised that Ireland in the 1970s would be socialist and that the old conservative clientelism politics would disappear for ever. The conflict and war in Northern Ireland was literally on our doorstep in Carrickmacross and some of us knew people actively involved.
We were probably the first generation in Ireland to be able to holiday on a tiny budget across the continent of Europe and further afield, travelling by boat and train (Inter Rail), and staying in hostels where we would meet, socialise and be influenced by teenagers from different cultures and nationalities.
It was a wonderful time to be young and to be in school! Our class produced the first regular school student newsletter, set up the first student representative council, introduced soccer into the school (the ‘ban’ by the GAA against soccer, rugby and hockey only officially ended in the early 1970s), and held the first all-out student strike/boycott. We were allowed to dress how we wanted (e.g. long hair, platform shoes or sneakers, paisley shirts and bell-bottom jeans), play basketball, volleyball, soccer as well as Gaelic sports, organise chess evenings after school hours and a weekly leisure afternoon with table tennis, pop/rock music and reading activities. Quiz tournaments regularly brought us through British Army checkpoints over the Border to schools in Armagh. ‘Hops’ (discos) were held in the local community hall organised with the convent girls where we danced to the Glam Rock sounds of T-Rex, Slade, Suzi Quadro, Sweet and Dave Bowie. We had the school's first ever ‘tuck shop’ that opened daily selling sweets and soda drinks. The school invited girls in for the first time (female students from the ‘Tech’ next door who would come to us for French and Maths and we would go to their school for metalwork and carpentry). Teenage boys and girls could met up for coffee or a ‘mineral’ (lemonade, orange) after school or in the evenings at the local café.
Carrick had its own cinema then that was showing the latest Hollywood blockbusters (Kung Fu movies with Bruce Lee, American Graffiti, Earthquake, Jesus Christ Superstar, The Last Picture Show, Poseidon Adventure, Soldier Blue, James Bond…). Happy Days!
At the Reunion on Friday in Markey's Carrickmacross we hosted a display of memorabilia from the 1970s- playing LPs on a record player from Neil Young, Horslips, Beatles, Rolling Stones, Bowie, Fleetwood Mac, Neil Diamond, Byrds, Dylan; viewing old school books such as Buntus Cainte, ‘Explorations’, ‘Soundings’ and Peig Sayers; as well as ‘Shoot’ soccer magazine and comics such as DC’s Superman, Marvel’s Avengers, TV21’s Captain Scarlett, Thunderbirds and Star Trek; and writing with chalk on a big blackboard. My favourite item though was the portable battery-powered cassette recorder. For it was myself that introduced this revolutionary music device to the school! We used it to often secretly (under the desk!) record the teachers in the classroom, record (illegally) music from BBC’s Thursday’s night’s Top of the Pops and from LPs onto blank tapes. We also joined an UK-based music library club where we monthly obtained on loan rock/pop albums on cassette that we recorded (illegally again!) before returning by post mail.
Sadly a number of our former classmates are no longer with us. So we paid quiet respect for Brendan L, Brian, Mark, Padraic, Paul and the others who have passed on.
The next morning we visited the old school with its prefab (which was our first year classroom) still standing to happily reminisce even more.
And then in the afternoon I travelled by train to Dublin with my brother Michael Smith and my son Shane to watch Leeds United play AC Milan at a capacity-filled (51,000!) Aviva stadium.
Leeds back in the top English league and playing against a top team from Italy- it was just like the old days!!!
Finally a big ‘Bualadh Bos’ to Peter Callan, Pierre Finnegan and Owen Finnegan for organising a memorable school reunion. Looking forward to the next one already!!
p.s I am on the far right of the top photo taken in our Biology Lab during our Leaving Cert year. We are all holding the lab's poor unfortunate plastic skeleton!
I am second on the right of the bottom photo taken at our reunion proudly wearing my 'Rod Stewart on Tour' teeshirt!
