CV

Brendan Kennelly is the subject of this week's CV.

Current job: Poet, academic

What school did you attend? St Ita's in Co Kerry

Any famous classmates? A famous teacher, a GAA footballer called Johnny Walsh.

Hidden talents at school? Football. St Ita's was a mixed school and the boys played football while the girls played hurling. I still score the winning goal for Kerry every year, in my mind

Best subject? Irish, French, Latin, English, history, geography.

Worst subject? Algebra

Where did you go to college? Trinity and Leeds University, where I studied under the great Yeats scholar, Gerry Deffers

Most inspirational teacher and why? Jane Agnes McKenna. I owe a great deal to her and think of her often still. She believed that education could be an instrument and an adventure.

What's the best thing about the Irish education system? The people in it. The personalities of the Irish, their words, humour and ambiguous attitudes, their sense of contradiction. The system should preserve what is best in us.

The worst thing? This is the most intelligent generation of Irish people, but also the most pragmatic... I wonder if the race for points does not impact on the assessment of other areas of life, like love and friendship?

What song most reminds you of your schooldays?

The Moon Behind the Hill as Johnny O'Connor sang it