Where were you in '82?

They were the Class of 1982, young student teachers ready for the classroom. There was much to reflect upon when they met for their 25 year reunion recently. Louise Holdenreports

Twenty-five years ago, some 260 student teachers graduated from St Patrick's College Drumcondra. Since then, four of those students have died*, 10 have married each other, and several left the profession to become, among other things, a celebrated photographer, a physiotherapist for the Irish soccer team, and a fiddler with Riverdance. Many more are now school principals.

Much has changed in Irish primary schooling in the last 25 years, and the Class of '82 has played their part. They have helped bring interactive technology and ability mainstreaming into the classrooms, and have worked to keep drugs and indiscipline out. They have taught new teachers in various emerging skills, from leadership to art therapy.

Still, it didn't take long for these teachers of teachers to feel like students again once they entered the dining hall of St Pat's last Saturday night.

"The place still smells the same!" says Kathryn Crowley, a 1982 graduate who helped organise the event. "We couldn't believe it. Some people requested to spend the night in their original dorms in the Residents Hall, so they were fully immersed in the old days."

Crowley managed to assemble 128 of the 260 graduates of the BEd and 22 of the 48 postgrads of 1982. "We picked up where we left off 25 years ago. It was a fantastic atmosphere. We were all well able to relive the fun we had in the early '80s. There were five couples there who married since we graduated, which will give you a good idea of how well we all got on."

Deirdre Ni Dhonnchadha - An island life

After several years travelling the world I got a job teaching in London but I was lonesome for Cork. Home I went in 1990. I got a job filling in for a teacher on maternity leave on Bere Island. It's got a population of about 220.

After my stint at St Michael's finished I kept working on the island, managing the cafe until 1994, when I got married. I never lived on the island, but travelled there each day on the ferry. In 1995 I was offered a permanent job teaching in the island school and I've been there ever since.

Each day myself and the other teacher travel across on the ferry to our 19 pupils and two classrooms. They're all related to each other, so it's like teaching a big family. We're not too formal, there's no real need for disciplinary procedures. If we want to go on a trip off the island we can leave at the drop of a pencil. We have our hiccups - sometimes the ferry runs late and the children are left waiting but there's a lot to be said for a small island school.

The parents are very involved. Everyone rows in, in a manner of speaking.

Donie O'Connor - A family affair

Within three years of graduating from St Pat's I had married a fellow student, Maree, and we both took jobs in Dublin.

My father was the principal of a school in Caherleaheen National School. When he died in 1987 I applied for his job. I uprooted Maree and became principal of a two-teacher school in Tralee. The other teacher was my mother. When she retired, Maree took over. It was a real family affair.

Back then we had 27 pupils. Now we have 200. Our own four children are in, or have been through the school. Our 12-year-old daughter has Down syndrome, and she has been educated here as well.

Maree O'Connor - Married to the job

Since I started teaching in Caherleaheen in 1990, the school has grown from two to 12 teachers. Each of our own children has grown up with the school. When our daughter, who has Down syndrome, reached school going age, I really wanted her to come to school with her parents. But mainstreaming was not common in those days.

I learned so much about the process that I took a year off in 2003 to work as national education officer for Down Syndrome Ireland. I travelled the country to different schools helping teachers to integrate pupils with Down syndrome into their own classrooms. It was great to get involved.

Kathryn Crowley - From Boston to Ballymun

My teaching career took me from Killarney to Boston to Ballymun. I originally wanted to teach in Kerry, but the place is so full of teachers you can't get a job there. I don't know why Kerry people are all drawn to teaching, but even when there was shortage of teachers in the country there were still too many in Kerry.

Instead, I took a round-the- world trip with four other 1982 teaching graduates and came back with a husband that I picked up in Boston (a long way to go for a Corkman). Then I started teaching in the Presentation School in Terenure.

I have a great interest in the power in technology in learning, so I did a diploma in IT in Education in TCD (I had done my MEd in Boston). By 1997 I was working on IT 2000, the national project to bring technology to the classrooms.

Now I'm the principal of St Louise's in Ballyfermot. I love it here, despite our struggles to make ends meet. Our claim to fame is that we stumped Eddie Hobbs - he tried to balance the books for us but had to give up. It was the first time he had to agree that the outgoings could not be reduced and the incomings were not enough to meet them!

All the same, through fundraising and creative accounting we have managed to bring three interactive whiteboards to Ballymun, and we're very proud if it.

Majella Sutton - Pioneering special needs

After various temporary teaching jobs, I took a role in Carlow teaching a special class for Travellers. Special Education was different back then - children with specific needs were taught separately to other students. There were no resources, so I had to devise my own curriculum. There was no funding either, so it demanded quite a bit of creativity.

I took a year off to do the Special Education Diploma course in St Pats, and then I decided it was time to explore other places and other careers. So off I went to America, and worked in a legal firm, a library and a hospital pharmacy.

Satisfied that teaching was indeed the job for me I returned to Ireland in 1990, even though there were no jobs for teachers at the time. I worked as a supply teacher in Limerick but finally got a permanent position in special education in a boys' school in Castleconnell. Now I'm job sharing with another teacher and the quality of life in Castleconnell is really good.

I vary my work with some supervision of trainee teachers for Hibernia College.

I love working in special education. These days it's in a different league. There's more funding, more resources, more networking and more awareness. Special needs used to be swept under the carpet; now they're recognised and dealt with.

Fionan O'Connell - Life through a lens

I only taught for four years, in St Marnock's National School in Dublin. They were four good years but I think I burned out! I went to the US and accidentally got into the picture framing business.

Meanwhile, I set up a theatre company (Laughing Gravy Theatre) with two other Irish guys. We toured the States and had quite a bit of success until I decided to come home.

I got a job in the photographic department in NCAD, where I worked for two years before having another stab at teaching. After two years in Belvedere College I wrapped up my teaching career for good and went it alone as a photographer. That was in 1996. Since then I've quite a few exhibitions in Ireland and the US. My next show is in the University of Massachusetts in November. I also make documentaries for TV, which have been used in schools since.

I never regret my time in teaching. It taught me lot. It rounded me off and helps me to deal with people, and especially children, in my work. I had reservations about going to the reunion because I have taught so little over the years, but when I got there I realised that everybody's story is different.

John Williams - In War and Peace

After I graduated in 1982 I taught for six years, then took a career break and headed to Kuwait. I was there for two years when, during a return trip to Ireland, the war began. My apartment was bombed and I lost everything. I didn't go back.

In 1998 I was seconded to the Department of Education to work as national coordinator of the Walk Tall programme.

At the time people were taking to the streets in protest about drugs in the community and vigilante groups were targeting dealers. Walk Tall was a drugs prevention programme

targeted at primary schools. Then I went on to the role of assistant national coordinator of the Primary School Sports Initiative. I returned to teaching in 2004, as principal of Divine Word National School. It's has 23 teachers and 450 pupils.

Teaching has really changed in 25 years. In the mid-'90s things really started to take off as the INTO began to design in-service training programmes to help teachers to deal with the changes that were coming. It was great to be part of that. Things are still changing, tearing along too fast, I think. There are so many new initiatives coming in to schools and not enough time to stand back and consider our priorities.

* Mary Harrinton, Maureen O'Sullivan, Pat O'Hanlon and Jenny Byrne, all deceased, were remembered in a ceremony at the Class of '82 reunion.