Thirty years ago this week all the secondary schools in the country were closed. ASTI members had gone on all-out strike on February 1st, 1969, because they refused to accept the recommendations of the Ryan Tribunal on teachers' pay.
The principal recommendation was a common basic salary for all teachers. This did not find favour with secondary teachers who enjoyed a slightly higher salary scale than their primary and vocational colleagues; the proposed maximum salaries would to be slightly less.
Ryan also proposed that salaries be paid by the State. Secondary teachers were employed by school managers and paid a small salary by them, usually of the order of £200 a year, but the bulk of the salary came from the State. Thus, secondary teachers feared the State take-over of second-level education with this intrusion into their private contractual position - in many cases as a result of the introduction of free second-level education.
During the action, some school premises were loaned for meetings of the striking teachers. At that time the ASTI operated out of a few rented rooms in Hume Street, Dublin. The only permanent staff were the general secretary, the late Maire MacDonagh, and her secretary, Rita Gleeson.
Even the president, Hugh Duffy, had to combine his full-time teaching duties in St Eunan's, Letterkenny, Co Donegal, with his visits to Dublin. On one journey he diverted to Armagh to appraise Cardinal Conway of the developing situation and of ASTI's fear that the Government was preparing to take over the schools.
The ASTI had no strike fund at that time and most teachers found themselves in dire financial straits.
Vice-president Noel Keane lived in Drogheda and had six young children. Two other prominent members, Brendan Close and Peter Kerr, tried to get teacher substitute jobs in Belfast.
Kerr and a number of others went to London where they worked in a variety of occupations ranging from supply teaching to bar-tending. Each Sunday they met in a cafe on the Cromwell Road to discuss developments at home.
A number of Dublin-based activists used to meet in the Hollybrook Hotel in Clontarf to consider strategy. At least one striking teacher spent his time packing tins of Heinz baby food into tea chests for Biafra.
After three weeks the strike was called off. A compromise agreement was subsequently broken by the Department of Education, but the teachers did not have the will to go on strike for the second time.
The injustice suffered by some specialist teachers at that time was not resolved until 1997. After the event, hard-line stances were adopted and a new wave of union activists emerged to supplant the old guard. Noel Keane never became president.
Brendan Close recalls: "Most people had to borrow money and it showed that there were no winners in strikes."
It was 16 years before the ASTI went on national strike again and then it was in co-operation with the two other unions for a series of one-day stoppages.
