I HATED BOTH my schools John the Baptist Primary School and the Holy Faith Convent in Clontarf, Dublin. As a child I suffered from appalling asthma, which meant that in some years I spent more time out of school than in it. As a result, I became a ferocious reader.
I was sent to drama and elocution classes to solve a speech problem I had developed as a result of an accident when I was four. At second level, the nuns used to send me off to the Feis Ceoil when I was 131 was sent by Sister Annunciata to participate in Teen Talk, an RTE television programme in which a panel of experts was quizzed by a teenage audience. I used to think that the university students asked pompous and long winded questions, so I asked why thumb sucking was frowned upon when it wasn't fattening and didn't give you cancer. My question caused quite a stir, and I was invited back as a regular panel member.
I became something of a TV personality, but the school couldn't cope. The nuns were constantly concerned that I would get above myself. (But I've always been extremely grateful to Sister Annunciata, because through appearing on Teen Talk I met Bunny Carr of Carr Communications.)
Because I was verbal, the nuns thought I was clever. My older sister Hilary was brilliant at school and I was expected to be the same. To this day I am in numerate at school I could neither add nor subtract. The nuns couldn't believe it they thought I was play acting.
Some of the nuns, though, were usefully tough on me. We had a wonderful English teacher, Elizabeth Ahearne, and a marvellous Irish teacher, Miss O'Shea from Ventry, Co Kerry, who was a native Irish speaker.
I was very focused on learning to speak Irish because I wanted to be an actress. Even now, if I were given a script I could convince you I was a native Irish speaker. This was very useful to me, because I was accepted into the Abbey and played in the Irish language version of Brendan Behan's The Hostage. I won a scholarship to the Abbey when I was 15. I remained at school but appeared in shows in the evenings.
Education was extremely important to my family. My mother was ahead of her time and believed women should earn their own livings. However, school played a relatively small role in my education, and that was probably the only way I managed to survive it. I learned more about literature at home than I did in school.
Because it was my parents' wish, I went to UCD and did arts, but I never liked it. In second year I was faced with the choice of taking exams or going to London with an Abbey production of The Shaughraun. Naturally I chose the latter, and I've still to complete my university degree.
