When I was leaving school, the Leaving Certificate was just about the only thing you could put on your CV - apart from that all-important Sunday school prize you got, aged 10. Now there seems to be a new generation of school-leavers who can list off endless accomplishments like ant-farm management, emergency air-lift co-ordination skills and of course, advanced feng shui. Even so, to have edited and published a book by the age of 15 seems to be a tad on the over-achieving side. However, Robert Cunningham and Richard Murphy, two transition year students at Newpark Comprehensive School in Blackrock, remain pleasantly modest, Robert claiming that he decided to do the book because "it's gotta be better than making bird feeders out of milk cartons" in his community action class. The book, Twenty-five Years Of Newpark, marks the anniversary of what was always a ground-breaking school - known for having the first Transition Year and envied for having no school uniform. Robert and Richard gathered reminiscences from dozens of ex-pupils as well as photographs from the time when Newpark was two separate schools; Avoca School and Kingstown Grammar School.
John de Courcey Ireland, the maritime historian, was one of the bestknown and loved teachers at the school and he returned on Wednesday night to do the honours at a party to celebrate the publication. The eclectic crew of staff and past pupils who arrived included Chris Horn, who formed IONA Technologies with two fellow TCD academics and is now several million the richer, having floated it on the US stock market; Graham Jones, the enfant terrible of the film world, whose film How To Cheat In The Leaving Certificate was recently on general release; teacher and novelist James Ryan, whose second book, Dismantling Mr Doyle, came out in paperback the day before; artist Rachel Joynt; lawyer Niamh Hyland; poet and journalist Katie Donovan; Tim Carey, curator of Kilmainham Gaol; photographer Conor Horgan, and Bebhinn Murphy, director of Source Organics. Also, a contributor to the book but unable to make the party is actress Melanie Clarke-Pullen, who is currently representing the Irish in EastEnders.