ALMA MATER

I'm a Dublin man and went to school just down the road from my home in Donnycarney. I started off in Marino Primary School and later attended St Joseph's CBS, Fairview Joey's as it was affectionately called.

Unlike a lot of people, I spent very happy years at school. The Christian Brothers have been on the receiving end of a lot of criticism but I have no complaints whatsoever. Certainly, the discipline was fairly rigorous but the education was good.

At that time there were only a few lay teachers in Joey's most of the teachers were Brothers. I found them very good and extremely dedicated. Although I lost contact with the school, I was very taken by the fact that, 30 years after I left, Brother Canny wrote to congratulate me on my move from AIB to the Irish Permanent. He had been tracking my career.

I was reasonably good academically and got a good honours Leaving Cert. I wasn't linguistic though, being much better at maths. Maths, chemistry and physics were the main academic focuses of the school the Brothers placed a great emphasis on these subjects but very little on languages. We only studied Irish.

At school I did everything through Irish. Since this was my only experience of education, learning through Irish became second nature to me. Even now, if I have to do multiplication in my head, I do it in Irish. Later, when I went to UCD at night, I found it difficult to use English for maths.

There was a great tradition of Gaelic games in the school. Joey's won the All Ireland Colleges' Football Championship the year I entered. Team members including Des Foley, Lar Foley and Simon Behan who all went on to play for Dublin.

Back in those days most people just wanted to get a job when they left school. I joined the Irish National Insurance Company where I spent a year before moving to the Central Bank. It was the bank which gave me the opportunity to go to third level for which I will be ever grateful. The bank paid my fees, gave me three weeks off for studying and a week off for the exams. In the mid-Sixties they were extremely enlightened for a public service company.

I didn't find studying at night for the B Comm at UCD particularly difficult. Its was tough enough, though, and you had to be disciplined. Two years later I embarked on a masters degree that was more difficult. By that time I was married and had other commitments.

I really enjoyed the college experience. I would have liked to have had the opportunity to pursue full time study, but night classes were the next best thing.