My years in Abbeyleix South National School

I wrote this when I learned that a new South School was officially opened in April 2012.

I was a pupil in the school from September 1938 till July 1940 and I feel that those two years played a large part in shaping my future. My two earlier schools - the Model School, Waterford and Durrow School - I hated.

Mrs Galbraith was the senior teacher and, for some reason, she treated me as a special pupil. On one occasion, Archdeacon Nevill had taken us for a lesson in religion and some of the naughtier boys had been throwing paper darts and the pupils were generally unruly and noisy. When he had gone, Mrs Galbraith was really angry and as a punishment, she gave the whole senior classes an impossible amount of homework. After school the others asked me to go back and plead with her to reduce the set homework to normal. This I did and, because it was I who asked, she agreed. It was difficult being just the one teacher for all classes, from ages 7 to 14. Mrs Mitchell taught the Infants.

Another day, one of the boys in my class was having an epileptic fit at the back of the school and I ran in for Mrs Galbraith who then asked me to take all the children to the front while she dealt with the boy in question.

Two lessons I shall never forget. One was where Mrs Galbraith asked us what would happen to a plough if the farmer left it idle in a field. On our answer that it would rust she told us that the same would happen to our brains if we left them idle.

The other was when she told us there was no such word in the English dictionary as 'can't'. I searched the dictionary at home and couldn’'t believe the word wasn’'t there but my mother explained what the teacher was telling us.

During my second year Mrs Galbraith took me to her home in Sandymount (now a Bed and Breakfast establishment that I stayed in, with Anna and Eliel, when visiting Abbeyleix during a hurricane in 2017) one afternoon a week after school to tutor me for the scholarship exam in 1940 for Rochelle School in Cork. I went to Rochelle for five years from September 1940 to June 1945 and from there to the Church of Ireland Training College. I taught in Dublin till April 1963, during which time I finished my BA degree in Trinity and the Diploma in Biblical Studies and later gained my H Dip Ed.

Settling in England in April 1963, I switched to secondary teaching and taught English up to A Level and helped with Maths teaching to O Level and taught Religious Education and helped with PE lessons and games. I tried to be as much of an inspiration to my pupils as Mrs Galbraith had been to me.

In 1971 I gave up teaching to look after my daughter till she started school at the age of four. I then took up a post in a further education college, teaching Communication and General Studies, and I held that post for 13 years. After retiring at the age of 60 I did supply teaching in several secondary schools for five years.

Then I took up IT studies in the college I had taught in and I still work, proofreading for a magazine and acting as PA and PR person for various outstanding expeditions my daughter has been leading or taking part in. What I have always said to Anna reflects the inspiration Mrs Galbraith tried to instil in her pupils: '‘The only failure for you and me would be not to have tried.' Anna's schooling was very different from mine but she, too, was lucky in that she had teachers who inspired her to go out and reach for the stars.

I still have a wonderful life, learning new activities, such as driving teams of huskies across the snowy wilderness of northern Lapland where my daughter runs a husky business.

However, it is good to keep up links with the past and I have met up with four of my former Abbeyleix classmates in recent years - –Kenneth Fyffe, Noel Whittaker, Eric Shirley and Sydney Pallin. Sadly, Kenneth has died. I am also in close touch with friends from Rochelle and College days. On 14th May 2012 Noel died and I heard the sad news from his daughter at Christmas.

It is good to keep up links with the past and I have met up with four of my former Abbeyleix classmates in recent years – Kenneth Fyffe, Noel Whittaker, Eric Shirley and Sydney Pallin. Sadly, Kenneth has died. I am also in close touch with friends from Rochelle and College days. On 14th May 2012 Noel died and I heard the sad news from his daughter at Christmas.

I can still picture Mrs Galbraith, riding slowly along on her High Nelly with her school books tied to the back carrier. She would have been up early, working on the farm in all weathers. Every evening I would walk to Sandymount with a gallon milk can and pay her for a pint of milk but she would fill the can to the top. She would often also ask me to return to collect a gallon of buttermilk after she had done the churning. Before marrying Tom Galbraith she had taught in Ballyroan and Tom was a pupil of hers there! We lived in Oldtown at that time in a second house of Tom’'s for which my father paid a rent of 7/6 a week! Sydney Pallin now owns the land on which that house then stood.

For some years I have been writing my memoirs and I have had many stories published in magazines and online, having completed several courses in writing, such as, journalism and travel writing. I recently started my own blogspot online as somewhere to share special memories of the past.

Preston School, Abbeyleix

My brother loved to come home from school and mimic Mr McShane. Two quotes I remember.

‘Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this pretty pace from day to day. . .

Out, out, brief candle
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets upon the stage
And then is heard no more …’

Ted got to know his Shakespeare and his Dickens.

The other classic was ‘though two straight lines be produced from hell and back, they will never meet.’

He learned his geometry too!

One day he came home and told me Mr McShane had given him 100 lines to write – ‘what is worth doing, is worth doing well.’ He promised me 6d if I wrote the lines for him. I didn’t stop to wonder where Ted would get sixpence from! I wrote the 100 lines and Mr McShane didn’t question the copperplate handwriting which was very different in style from Ted’s backhand rather untidy writing. My father cycled into town one day to buy some bits of timber from Baggot’s shop and he found Ted and Derek Miller ‘mitching’ from school. He took them back and handed them over to Mr McShane. I never heard what fate awaited them!