As requested, this is a thread for TFK’s octogenarian crew to exchange stories about the Ireland of long ago.
This was a country that was happy, vigorous and spiritual, the home of a people who valued material wealth only as a basis for right living – a land whose countryside was bright with cosy homesteads, whose fields and villages were joyous with the sounds of industry, with the romping of sturdy children, the contest of athletic youths and the laughter of happy maidens, whose firesides were forums for the wisdom of serene old age.
@Fagan_ODowd , @KinvarasPassion , @Boxtyeater , @Tim_Riggins , @Thomas_Brady, etc. this thread is for you.
I’ll go first: the best day’s craic I ever had in the Sem was a big snow day when the whole school went mental throwing snowballs all day. We also pelted all the teachers when they were driving in and then trying to run into the school.
Afterwards a Maths teacher known as Snotty (@Chucks_Nwoko) made us stand up in Maths class. In a very grave tone of voice he told us he could remember the old days when once a student threw a snowball at a teacher’s car driving out the gate. The teacher stopped, got out, walked over to the student and “put him on his back”. Then the teacher got back in his car and drove home, no questions asked. Snotty missed the old days.
There were a lot of stories around Monaghan town when I was growing up about primary school kids getting broken arms and the like from angry teachers. I remember hearing about one time in the old days a student and a teacher in the Sem were having an argument in class so all the other students pulled back the desks and had a boxing match in the middle of the classroom, which the teacher won and made sure the student wouldn’t fancy a rematch.
Padraig Duffy, later Director General of the GAA was a good principle and cleared a lot of the problems out of that school. It had a bad bullying problem before he came. Now the Gael Scoil would be considered to have worse problems.
Post your stories about the old days here: