My oulâ fella would have been around three years behind Jim in OâConnells. He never told me Jim went there, which disappoints me.
My oulâ fellaâs future brother in law also went to OâConnellâs. He was in the same year as my oulâ fella.
There was a brother there called Brother Curtain/Curtin. His nickname was The Bull.
The future brother in law had some problem or other which necessitated his mother going in to speak to Brother Curtain.
The mother went in and asked to speak to Brother Bull. When the mother told the future brother in law she had gone in to speak to Brother Bull, rather than Brother Curtain, he thought his world had ended and that six of the best were on their way the following morning.
Brother Curtain said nothing and no lashes of the leather were doled out.
Brother Ernest Carew was the real lover of the leather in OâConnells in the 1950s.
On March 31st, 1993, I met my oulâ fella outside Liberty Hall to pick up a ticket off him for Ireland v Northern Ireland at Lansdowne Road. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Brother Carew, stooped over and outwardly not far off death. He told me they exchanged âthat lookâ, the sort of wordless look Gerry Thornley used to make up tales about schools rugby players giving each other 15 years after they had clashed on the pitch. Brother Carew died a few months later.
I donât think I ever heard about any abuse of that nature in OâConnells, only the leather, which is not to say it did not happen.
However the other night I came across a Facebook group for past pupils of another CBS I attended which wouldnât have been too far from OâConnells, and past pupils were openly talking on this page about having been abused in that way up to the 1980s, which sort of shocked me and yet didnât shock me.
I wonder how many schools in Ireland remained untouched by that sort of abuse.