I was with the Sacred Heart nuns in Leeson St, Dublin, for primary level and then spent a couple of years in Mount Anville. I didn't really like it there. I found the sense of privilege and wealth overwhelming. There were very few outside influences dealing with real life. My parents realised I wasn't happy, and moved me to Pembroke School - formerly Miss Meredith's Academy - which was on the corner of Pembroke and Waterloo Roads. It was a terrific school. The headmistress was a Miss McKendrick from Donegal, who was extremely eccentric. She was a powerful woman. We were told that she was always the winner in any power struggles in the school.
The school was full of character. It was located in a ramshackle old Georgian house with very few facilities - no library, no labs, no sports. We were close to town, which was exciting and you felt you were not consigned to the suburbs. The teachers were highly variable, of course, but you felt you were encouraged. Mary FitzGerald, Garrett's daughter, came to teach us English when she was doing her HDip. She was a terrific English teacher and really pushed you. By then, I had read all of Walter Scott's novels and I was delighted to discover that so had she, and was studying them for her master's. She managed to get a budget from the school to buy books, among them
She broadened my reading. Up until then I had read only nineteenth century English literature. Because it was such a small school, there were no resources to teach science subjects. Few of the girls were interested in doing honours maths for Leaving Cert, but I was. When we were in fifth year, two of us were sent to St Conleth's, the boys school on Clyde Rd, to do honours maths and physics. We were the first girls to be taken in there.
Walking to and fro from Pembroke School to Conleth's gave us a great sense of independence. Our teacher, there, Michael Manning, was absolutely outstanding. It was his job to integrate two 15-year-old girls into a class of 30 boys. He was terrific. He was such a good teacher. He had the ability to instill in us the discipline of working things out from first principles. It stands to you for the rest of your life, but you need to be shown how to do it. It requires enormous teaching skills.
It was as a result of his influence that I went to UCD to study engineering. Half way through the course, however, I got involved in journalism and student politics. Engineering was great but I discovered it wasn't for me. I spent my time writing and agitating and didn't complete the course.
Throughout my school and college years, I played the cello, hawking my instrument around the city. I played in the National Youth Orchestra. It was a strand of my life which was completely separate from school, but it was brilliant to have, both socially and musically. I even became involved in the student union at the College of Music in Chatham Row.
After engineering, I spent 18 months as the UCD student union's sabbatical education officer. I got a job with In Dublin and started writing. Later, I went freelance and worked a lot for. I then got a job as a producer in RTE, and I've been there ever since. Mary Raftery, who is co-author of Suffer the Little Children - The Inside Story of Ireland's Industrial Schools (New Island Books £11.99), was in conversation with Yvonne Healy.
