We had gathered for a prayer service at 12.10 p.m. in the girls' half of the all-purpose room which we share with the boys. The boys had visiting drummers due to leave at 12.15 p.m. Wonderful sounds came from the other side of the partition. There was plenty of noise as the boys tried out the drums for the last time, we thought.

But instead of finishing, the drumming continued. Our piano player sat poised, ready to play a hymn to Our Lady, as we sat listening to loud rhythmic sounds. But on and on it went. The adults grinned as someone then sang "You ain't nothing but a hound dog". It was time to abandon our prayer service until later. The joys of sharing an all-purpose room! We all returned to class, including our senior infant group of 37 girls, which even our inspector admitted was a prehistoric number.

At lunch we discuss the previous night's INTO meeting, when three of the candidates in the race to succeed Joe O'Toole appeared. Wonderful things are promised - no lunchtime supervision, sub cover for all approved absences and, best of all, more money. Ah yes, but haven't some of these people been in HQ for quite a number of years, so someone wonders what have they been doing all this time? Was performance-related pay mentioned? Indeed it was, but one candidate quipped that performances were for circuses!

Some started with the cupla focail, others stuck to one language. Their platform presence is discussed and what the nuns training us for the Gael Linn debates used to call our "teacht i lathair".

Our learning support-teacher thinks we'll have to select a classroom teacher. She thinks the others are totally out of touch with reality. One reality is that 15 telephone calls were made last week before one untrained substitute was found and we needed two. We wonder what makes these people decide to set off on the campaign, driving to Dingle or Letterkenny after a day in school and getting back for school the next morning again.

One candidate's helper/adviser told me it'd cost about £13,000 just to post one A4 page to all INTO members. As they left our meeting the night before, there was a final word of advice to the candidates as they set out into the night: "Whatever you do when you're elected, don't make any announcements from your yacht!"