The fees for the preparatory school in St Mary's College, Dundalk, were £3 a term in the 1940s, but you got a lot for that. The teacher, Miss McArdle, had to teach all five classes more or less at the same time as we all crammed into the junior study, so if you were in the lowest class you could imbibe what the bigger lads were learning.

The school was run by the Marist priests and had boarders and dayboys. It was a tough time to be a boarder as the food during war years was awful. As dayboys, we would be used by hungry boarders to buy food and sweets, but being caught meant a caning.

Miss McArdle's occasional "slaps" worried no one, but when the superior nicknamed "Charley" appeared, we all trembled: he could beat hands to near pulp when he got going. "Take it like a man," he would growl as his victim tried to hold back his swollen hand.

But, generally, it was a happy school where the staff coped well with wartime scarcities. It may even have been ahead of its time in giving sex education to those reaching puberty. But the older guys had told the younger ones what was coming so we sat back and sniggered while an embarrassed priest struggled to convey the "facts of life".

The college had huge grounds for football, tennis, basketball and handball. In my last year, St Mary's switched from gaelic to rugby - an unheard of thing in those days. A new superior, Father Hugh Sweeney, had come from Catholic University School (CUS) in Dublin and promoted the switch, but in democratic fashion, the whole school had to vote. It was close, but these were the years that Ireland was winning the Triple Crown and Jack Kyle was a national hero, so rugby was the glamour game compared with schools' GAA.

In our first Leinster Cup match, we beat St Andrews, and the Dublin newspapers hailed the Dundalk newcomers. Roscrea knocked us out the next round. Although I was still under age for the junior team, I got selected on the wing for the senior cup team as talent was scarce. The trips to Dublin by train were a great thrill for us culchies.

The next year, my family went to live in Dublin and I went to Blackrock College, which had an amazing record in the senior cup and was envied and feared by the rivals.

It was a huge but exciting change for a 15-year-old who was mad about rugby to get to Blackrock. The school buildings and the acres of playing fields were awesome. But rugby, in spite of what outsiders believed, was not the first priority. Studies were taken very seriously and in spite of a good honours Inter Cert from St Mary's I had to struggle to keep up. Many in fifth year had done the Inter twice to get scholarships. There was a great range of school societies, each of which had its annual outing.

The Holy Ghost fathers also believed in the cane, but it was used sparingly and only the dean of studies and dean of discipline were allowed to wield it. The Gilbert and Sullivan operettas were the highlight of the first term and I recall Frank Kelly of Father Ted fame starring in female roles with his boyish soprano voice.

Rugby took over after Christmas as the cup teams went forth to the strains of Rock Boys Are We. To my chagrin, the seniors lost both years I was there. Father Anthony Hampson, known as "the Boose" - a saintly priest but a brilliant coach who timed how long it took to get the ball from scrum half to wing - saw his team go out in the first round to Castleknock in 1952. If he had only picked me, it might have been different. Fortunately, Niall Brophy's junior cup-winning team was coming along to senior ranks to end the barren period.

In sixth year, we went to the Castle, a mock Gothic building, which was apart from the rest of the school and had less supervision. We were supposed to act more maturely but some of the boarders went mad in the beginning, tearing up desks until some tough talk from the dean, Father "Johnny Barrs" Finucane, restored order.

Sion Hill girls' school was next door and, at its production of Hamlet, it was the turn of the Castle dayboys to let go. We behaved disgracefully, heckling the actors and making appalling noises. There was talk of expelling the worst offenders but an apology to the nuns was accepted.

The Leaving Cert was getting closer, but in the Castle we continued to play billiards, table tennis, badminton and attend dancing classes given by Mr Graham. We tried to waltz, quickstep and samba with each other. The results in the dance halls later were as disappointing as on the rugby field.

The Leaving results were not great. No cups, middling exam results - we were not a memorable year in the history of the college. But for a new lad fresh up from Dundalk it was a golden time.