I grew up in Kilmacud, Stillorgan, and with my six sisters attended Sion Hill.

We started in Montessori and continued all the way up. I liked school - with a small l. I wasn't crazy about it and never woke up in the morning saying: "Oh good, I've got school today." The Dominican nuns, however, were very enlightened and very open-minded, so I didn't mind going. I did love the Montessori part of it though. It was great fun - with all the lovely equipment it didn't feel like school: it was just like play. Several of my sisters were very good at school, but it was clear that I wasn't. My mother used to examine my homework every night all the way up to Inter Cert. She also supervised my music - something she didn't have to do for other members of the family. I couldn't be trusted to do the work.

At school, I liked English and French but disliked geography. I enjoyed history when Margaret MacCurtain was teaching us but otherwise I wasn't interested. Even to this day, I have no interest in history, although my sister is an historian in Cambridge and my son is studying history at Trinity.

I was a late developer and had no ambitions at school. I was younger than everybody else in the class because I had skipped a year early on. That put me at a disadvantage socially. When all the other girls in the class were interested in boys, I wasn't. I was also very shy at school. I have tried to train my children from a very young age not be shy. It can cripple children.

I did my Leaving Cert when I was just 16 and did a secretarial course until I was old enough to go to UCD and study psychology. At school, I hadn't a clue about what I wanted to become, although it was always accepted that I would go to college. My mother had to sit down with me and read through a careers' book. It was through a process of elimination that I decided on psychology. My other option was law, but a summer spent working in a solicitor's office cured me of that.

After UCD, I did a post graduate course in Montessori teaching and then worked as a Montessori teacher and a junior school teacher. While I was teaching I did a night course in personnel management at the National College of Industrial Relations and then moved into personnel and later management.

I joined Amnesty 25 years ago. I was always interested in human rights issues but it was through my contact with Sean MacBride - two of my sisters worked part time for him as students - that I became involved with Amnesty. I became director in 1988. When I started we had 50 members. We now have 13,000 members and 150 school groups. It's very gratifying to see how it has grown. We didn't think we would succeed in our bid to collect a million signatures for human rights last year - but we did. The schools were our greatest supporters.