I SUPPOSE the fact that I've had no lasting sense of grievance - but no sense of triumph either - means that school must have worked for me.
I've probably been very lucky and I know that a lot of people can't say that. I attended North Monastery Christian Brothers School, Cork, the "Mon", from the age of seven upwards. Liking or disliking school all depended on whether or not you liked your teacher and for the most part I liked my teachers.
There was quite a lot of corporal punishment but it wasn't the amount, so much as the fact that it was unfairly distributed, that was distressing. I managed to avoid most of it. I was quite bright at school and probably a bit of a pet and the fact that my father was also a teacher (at the School of Commerce)
must have helped.
We had very little drama at school, but I did make my first stage appearance at the Mon.
When I was eight years old, I was chosen to play the "Bloody Child" in the "Scottish Play" which was produced by Brother Byrne. A number of future members of the Abbey took part in the play, including Edward Golden who was then a teacher and played Macbeth, his brother Geoff, and Chris Curran, who was one of the witches. Years later, when I was in a play in Dublin, Brother Byrne came to see me and pointed out that I had come a long way since my first dress rehearsal when I was crying that it was 10 p.m. and I hadn't yet had my tea!
I was a good student in that I didn't find learning difficult and I didn't have to work very hard at it.
I went as far as the Leaving Certificate but didn't do the exams because I passed the civil service exam and left just before the Leaving. I wasn't disappointed to leave school - I had lost interest in my studies at that stage.
MY PARENTS were delighted that I had got a job. In those days in our strata of society, if you became a civil servant, a Garda, a teacher, a bank clerk or a priest, you were doing well and were regarded as a success.
I started off in the Statistics Office in 1946. I found the work boring but I met a great crowd of people there. They had all been demobbed from the army and introduced me to the art of drinking porter.
During that time I became involved in amateur dramatics - initially with the Gaelic League in Parnell Square, Dublin. After five and a half years in the civil service I did an audition for RTE and joined the RTE Players.
