My first school was St Patrick's National School in Drumcondra, Dublin, which is on the campus of the teacher-training college and only about 100 yards from my home. I started there in 1955 and was under the normal entry age at the time because my mother was in hospital and they agreed to let me start early.

During my time there the school day was organised very differently. You went home for lunch at 12.30 a.m., came back at 2 p.m. and stayed until 4 p.m. The principal was Mr O'Brien who lived on Drumcondra Road. He was followed by Mr Blake, who was there until recently.

The teachers were very good and I still remember a lot of the lessons of teachers like Mr Clynes, Mr Reidy, Mr Hackett and Mr Chambers. Student teachers used to regularly sit in on classes and would help out the regular teacher and this made things that bit more interesting and varied. Some of the former pupils include Micheal O'Hehir, Eamon Dunphy and Paddy Mulligan.

The pupils would have been from the local area and I would say that there were probably about 40 in my class. All of the kids on our road went there and my brothers Noel and Maurice had been in the school before me. With great facilities in the school, sport was very strong. I played hurling and football and did a lot of athletics.

I spent a short period in what was called the "No. 2" School and at that stage, the early 1960s, they used even to do French in sixth class. In 1958 I made my First Holy Communion and this was a really big deal in the school because you made it in the College Church - you got an apple and an orange and had a breakfast afterwards. It was a huge event for us.

The school uniform had the letters SPD on it, which we all said meant spoons, pots and dishes. I liked the school, but I preferred the holidays. I really hated going back after our visits to west Cork with our mother. She was from Castlegoan near Bantry and we used to go down there for parts of the summer. When we were in Dublin we'd be working in All Hallows, where my father managed the farm, or we'd spend hours playing in the grounds.

As I've said, I liked the teachers, got on with the other boys and it was a good school, but the freedom of the holidays was just great. Kids from my class went to a number of different secondary schools, but mainly O'Connell's, Benevin College in Finglas and my school, St Aidan's. It was a new school when I went there, and I admired Brothers Hayes and Clarke who got the place going.

History was my favourite subject in Aidan's, as it had been in St Pat's. I read a lot of history books and also loved looking at geography books showing details of the rivers, mountains and geology of all sorts of places. I loved reading about these places and it's really only in the last few years that I've got to see many of them, around the country not to mind around the world. Mr Coughlan taught commerce and he had a way of always making it interesting - he was one of the big reasons why I decided to go on to study accountancy.

During the year I did the Leaving, there was a teachers' strike at the same time as a national maintenance workers' strike. This was the first time I became interested in industrial relations. A few of us decided that we couldn't risk just using the time off to enjoy ourselves, so we disciplined ourselves to go to the public library around 9 a.m. each day and stay until the end of the normal school day. Of course I spent a lot of time playing sport and attending matches. We went to all the matches in Croke Park and Parnell Park with my father. I followed our local League of Ireland soccer club, Drumcondra, and used money I earned working in All Hallows to buy my season ticket.

When I left St Aidan's I was eager to get on with things, but I've always stayed in touch. Back in 1998 I went back with Tony Blair to formally launch a North/South Schools project that Aidan's is involved in. An Internet linkup was arranged and we were interviewed by pupils from a number of different schools. There was almost a diplomatic incident when Tony suggested that Newcastle was going to win the league - St Aidan's showed the loyalty to an old boy that you'd expect by being loudly on my side. Both St Aidan's and St Patrick's were places that had a good balance between pushing us to achieve academically and develop in all sorts of other ways and because of them I'll always look back fondly at my school days.