There were nine kids altogether in the family and only 18 months between myself and my younger brother, so we went to nursery school together in Kilmore West in Coolock.

The school had a rocking horse and I loved it - in fact I loved it so much that no one was allowed on it but myself. My only other memory was that they used to give us coolpops as an incentive to eat the dinner. That was obviously the treat.

For junior and senior infants I moved to old prefabs on the grounds of John Vianni church on Ardlea Road in Artane. I remember the smell during summer time from he wood of the prefabs. You'd be playing outside and there'd be a bit of horse play. You'd be pushing people against the prefabs and that varnishy sort of smell would stay on your clothes.

I got my injections in one particular prefab there and I never went into it again afterwards. They gave you a sugar lump, I could never figure out why. Maybe it was to stop you crying but they could have come up with something more inventive.

That was my last encounter with mixed schools because I was then sent off to St Joseph's CBS in Fairview. We used to get free sandwiches and milk there. In the summer they used to be down the back of the classroom from about 10 o'clock in the morning, so by lunchtime the milk would be warm and the cheese melted. There used to be this horrible smell from cheese when they'd open up the plastic off them. I was never too into cheese after that and the cheese was always on a Monday, so I was never too impressed going to school on a Monday.

Joey's was very academic, which didn't really suit me. It was very regimental. Corporal punishment wasn't banned until I was in fourth or fifth class and I remember taking a good few hidings before that. You were put outside the classroom by the teacher and the brothers used to walk around the corridors. It was terrifying because you could hear them coming down the marble corridors in their sandals and you'd be praying that the door would open and you'd be taken back inside because if they came across you standing outside the classroom you'd get the strap. If you dropped your hand half an inch just as the strap was coming down, it wouldn't hurt as much but they always looked out for that, so you had to be very quick and make sure you made a lot of noise so they'd think you were in terrible pain.

When I was eight or nine I joined the Billy Barry kids. It was mixed - which I quite enjoyed after being in an all-boys' school all day. My best friend was the only one I told about it but it was never discussed after that. It was never "how did you get on at dancing today" or anything. I tried to keep it as secret as I could, even the teachers wouldn't have known because you would have got an even worse time from them. I played football after school and then I went dancing. I brought my dancing shoes in my football bag, but hid them. One particular day, which I'll never forget, I was in Fairview Park and we were togging out for a football match and instead of taking my football boots out, I put my hands on my dancing shoes and put them out on the grass, I nearly died when I saw what I'd done. I think I used some excuse that I picked up my sister's dancing shoes by mistake, but I remember a few people were very suspicious from then on.

I was a bit of a lad, though, so I was probably the last person they would have assumed would be involved in that.

I went on leading my double life into secondary school, also Joey's in Fairview. I had a fantastic maths teacher, the writer John Banville. I used to mitch school now and again, not that often, but he was clever enough to know that I wasn't sick. He said to me one day, "look you don't have to mitch, you don't have to have a note, I'll leave the door open, if you want to come in, come in and if you want to go out, there's no problem, leave." I never missed one of his classes after that. It was the most simple thing that he did, all he asked was that we were quiet when we were going in and going out. I always paid attention to him - he was a great teacher.

In conversation with Olivia Kelly