ONE DAY last year our eight-ear-old daughter, Roisin, announced on her return from school that Miriam, one of her classmates, had told her she had three mammies".
Roisin was at pains to point out that Miriam was not telling a tall story. Nor was she, for Miriam is an eight-year-old Arab girl who comes from one of-the Gulf states where polygamy is an accepted social norm.
Roisin's main concern about the extended Miriam family concerned seating arrangements for dinner - how did they all fit around the table and who got to sit at the head as mammy?
On days this spring, Roisin would bemoan the fate of Sara, Azwan and Munya who were all obliged to go to the library during the lunch hour since they were observing the Islamic, month long fast of Ramadan. On another occasion, we were informed about Yom Kippur, the most holy day in the Jewish year. We are anxiously awaiting cross-examination on Buddhism, Taoism, Sikhism, Hinduism etc.
Roisin attends St George's English School, one of a small number of international schools to be found not only in Rome but increasingly all over the world. I've often contrasted her primary school experience with my own, growing up on the Protestant side of the rural Co Derry fence. Roisin's classmates have been Angolan, Australian, Danish, Dutch, English, Greek-Cypriot, Italian, Malaysian, Scottish, Swedish and Arab (from United Arab Emirates). They have been Christian, of the Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant variety, as well as Muslim, Jew, Buddhist and more besides.
In Kilrea, Co Derry, however, my classmates were all Protestants from the village and surrounding area.
In later life, for work purposes, I met up with fellow Kilrea citizen, footballer Martin O'Neill, then captain of the Northern Ireland soccer team and no" successful manager of recent English League Cup winners, Leicester City. Martin is a Catholic.
I was amazed to discover that we were almost exactly the same age, had grown up in the same small village, had shared at least one sporting passion but had never known one another as children thanks to the religious and educational divide of apartheid Northern Ireland.
He went to a Catholic primary school and I to a Protestant one, and so I never did get the chance to boast that, as a seven-year-old, I was running nutmegs around one of the best Irish footballers of his generation.
On a recent visit to St George's, the Jamaican-born poet Janies Berry started a reading to the children by pointing out what a deal of pleasure it had given him to spend a day in and around the school, watching children (highly privileged children in a very expensive private school, let us be clear) apparently functioning well, playing well together in a multi-ethnic environment.
We have often had the same thought, especially when we attend the school's annual May fair. This is an occasion when the various national groupings sport their wares, setting up food stands to sell their national foods - Indonesian rice dishes, exotic Malay foods with impossible names, a South African barbecue, a variety of pasta dishes and much more besides.
It would seem that many Italians are attracted to an international school, since Italian children make up an estimated 30 to 40 per cent of St George's and the other international schools in Rome.
Their enthusiasm for the school is understandable since it provides a range of activities which are simply not found in an Italian state school - activities such as sports, debating societies, drama clubs, the teaching of art, music and craft works, career guidance and teaching for special needs.
By the way, if you think the striking, tall, blond and middle aged lady on the antiques stand at the May fair is familiar, well she is - the Swiss-German actress Ursula Andress, once a bikini-clad Bond girl in Dr No, has been a St George's parent for 12 years.
In an interview in last year's school magazine, Ms Andress had this to say as to why she sent her son to the school. "I think it is a marvellous school. You are brought into such an international atmosphere, which is very good for the future."
Here's hoping she's right.