Theresa Byrne

Playground games played were skipping, chasing, hide and seek and hopscotch.  Skipping was an acquired skill and two ropes could be used at the same time.  For this game, timing was important.  You had to be sharp and watchful so as not to miss your turn.  Usually when this game was being played out, many different songs were sung while the ropes were turning.  Songs such as ‘don’t eat Kennedys Bread’ or ‘Johnston Mooney and O’Brien’s’.  another one was ‘Down the alley-o where we played relive-o’ and so on.  For the game of hopscotch or, sometimes, it was referred to as ‘beds’ used nugget shoe polish tins and empty Malone’s lavender wax policy or Cardinal red polish tines were all sourced and kept for the game of hopscotch.  In some cases, this game was also referred to as ‘beds’.  The larger tins were much easier to negotiate as you gently kicked the tin carefully into the space marked out with chalk, with your toe, while balancing on one leg.

A lone coal fire was the only form of heating in schools then and we took turns to pile on coal to keep it glowing.  I was lucky enough to be seated on that side of the room, but usually the teacher’s desk and blackboard helped block the heat reaching any of us children.  At that time, central heating had not arrived n schools and these very cold classrooms were extremely large with high ceilings and windows that seems to stretch forever up into the sky.  The only things of beauty to behold in those rooms were the numerous holy pictures hanging on the walls.  In our school also, we had the ‘Children of Mary Sodality’.  This was held one night a month and many day and past pupils participated.  The problem for me arose when St. Therese would beckon to me to start the hymn and continued beckoning with her elbow until you just did.  This was the nun in charge of the school choir which I loved and it was from here that many of the girls were auditioned and accepted into the Franciscan choir.

During the month of May, the whole school would assemble each Friday to participate and walk through the grounds or the May procession.  Everyone was encouraged to wear a white dress and veil.  It would finish with the rosary and prayers around the statute of Mary in the convent grounds.  I remember the statue being painted by one girl’s father in thanksgiving for his daughter’s recovery from a serious illness.