'I had spent a few days of that year playing truant because I disliked school so much.'

'I had spent a few days of that year playing truant because I disliked school so much.'

Rosemary remembers starting High School on the Falls Road in Belfast. She remembers that she was often truant from school and the trouble her family went through to try and keep her in school.

Rosemary McCloskey

Trinity College Dublin

1958

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Rosemary McCloskey

Childhood and Early Life

Life Story

Falls Road, Belfast

1950's

A few of us in my class were chosen to sit the eleven plus examination which would qualify us for places in grammar schools. There was a lot of time, effort and energy expended both by Miss Malone and by ourselves. We also learned dressmaking and knitting in this class. Miss Malone trained us in church music. The school children were expected to attend the 10.00am.Sunday Mass in Sacred Heart Church and sing all through it. Mass was celebrated in Latin in those days. We knew the Latin Missa de Angelis off by heart and I can still sing it.I passed the eleven plus in June 1958 and got a place in St Dominic's High School on the Falls Road. I had spent a few days of that year playing truant because I disliked school so much. I discovered that there were escalators in Anderson and McAuleys store on Royal Avenue, and I would spend hours playing on them. Anything was better than school. Of course my absences did not go unnoticed and my poor little sister, Cecilia was always called in and questioned as to my whereabouts. She was telling the truth when she told the teachers that she did not know where I was. Some days I would bid her goodbye at the corner of Glenpark Street and carry on walking across Walton Street and Tenant street to Lawn brook Avenue, which led on to the Springfield Road. I would walk on to the Falls Road and up to Glen Parade where I would visit Aunt Nan, not realising that I was putting her in a compromising situation and that she would have to let my parents know. Miss Doran brought me to Fr McGouran, our parish priest at that time, a couple of times and after assuring him that I would mend my ways, I would be away off again the next day. My father had to physically leave me into the school to make sure I went.

Irish Research Council for Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences (IRCHSS)

Dr Kathleen McTiernan (Trinity College Dublin)

Dr Deirdre O'Donnell (Trinity College Dublin)