It was a lot quieter then. Imagine, one could walk from the A1 pub to the original St. David's primary school along the middle of the Ardlea Road and not meet a car going to school in the morning. The school was situated at the top of the Ardlea Road, at the T-junction with the Kilmore Road.

Beside the school were green fields as far as the eye could see.
We played our football for the school and subsequently for the local G.A.A. club, Kilmore, on these same fields. It was still, primarily, a farming area.

Parts of Beaumont, larges areas of Kilmore West and Woodville, had not yet been built, while Northside Shopping Centre and Artane Castle were still only figments of someone's imagination. Skelly's Lane, connecting Whitehall to Artane, was a bramble filled mudpath. The schools in the area were all pre-fabs. Ardlea church had not yet been built and Mass was celebrated in Artane Industrial School.

Socially, the age of domestic appliance and other labour saving devices was upon us. For many, central heating and fridge freezers were as yet unheard of. The notion of second cars was fanciful, as many people did not have even one car. Foreign holidays !! On the international front, Neil Armstong was about to land on the moon, Vietnam was all the rage literally and the North was about to flare up. For us kids, things were very simple - you went outside to play and stayed outside until your parents threathened your life. There was little distraction in terms of video games, T.V., or indeed homework. I suppose every generation says that things were simpler and better when they were kids : indeed they were for me. Cowboys and Indians, Hide and Seek and, inevitably, football were the main games played.

I spent second class in the old pre-fabs. While I remember very little of the first day, I do remember ending up in Mr. McGarry's class. I can recall where the particular classroom was - over in the right hand corner of the yard. There were about 40 boys in the class, some more eager to learn than others. Most of the class remained more or less together for the next 12 years.

Alot of my most vivid memories of primary were of second class. Some events have made a lasting impression on me, most likely due to the newness of the situation.

The whole area of pop music, so important to kids today, was suddenly opened up to us when we were asked by the teacher what our favourite songs were.

I was also introduced to the world of nature via an experiment which subsequently went slightly wrong. Our teacher decided to show us how frogs grew from frogspawn. The frogspawn was deposited in suitable watery conditions and we waited for the transformation. This happened, while the class was on Easter holidays. When we came back, the amphibians had virtually all disappeared, only the slow learners were left and we never did see the process !!

I spent only one year in the pre-fabs. New class rooms were being prepared in what was originally the Artane Industrial School, which is now St. David's Secondary school. We had heard some 'horror stories' about the old school, and some of us were under the impression that we were going to be given the same treatment. However, the occasional slap with the 'leather' was all we had to put up with. I spent the remainder of my primary school years in this school. The school was surrounded by fields - no houses were to be seen apart from those across the Malahide Road. We played most of our football behind the basketball shed where the tennis courts and Rochfield Park are now.

Most of my memories are, curiously enough, centred around various sporting activities, rather than educational pursuits. Football/Hurling were played in the Winter and Spring. I can still remember vividly attempting to kick those older leather footballs which used to soak up the water. My nose still bears testimony to their weight. I remember playing for the school team in Croke Park and scoring a goal. The thrill of playing there still remains with me to this day.

It was difficult to play Gaelic football on the streets given that windows have low resistance, so soccer became the principal game. However, in school, Gaelic football and Hurling were the main sports. Class leagues were run on a regular basis and teams were entered into the inter-school leagues. Everybody in the school was encouraged to play football.

I always enjoyed running, especially sprinting. The annual school sports were held around April/May and I always took part in the sprint competitions over 100 yards, in which I had a high degree of success. I was picked to run for the school in Santry in the annual primary school competition. Like the Croke Park experience, Santry was very memorable and St. David's tended to do well in those competitions.

A new swimming pool was built in St. David's, which was subsequently closed down. I can still remember Cyril Hardy roaring instructions and telling us not to run around the place. However, by the time we left sixth class, most of us were proficient swimmers.

Apart from sporting occasions the preparation for our confirmation stands out for notable mention. A number of firsts here - I received my first pair of long trousers for my confirmation - I was aged 10. While this was not uncommon in the early seventies, I doubt if any self repecting child of the 90's would put up with it now. Fashion was not part of our vocabulary. As for hairstyles....I remember receiving a short back and no sides for my confirmation in Plunkett's Barbers, which was situated on the Malahide Road, where the E.S.B. is now. The net result of this exercise was to leave me effectively bald in the photographs, when I put the school cap on. Confirmation day was uneventful, apart from doing the rounds of the relations, friends and reluctant admirers (it cost them too!). The following Monday, everybody compared receipts . Like the pancakes on Ash Wednesday, a degree of exaggeration tended to enter the figures.

In fourth class it was announced that we were going to do a tour of the major historical sites in Meath and Louth. Unlike the Coke and Fanta swigging children of today, it was more a case of sandwiches and tea as we fought our way around Mellifont Abbey, the Hill of Tara and Newgrange in one day. We must have hehaved ourselves as we were allowed to go on a tour of Glendalough and Turlough Hill Generating Station the following year. While the tour of Glendalough was fine, I will never forget the rain that accompanied us on our trip to and from Turlough Hill. It was a three mile march of soaking numbness.

In fifth and sixth class, there was a hygiene clampdown on finger nail dirt and unwashed teeth. Marks were given out of ten and I think the points were added up over a number of weeks and stars were given. The funniest incident in relation to the clampdown was one particular chap, endowed with very yellow teeth, who swore that they were yellow from birth and received a better mark than those with the pearly whites. He lost his teeth afterwards as the yellow turned to black from lack of brushing !!!

The 'Follow the Fleet' campaign proved popular. The class were split into groups who were required to track the ships of the old Irish shipping fleet - remember the Irish Elm, Rowan etc. Other notable events were the various projects such as making reconstructions of famous Irish and International monuments.

Looking back, it is amazing to see the difference in little innocent seven year olds going into second class compared to the hardnosed, 'experienced' elders who breezed out of sixth. Little did we know that shortly we would become very innocent all over again in the secondary school.

As a young child growing up, I can vividly remember a visit to my grandfather on a Sunday afternoon in Donnycarney where he told me of how kept my father under control when he was young by telling him he would be sent to Artane if he misbehaved. My father recounted that this was enough to generally keep him on the straight and narrow and even merely walking by the grounds of this industrial school, as it was then, which was only a stones' throw away from his house, was enough to send a shiver up his spine.

A number of years after hearing this story, at the still relatively naive age of eight, my family moved from Santry to the Malahide road. A new home and also a new school. Imagine my horror when my parents told me I was to attend St. David's C.B.S. ! They reassured me that the Industrial school had been closed and that it was now a regular school. I was not completely convinced and reluctantly agreed to give it a try.

So, on February 15th 1974, my father's car turned off the Malahide Road onto the driveway which seemed to be at least a mile long to this enormous building which was to be my new school. Everything seemed to be on a grand scale with other buildings and "large sheds"
in all directions. At the top of the avenue was the Brother's monastery and directly in front of me the school yard which was bigger than three football pitches. At the top of the yard were the basketball sheds and to the right the almost palace-like building which I was later to discover, was the home of the famous Artane Boys Band which I became a member within four weeks of joining the school. Little did I know that much of my life outside of school would be shaped and influenced for the next nine years as a member of the band.

On entering the school, I remember I was immediately struck by the high ceilings and long corridors. The interior of this building was as imposing and impressive as the outside. At the Office I was met by the Principal, Br. Mitchell, who was wearing what looked like a long black frock. He took me along to my classroom which was on the ground floor. Third class was presided over by Pat Flanagan, who introduced me to the group of pupils, some of whom I was to attend school with for the next ten years. I remember Pat asking to see my schoolbooks from my previous school. Being a terrible doodler in those days, all of my books were covered in scribbles, which did not go unnoticed by Pat. He looked at the books and then at me disapprovingly. Rule Number One, I thought, Clean books !! To be fair to Pat, he never mentioned it. Like most pupils in a new school I hated my first few days but as the weeks went by I settled in quickly.

On that first day, I discovered that this building also housed the secondary school which at the time was located on the first and second floors of the school. During my time in this building as a primary school student, I was never to venture further than the ground floor. Primary school students were always terrified by the threat of being thrown down the very steep stairs by the secondary students.

The amenities provided by the school in those days were most impressive. In addition to numerous playing fields, there were two indoor basketball courts and a modern swimming pool. All pupils were given the opportunity to swim for an hour a week during school hours under the watchful eye of champion swimmer Cyril Hardy. The opportunities for sports during and after school were unlimited. Few schools in Dublin could rival the facilities offered by St. Davids at the time. I opted to join the band where I learned to play the clarinet and for the next nine years practised for two and a half hours every week day.

Pat Flanagan allotted an hour most mornings in class for private reading. During the next few months I was to read my way through all of the Secret Seven and Famous Five novels which did the rounds in the class and were in bogue at the time. Pat was actively involved in the school choir at the time which performed for school masses and other suitable occasions. Being in Pat's class, it was mandatory to sing in these events. I recall one such event in the parish church where pupils from a number of schools in the area sang as a combined choir. How they managed to control all of those voices in the same key was nothing short of a miracle, not to mention the antics of the boys from third class St. Davids. I have met Pat Flanagan a number of times over the past number of years and while I have grown twenty years he does not seem to have grown a day. Having met most of my former schoolteachers over the last number of years at various stages, it is true to say that I feel I am the only one to have aged during this period. I think this has something to do with the fact that adults always appear to be at least forty to an eight year old !

One of my abiding memories of that first term in the school were the films which were shown every week in the old chapel at the school. This was a rare treat in those days as visits to the cinema were usually limited to special occasions. They were projected onto a large canvas screen (an old curtain from the monastery) at three o clock every Friday afternoon. The movie was interrupted every twenty minutes to change the reel which invariably ran out at a tense moment during the film. During that term I saw most the Abbott & Costello and Marx Brothers movies. I remember the first colour movie to be screened was "One Million Years BC". with Raquel Welch. This movie got major billing in the school. Paper cups of orange and bags of boiled sweets were the refreshments on offer. There were no pullman seats or popcorn, but nobody cared. For ten pence you got to go to the "pictures", pure escapism on a Friday afternoon. One evening after one of these movies, I remember walking down the back avenue with some friends and bumping into Bro. Forristal at the back gate. It was a pitch dark evening and Bro. Forristal told us to look out for "Blue Boy". Blue Boy, he explained, was a ghost that had haunted the school for years and had often been seen around the old sheds at the back gate. Old Bro. Forristal swore he had seen him on several occasions. During those dark evenings, if you were unfortunate to be leaving the school on your own through the back gate, you ran like hell ! I certainly never stopped to see if Blue Boy was around !

In September of that year, after the summer break, I returned to fourth class. In that year we got a new Class Teacher and a new Principal. Noel McCarthy, affectionately known as "Handlebar Harry" had a rather long moustache not unlike the classic R.A.F. trademark. Noel is not a Dublin man, so imagine his fury when this nine year old pupil of his, answered a question in a Christmas test which asked what you would call a person from Galway, with the answer "a culchie". I genuinely believed this was the answer, which only added to his annoyance when he questioned me about my answer. As far as I was concerned anybody not from Dublin was a culchie ! I never made that mistake again, except that for a while afterwards I thought they were all Galwegians.

My recollection of the new Principal, Bro. Marrinan is that he had a higher capacity than the average person to make himself heard in situations where forty ten year olds were out of control. Our year in fourth class was to be out last year in the old primary school located in the secondary school building. In September we were moving to a brand new modern school on the Kilmore Road.

A couple of days before we were due to move to the new school everybody got a call from the Principal to tell us that the new school would not be ready for another two weeks. We were all very saddened by the prospect of another two weeks summer holidays but we made the most of it ! Two weeks later, we duly moved to the new school, which involved hauling the furniture from the old school. For all of that first day back, we lugged furniture down the road, hoping they would tell us that the paint wasn't dry or that the plumbing didn't work. No such luck ! It was back to school for real the following day. In contrast to the high ceilings and the two by two desks of the old school this school was like a new pin. Classrooms were smaller, more compact, with desks which were all shapes and sizes. Each classroom was self contained with its own cloakroom and its own private toilets. It had a very modern feeling to it.

Jim McGinley, an old hand at teaching, was our Teacher in fifth class. In fact this would be his last year at teaching - the following year he became Principal of the school. Jim's approach to teaching was unique. He behaved like a personal grandfather to every student in the class, always taking time out for everybody, giving a gentle push and "a good kick up the rear end", as Jim would say, when it was required. He was a great Gaelgoir from Donegal and encouraged as much conversation in Irish as possible. Lunch was eaten in the classroom every day and the main event at lunch time was to watch Jim eating his boiled egg which he had every day. He always placed the egg on a napkin, shook some salt and pepper on it and popped it into his mouth all at once. We were sure he swallowed the whole thing and at any moment would choke. He always smiled afterwards, and moved onto his salad.

In my class at school, there was also another Bill Donohoe. This was very confusing in third and fourth class, always getting each others marks and being blamed in the wrong. I think generally things were evened out in the punishment zone. Jim decided to put a fix to the confusion, by calling me "Billy Mor" and the other "Billy Beag" despite the fact that were both tall and lanky and that there was not much more than an inch in the difference between our heights. We got stuck with these names for the remainder of primary school.

In my final year at St. David's Primary school, we were informed that Jim McGinley was to be appointed principal of the school and that our teacher would be John McGarry. I hope John will forgive me for saying this, but most of the school lived in terror of John McGarry. This was a fate worse than death. From afar in the school yard, John was one of those teachers who gobbled up students for breakfast. However, nothing could have been further from the truth. I can honestly say that my best year in school was spent in John's class. The end of the day in school came all too quickly in John's class. The sense of team spirit in the class contributed to the learning process in a very effective way.

The class of thirty six were split into six teams who sat around their own table together. Each table had a combination of mixed ability with a "Taoiseach and Tanaiste" leading each team. This team spirit, rather than isolating weaker members in the class, forced the team to assist each other to perform to a competitive standard in the class. As well as the normal academic subjects, teams were required to put on plays every week or present group projects. John was a great man for introducing new and innovative methods of learning to the classroom. He was a great fan of the Seanachai Eamonn Kelly, and regularly played old recordings of Kelly taped during John's childhood in Clare. John regularly told stories himself from his own childhood which were every bit as interesting as those stories recounted by Kelly.

That year at the school (1977) came all too quickly to an end. I still have very fond memories of it. The following year it was on to secondary school to start all over again...