Killea National School 1895

The old building creaked under the weight of the January gale. Great sheets of driving rain lashed the windows, the

roof slates rattled, the walls shook, and every now and then a back draft of coal smoke came down the chimney

and half filled the class room.

The school itself contained three rooms. The big room where the head Teacher,

Sean O'Mullain instructed the older children, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth class,

and the small room where the younger children learned under the watchful eye of

Mrs Flynn. The main door opened up into a cloak room where we hung our rain

sodden duffle coats, and the toilets were in the school yard at the rear of the

building. The school yard was filled with pebbles and surrounded on all sides by a

stone wall.

Outside, the pine trees that encircled the school were bending and swaying in the

wind, it would be a long wet walk home. We had no school bus, and cars were

scarce, some parents had cars, but they were seldom used to transport children

to school. It was Friday afternoon and library time. This was one of our favourite pastimes away from the rigours of

everyday school work. The teacher allowed us time on Friday afternoons to go to the big glass cabinet at the back

of the class room and select a book to read from the library. I was forever engrossed in “Irish Sagas and Folk

Tales”, “Old Celtic Romances”, and “Greek Mythology”.

I had a particular interest in some of the old stories. “The Salmon of Knowledge” for instance, where Fionn burned

his thumb on the flesh of a magic salmon and from then on could tell the future, and The Fir Bolg, or “The Belly

Men”, one of the first races to inhabit Ireland . Rumour had it that they developed a type of spear which after

entering their enemies body opened up into numerous prongs, so when it was withdrawn it had the effect of

removing his entrails. I dreamed of having such a weapon in the Dunmore wood,

and the respect it would command during our mock battles which we fought in the

wood every day after school.

Finally the clock struck three and it was time to go home for the day. We would

run down Killea hill, the wind near blowing us away and the rain soaking us to the

skin... We would sit near the strand wall and wait for the big waves to come

crashing in, hoping that a car would pass and not make it to the bottom of Longs

hill, its occupants maybe forced to abandon it in the middle of the road

Of course it was not all storms and winter time during our days in the old school.

The spring would see us wearing short pants and brown Clarks “start right”

sandals, instead of our winter long pants and shoes or wellies. Some of us cycled to school on the cold crispy

winter's mornings, rubbing our hands together from the cold, and some of us hated school to the point where we

would have to be physically dragged into the class room by a Parent being helped along by the Teacher.

I can remember playing in the school yard and seeing the Teacher knocking on the window to get us to return to

class. I can remember standing in line at the teacher's desk to buy a twopenny jotter or a six penny copy, or a nib

for a pen. I remember learning our first Irish songs and tunes which down the years I have often hummed and

whistled in far away lands. I remember writing with ink, and the teacher filling the ink wells from a big bottle of black

ink he had stored in a cupboard behind his desk. I remember blotting paper, and of course being walloped with the

teachers stick, most of which I deserved. I remember wandering Musicians, Inspectors, and Priests and Bishops

coming to the class room. I remember the Teacher using Dettol to disinfect a cut knee, and lighting a few lumps of

coal with pieces of firelighter, during the frosty winter mornings.

On Easter Sunday 1966 we gathered at the school, children, parents, and guests. A select few of the senior pupils

stood up and recited “The Proclamation of Irish Independence” acting out the parts of our dead 1916 heroes. We

raised the Tricolour on our new flag pole in the old school yard and sang “Amhran na bhFiann” to commemorate 50

years since the Easter Rising. I could see the pride in the face of our head master Sean O'Mullain, for not alone

was he a fine teacher but also a true Irishman in every sense of the word.

His surroundings were meagre and his pupils were mostly the poor sons of Fishermen and Farmers, but his efforts

in our early education were second to none. In the cramped confines of Killea School , void of any of the trapping of

today's modern facilities, he taught us reading, writing, and arithmetic, explained our heritage and the history of our

people, and as children gave us our first sense of identification, the fact that we were Irish children and could be

proud of it.

There's a new school at Killea now. It's a fine modern facility with bright and airy classrooms, running water, and

state of the art technology. The old school is derelict, its once pebbled yard is covered in grass, and weeds grow

freely from the walls that once confined us during our young years. I stood in the yard a while ago and closed my

eyes to listen in the warm summer breeze to the sound of silence. Away in a long lost forgotten time I could hear

the Teacher's voice once again instructing us in the history of our land, and of course the great deeds of Fionn and

the Fianna. I saw the children playing on the stone pebbled school yard, and I saw little boys dressed in short pants

and brown sandals walk past me because play time was over and the Teacher had knocked on the window telling

them to return to class. It was a Friday afternoon and their smiling faces told me it was library day.

From the short story writings of Mick D.

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