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| Coolbock School |
We rushed out of the school gates and as soon as they shut behind us the cheering began. As te crowd scattered it became less but it had been heard all over Coolbock and across the hills if the day was fine.
You see we had just gotten our summer holidays; it was possibly the middle of July, we never knew exactly what day we would get them. We were not going off to Spain or some sunny country, indeed we seemed to have lots of sun at home those days. It was just the freedom from being someplace at a special time. We spent the time working at hay and turf and there were always picnics involved and enjoyed, then if all the work was finished in good time we might have a day at Strandhill.
On our way down the hill from school of course we had to say goodbye to our friends. There were four cottages as I remember, older people lived in the first two, but then there was Mrs T who kept a few jars of sweets. If a child had a penny or a halfpenny, one got a few sweets screwed up in a bit of paper; she always gave enough to pass around. I don't think she could have made any money on them. Then next there were Maggie, John and Martin, a sister and two brothers. The men were very quiet and did not talk a lot, but Maggie was different: she belonged to the Blue Shirts, which was a forerunner of Fine Gael and she always wore a blue shirt and would shout - "Up the Blue Shirts" every chance she got even louder than we could cheer.
At this point we would have reached "The Stream" and the cheering would have faded a bit as we took our different roads. That was the day we got our holidays but we had many more like it. I think most of us had a happy time going to school.
All this came back very clearly to me a couple of years ago when there was a school Reunion. Our school opened in 1928 so the Reunion covered the years from then until 1980. Now it is one of the best afternoons I remember.
I started school in 1931. There were just two rooms and two very small cloakrooms, a small playground for the girls and one for the boys and with a lavatory which is beyond description at the top of each. It was more up to date than the previous old school, which had a thatched roof, one room, and a small loft. My parents had their schooling there. Our school was on the hilltop, the old school was at the bottom, and my mother pointed out to me where a hedge school had been in former times, across the road where her grandparents were at school. The old school was in use from 1867 to 1928, when our school opened.
The stream was just a nice little brook flowing by the roadside. We dallied there, there was no hurry, on the school holidays the Master would not heed us, but on normal school days he would come and chase us home.
The Stream no longer exists: it is dried up. i wonder is the old well still there? During hot weather at lunch time two senior girls could go there for a bucket of water to give all a drink - there was no water of any sort in the school.We were able to have lots of enjoyment sliding on them, until someone would chase us, for our own safety. Once the ice was broken they were quite deep: here was one where Eileen was nearly drowned, only that a man heard our cries and came to our aid. She is dead now many a year as indeed are most of those who travelled that road with me, God rest them all.
The road was rough and stony and we got many stone bruises and sore feet, but the verge was nice and soft for our feet and we walked there mostly.
Seventy to eighty years ago there was very little traffic on country roads; there was only one car that I can remember to take Protestant children to school in the town, and how we envied them in the bad weather. With such little traffic, cattle could graze along the roadside and the grass was nice and soft and it soothed our aching feet.
Across the road, another memory, not a happy one because for it I got the only three slaps from the Master I ever got in my schooldays. There was a pile of old turf along the road, which we thought was jut spodagh, we had a competition to see who could kick most of it back in the trench , I don't know who won but I know I got doubly punished because it belonged to my Uncle and he complained to my parents. I can assure you he was not my favourite relation from then on.
The Master rarely punished the girls but he kept the boys in "their place" as he would say and had a habit of tweaking their noses which was very painful. he was a small man who came form some part of the Gaeltacht, he loved Irish and instilled a love for it in anyone who cared and many of us did. He was a member of the County Council and once a month took out his old bike and cycled the bad roads into Sligo for a meeting. Then the mistress was in charge in his room and a senior pupil, usually a girl, was in charge in her room. In those days seventy to eighty years ago there were no expense accounts for the Conty Councils.
Then on the gate we had to cross over to get the shortcut up the hills. We passed around by the house and whenever the apples were falling, Mrs Robbie would have a bucket of them left at the wicket gate for us the help ourselves. Then down the lane and nearly home. One side of the lane was a high mossy bank, and we always got quiet as we came down there because the little wrens nested in the moss year after year. We thought it was the same ones back each year, it was only when we knew about birds we learned that a wren only nested about once in the same place; it was probably their families which came back, but it was such a thrill to hear them.
Looking down the road from the Stream now, it all seems so different. The road is a bit better than it was in my schooldays but the verge is a scrub; cattle cannot graze there now, too much traffic. The bog holes are gone, some land has been reclaimed and in meadow, a lot of it is just overgrown old bog. The gate which we crossed is gone and there is a nice little roadway there instead. There are some new houses on the hill where the cottages were, all the old people are dead and gone, but they have left us with such great memories.
The school now is quite modern, it was not so easy to see and compare as there was a big crowd of past pupils all like myself anxious to renew old acquaintances and compare the school to our time. To my amazement on the wall amongst others was something I had written when I was ten. That year there was a big search on for folklore, we were asked to go to old people and get stories from them. They are now preserved in the Sligo Folk Park.
Even though the playground was covered with seats on the day of the reunion and they were full of people, I could remember each spot and the games we played. We had a lovely Mass that day and I felt honoured to read a prayer and be part of it. Then there was a lovely tea for all. It lived up to the tradition of being well done.
It was always noted as a good school and pupils would come from other schools to finish off their last two years or so with us, always providing they had a bicycle and could cycle there.
That is many years ago now but the name still lives on and I know that Mr Enright keeps the history still alive from bits I read in the paper now and then.
A day like our reunion covering so many years does not happen too often I;m sure. There were children, parents, grandparents and perhaps even the oddgreat grandparent present, and I'm sre it brought many a happy memory and sad one too.
Much thanks to the young people who organised the whole thing.
O God be with those happy days,
When life was free of care;
I'll not forget my childhood friends
I'll always hold them dear:
