Memories of Kingsland School
Nell (Harrington) Moran
Memories of my years in the old school of Kingsland are too many to mention - they could really fill a book. However, I started school there as a four-year-old in the Spring of 1927. My cousin Bridie Harrington had the responsibility of taking me there and looking after me. I think I gave her a busy time as I must have been a rather brave four-year-old and didn't mind leaving her to have a look next door at Mrs Naughtons room. Another of my cheeky little games was to walk right into Master Kelly’s room in the morning, over to his table near the turf fire, as only he was good enough to take of my coat and hang it up in the porch. He must have been rather patient a teacher to contend with me.
In later years as a senior pupil in his class I got the job of getting him the daily paper from my uncle Johnny’s. Sometimes I was rewarded with a penny which was duly spent in Joe Mahon’s on my way home. Mahon’s had just been built at the time. I got eight K.L.M. sweets for the penny. They were wrapped in yellow, green and mauve wrappers.
As I grew older and made my way to school possibly at eight or nine years of age, Mulrooney’s gander was my greatest dread. Every morning I approached Mulrooney’s hoping to sneak by, or maybe I would be lucky enough that Andy would appear and close the course. If I was not afraid of the teachers, I was certainly put in my place by Mulrooney’s gander giving my two skinny legs 'the works' with his mighty wings. I hadn't much gradh for geese after that.
During those years at school - at least in fourth or fifth class, we always had our Catechism lesson 16 from Fr. Devine. I can still vividly see him drawing the map of the Holy Land on the blackboard. We certainly had a good knowledge of that part of the world. When Fr. Devine took the class for this lesson, Master Kelly sat away to one side under the pressure of correcting copies and I'm afraid he usually managed to have his forty winks in this time. If we got a chance, we usually gave each other a nudge to look at his drooping eyelids. Of course, we had to make sure that Fr. Devine didn't see us noticing the master's snooze.
One of the big events during my schooldays was the day Mrs. Naughton retired. It was something special to me as having a reasonably good singing voice I got the honour of singing her fare well song. For some time before 'the bitter day', I went over after school, or sometimes during lunch hour, to learn the song in the Presbytery across the road from the school. I always enter by the back door through the kitchen where Miss O'Boyle would smile at me and give me a sweet, then lead me into the parlour where Fr. Devine sat at the piano ready to start the les son.
At the time, I didn't think the song was in any way sad - but now, on reflection, I would hate to sing it for anyone re tiring. The words were as follows:
“The bitter day has come at last,
Dear teacher kind and true,
Forever more your schooldays are over,
And we must take our leave of you,
And bid farewell to you”
There was another verse about 'missing a familiar face from the marketplace' but my memory fails me there.
Peadhar Noone was the teacher who gave me a great love of the Irish language through the evening classes we had in the school. Not only did he teach us the language itself, but also the old Irish dances and culture which are so much sought after today. Tá an cuid is mo de na daoine seo marbh anois ach tá me féin agus mo cul-ceathair maith go leor, Buíochas le Dhia.
The old school is still in the same spot and will be there for many more years. It has been restored, I am delighted to say, by my nephew Willie Kelly. His mother, my sister, went to heaven twenty years ago. No year is complete for me without a visit to Kingsland from Westmeath, where I've lived for the last forty years. It's good to be alive to write this today.
- Nell (Harrington) Moran