Sr Cáit remembers....

Sr Cáit remembers her Primary school days in Room One in a two-teacher school. There was an open fire where bottles of milk, brought from home each day, were warmed. She remembers poorer girls bringing ‘purple sandwiches’ for their lunch, butterless bread, filled with blackberry jam.
Her earliest school teacher was a Kerry woman, who would drape her shawl around Sr Cáits shoulders each day after lunch so she could have a post-prandial nap.
Sr Cáit had a drawing book, interleaved with tissue paper, and she delighted in sketching swans, boats, apple trees and princesses, places and people, real and imaginary.
Miss O’Connor taught knitting but Sr Cáit had to abandon the scarf she was knitting for her dad because it simply grew too wide to fit on the needles. She was also taught to sew, to do wonders in mending and to ‘turn a heel’ in a sock. She loved sewing.
The Parish Priest would visit on the last day of each school year. Every girl who hadn’t missed a single day from school was given a small envelope containing a shilling. Sr Cáit remembers winning this prize, riches beyond compare, at least once.
Sr Cáit says “My memories of Primary School, from those hazy earliest ones of my three year old self, are treasured for what they hold of promise and fulfillment, of gift and privilege. Would that every child, everywhere, were equally blessed! “

Sr Cáit Mulligan CHF