Ronan Collins

Broadcaster

Did you enjoy school?

It was a long time ago and a very different time. I went to St Vincent’s in Glasnevin, north Dublin, in the 1960s. My memories of primary school were great. Secondary school was good at the beginning, but I didn’t apply myself very well. I let other interests get in the way. I was interested in music from the word go, but in those days you didn’t get any encouragement for that at all. It was very different to the way it would be now. But I persevered anyway, and my best memories of school would be the people – the friends I had and a couple of teachers.

Did you have any favourite subjects that you looked forward to?

Not really, I was useful enough at everything but I didn’t put in much effort at anything. In the later years, I was interested in Irish and Latin. I liked Latin because of the teacher, he was a Kerry man and he had a great way about him. His manner was that of encouragement to students. I didn’t realise it at the time, but he was encouraging and he was firm, but very fair. That was why I had an interest in the subject and I did well in it in my Leaving Cert.

You mentioned your friends were a big part of your school experience, do you keep in touch with them?

I have a lifelong friend who I was in kindergarten with and we are still firm friends. He would be my best, lifelong friend. We have been friends since before we even knew we were friends as very young children. We went through school together and anytime I see him we talk about school and we would always have a laugh about it. There were other guys who were my friends in school that I haven’t seen in such a long time, but I remember them all very, very well. Unfortunately I haven’t seen them in many years, but it’s nice to remember them because we were great pals and we all looked after each other.

Were you a bit of a messer or did you keep your head down?

I was always fairly middle of the road. I wasn’t a messer, but in the last two years I stopped going a lot of the time. I went mitching, but that’s as much trouble as I caused.

Do you have any standout memories of school tours you went on?

I only ever remember one school tour. I think the tour was supposed to go to Belfast and I do remember that the bus we were travelling on broke down and we never got to Belfast. But we ended up in the home town of the Christian Brother that was with us, and he used it as an opportunity to bring us around his town which was in Fermanagh or Antrim or something. We left very early in the morning and came back very late at night and it didn’t go as smoothly as it was supposed to, between broken down buses and never actually arriving in Belfast.