Suzanne Kane

98FM presenter

Were you someone who looked forward to going to school or did you dread it?

I liked school but more for the social aspects. I loved the walk to school with my friends, the chatting about whatever we had watched the night before on telly, and the chit-chat throughout the school day. I wasn’t an academic at all, but I didn’t hate getting up to go to school and I never felt like I was waiting to leave school.

Did you have any teachers that you loved, or who stood out to you as encouraging and supportive?

I had two teachers that I loved. One of them left when I was in second year, his name was Mr Keogh, but I think he really understood me. There was another teacher called Mr Donnelly who just really got it. I was a bit of a giddy goat and I sometimes got myself into scrapes but it wasn’t out of boldness or badness, it was just out of being giddy and silly. I think they both understood that. I would get into trouble and Mr Donnelly would always be really sound about it. I felt those two teachers were really on my side.

Were you ever in big trouble for something in school?

There was the worst incident ever that will go down in history between me and my friends. It all happened because I passed a note when I was in third year. It was a free class, so we had a teacher that wasn’t actually ours. I passed a note to my friend during the class and he saw and demanded to see it. I was like, “What note, sir?” but he was having none of it. He picked up my Science book and shook it and the note fell out. He kicked me out of the class straight away. The note said he looked like he was hungover, because he kept getting up to step out of the class and he looked tired. You’d think he would have taken the joke, because he was only twentysomething at the time, but he actually tried to get me expelled! And I ended up being added to “The Black Book” where they wrote down the names of people who got in big trouble. I also couldn’t be a prefect in later years because my name was in that book.

Are you still in touch with your friends from school?

Yeah, definitely, most of us never moved far afield and in our core group of friends we’re all still the same gang of girls. Funnily enough, it’s come full circle now, because my kids – Oisín, Hannah and Sadie – now go to school with the kids of people I went to school with. It’s really funny, because they just look the same as their parents did at that age. I can identify who is who because I remember what their parents looked like when they were eight!