An Bhfuil Cead Agam? Her.ie’s Top Twenty Primary School Memories

Ah, times were simpler back then… 

Yesterday the hashtag #PrimarySchoolMemories began trending on Twitter, with people from all corners of the country sharing their fondest recollections of those formative years. So, we decided to get in on the action ourselves with a top twenty of the things we love looking back on…

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1. Indoor/Outdoor Shoes 

Swapping your Clarks for these babies the second you walked in every morning. A process designed to keep the ‘good’ school carpets from being destroyed on a daily basis by you, you mucky little brat. It didn’t work.

 

2. Video Day

It’s true – the happiness you felt on a Friday when you walked into the classroom to see this setup ready and waiting is a tough feeling to equal, or even describe. Funny to look back and remember thinking your teacher was a bit of a legend, when we now know that chances are said teacher had a few sneaky ones on Thursday night and was dying a slow death on Friday. This was most likely the quickest way to shut us up. Still, good times.

  

3. Book Fairs 

If all adults still felt the same joy at the thought of getting a new book this world would be a better place. It was a legit reason to ask your parents for some cash, and it was totally allowed that you would spent the guts of an hour trying to decide how you’d spend that fiver. Pacts were quickly made to swap with BFFs once you were done so you’d really be getting two for the price of one.

 

 4. The READaTHON 

The other yearly highlight for the bookworms among us, the annual MS READaTHON. Getting friends, family and neighbours to sponsor you in your endeavor to read as many books as possible, and all in the name of a good cause. It’s still going strong, the READaTHON celebrated its 25^th anniversary in 2012.

 

5. The Cigire 

“Tá an Cigire ag teacht…” Words to strike fear into ever Irish schoolchild’s heart, and probably more terrifying for the poor teacher. The brighter sparks in the class would be coached for weeks on end ahead of a potential visit and told to make sure those hands were waving nice and high when any questions were asked, while others were subtly told to keep nice and quiet unless they really had to speak…

 

6. Friendship Bracelets

Raiding granny’s knitting at the weekend for some scraps of wool so you could send the next few hours with three strings knotted together and sellotaped to the table at one end, plaiting away to your heart’s content. We had every colour combination known to man, and once knotted on that wrist they weren’t coming off until they rotted off – or your mother cut them off so you wouldn’t make a holy show of her at mass.

 

7. Ann and Barry

Ann was invariably in the kitchen, helping mammy. Barry was always to be found in the garage or garden, helping Daddy. They were both big fans of jam. They made way for Tara and Ben, but the memories live on. And sexist as they were, at least they didn’t teach six-year-old all about drunk horses, like this current schoolbook.

 

8. School Tours

The outfit was planned weeks in advance. You knew who you would sit beside on the bus. The lunch to be prepared would be a special one with extra treats, and you would even get some spending money. In our memories, every one of these days was a glorious summer wonderland, it might even have been the best day of the year, or at least it was tied with…

 

9. Sports Day 

Usually actually happened on the third attempt of the year, the first two planned days cancelled due to a flooded pitch. But when it came, it was worth the wait. The sack race, the egg-and-spoon race where they never trusted you with an egg and made you use a potato instead, and the three-legged race with a pair of tights turning you and a buddy into one incredibly awkward single entity. If you were REALLY lucky some water and washing-up liquid turned some school mats into a slippery slide, there’s no way in hell that health and safety regulations allow that now.

 

10. Banned Yard Games

“Red Rover, Red Rover – let MAURA come over!” Also known as British Bulldog, it had to be played without catching the attention of the teacher on yard duty. Difficult, as it invariably ended with at least one person crying – at which point everyone would deny responsibility with ‘It’s not MY game”.

 

11. Arts and Crafts 

Perhaps taking their cue from Ann and Barry, teachers decided that girls and boys deserved different arts and crafts lessons. So the girls filed in to one room and practiced their sewing and knitting, while the boys got to stick some lollipop sticks together with PVA glue. Seemed unfair at the time, but now Ryan Gosling’s a knitter too it’s all cool. Who’s laughing now boys?

 

12. The Recorder

Was this instrument created solely for the use of Irish primary school teachers? We have yet to see one anywhere else. Ever.

 

13. Siamsa Annuals

Santa’s visit was so close you could taste it the day these babies showed up.

 

14.  The Nature Table

You’d go home with the intention of bringing in some of those lovely flowers mammy was growing out the front, she’d look at you like you had ten heads when you mentioned it, and you’d arrive back in the next day with a handful of daffodils and a pebble. Just like everyone else.

 

15.  The Quiz Team 

When being a nerd was cool, long before the Hipsters came along. The competition was fierce, but when you made it – the glory! Cue many days off as your little group headed off with a supervisor to quiz days all over the county and became fierce rivals with a neighbouring parish team. Neither of your teams won though, the townies always got the gold.

 

16.  An Bhfuil Cead Agam Dul go Dtí an Leithreas Más é do thoil é?

Gaeilge. The only language in the world where you’d have wet yourself by the time you finished asking permission to go to the bathroom.

 

17.  Having a Job 

‘Cool’ jobs included ringing the bell after break, manning the projector, or banging the chalk dusters off the walls outside – coming back in ten minutes with most of said chalk now off the duster but instead covering you from head to toe. Mammy wasn’t a fan of this job.

 

18.  Switching Desks

A twice yearly event where all students were called up to the top of the classroom and sent back to seat themselves at a different desk. Prayers included ‘Please let me be beside the radiator’, ‘Anything but the desk right in front of the teacher’, and ‘Good God keep me away from the one who picks her nose and puts it under the desk – we can all see it.’

  

19.  School Photo Days

A tooth fell out in the week before. The top button on the shirt was closed for once. New ties with super-tight elastic and grey, itchy cardigans were bought to replace the ones you’d already made shreds of. Oh, and your parents decided this was the day to see if ringlets were a good look for you.

They were not.

 

20. School Reports

So many summer days passed in a carefree daze, but then the change would come… and you’d begin watching out for the postman every morning, listening for a thud in the hallway, your heart racing every time you saw a skinny brown envelope. Everything you did was marked not by As, Bs and Cs, but rather in categories; Excellent, Very Good, Good, Fair and Poor. The day they finally arrived the round robin of phonecalls to your friends (house numbers, obviously), would begin. “I got 5 Excellents and 26 Very Goods. You?”