In Reply to: Re: Physical abuse in Castlebar posted by Johnny on June 03, 2009 at 09:09:16:

It was an every day occourrance for me to be caned fourstrikes of the sally-rod,on both hands.We were mostly the same boys whom never done any homework which was just too much for me after spending a day at school I just wanted to go home and watch tv and have tea and watch the news and some other shows. Time flys by quickly when one is having fun, but not so when at school tring to learn difficult subject material in large class rooms of fifty or more children. Some kids must have either been helped out by their parents at home or by older siblings but my parents had forgotten most of whatever they had been tought so I had no luck there. As I fell farther back at school I felt that I was a bright enough child at subjects that interested me and I was forever reading comics and some booke from the library. I fail to understand why some of those subjects were not more fun to learn, or why they had have such a wide variety of subjects been tought at primary school level.I would have prefered to have learned nice modern hand writing like they do today and not in the old fashioned way that now appears to be obsolete. The school system fails children around the World in my opinion because there are still children coming out of secondary school that cannot spell or even understand words longer than wheelbarrow.I never had a secondary school education although I regret not having had one, there was never any talk at home which indicated that it would be otherwise than to expect to find some labouring job as soon as possible. I dips me lid to those boys that could manage to attend school every day and complete their homework without rancur but for me it would have been more benificial if the teacher was standing outside the window rather than up front.I was always half asleep or day dreaming most of the time and occasionally the brother would swoosh the cane about several times and strike it against his smock which was enough to frighten one and liven us up for a few seconds. I got quite used to the rod and could bare the pain without flinching but the real truth was that I could not have been able to complete it anyway; I should have been in a slower learning group instead of going at the fastest pace of the brighter children among us. Those who did well in school were from wealthier familys or so it seemed to me, either that or their parents were better educated themselves. Any child going off to school in the morning should be showered and feeling clean but that's not the way I was brought up, just a quick wash of the face and hands and that was it, I never used a toothbrush or wore underwear, mucus from my nose had both sleeves of my corduroy jacket all greased up to the elbows and wellingtons with holes in the soles which leeked water.