My name is Pat Dooner, I was born and raised in O’Brien
Street. I was born in 1914. I will try to tell you my life’s story.
I remember when I went to school, I went to the Nuns’ School
and my mother used to give me a bowl of porridge going to school. And then,
when I got to the school, the nuns would give me a cup of hot milk and a round
of bread, I wasn’t the only one, there was quite a few of us.
Then when that was finished we went to the classroom and had this (indistinct)
, we used to do prayers, these were the first things we used to do and then,
when this was done, we used to have a little tray with sand in it and we used
to do all our drawing, writing our names and making all sorts of things and
that went on for quite a long time and then the nuns used to tell us little stories
out of a book and one thing and another and I remember them very well.
And we were introduced to a slate with a wooden surrounding and a piece of
chalk. And that went on for quite a long time and we was doing that and we
thought it was great and anyway then we had a piece of paper and a pencil, we
done some work with the pencil, probably we were doing that for quite some time
and then it was time for us to move on into the Masters’ School
