St. Conleth's College 75 Year Quinquennial 2014

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St. Conleth's College
1939 - 2014
Paul Mullins and Peter Gallagher on an '80s class trip to Amsterdam
which looked like it hadn’t seen a safety certificate in a
decade. Reaching the hotel where my contact was staying,
I waited two days before being allowed to meet him, and
that was only because he was leaving the hotel with his
entourage of staff and I, literally, ‘met’ him on the steps of
the hotel before he stepped into his limousine. I politely
reintroduced myself and mentioned our meeting, about
which he had already forgotten, but somehow obtained his
approval, there and then, for what I needed. Our meeting,
which took five days to arrange, ended within five minutes.
He was in his limousine driving away and I was trying to
keep the dust cloud from his limousine from clogging my
lungs. But I had received the ‘go-ahead’ and my event
proceeded the following year in Tanzania as planned.
This kind of determination is partly as a result of this
‘strength of character’ that St. Conleth’s produces in its
pupils, and so for that I am sincerely grateful and would
have no hesitation in sending my children to St. Conleth’s,
if I were living in Dublin. I can already hear a sigh of relief
from Mr. Kelleher!
I would like to take this opportunity to dedicate this
article to a man whom I loved and had the privilege to
know as my uncle – Louis Feutren, who taught French at
St. Conleth’s for many years, and who consistently delivered
both outstanding academic results for the school and
memorable classes for his many students.
St. Conleth’s in the 1980s
– The USSR and Steve Jobs
Tomás Clancy, class of 1982
The train plunged on through the endless, dark, snowfilled
forest. Every thirty minutes or so, the train
screamed through a tiny station, a refugee from a
Chekhov play, illuminated by small intense lights. They
were all a blur of gold hammer and sickle, luscious red
banners and flags and impeccable flowerbeds. Standing
out in the cold Russian winter was a station guard, saluting.
The night train from a city that no longer exists to
the heart of the Soviet Empire was packed with workers
with endlessly checked transit visas, Soviet troops, hardworking
women pushing giant four-foot- high scalding
water canteens and … a mass of pupils from St. Conleth’s
and their teachers!
The Fall of the Wall, and the eventual collapse of the
Soviet Union, was nine years, and a totally unimaginable
distance into the future. Looking back now, I think
I am filled with increasing wonder and enormous admiration
for the decision-making at St. Conleth’s. Over
three decades on from the date, at the time of writing
this, the visit seems like an inspired dream, but it