20 things you’ll remember if you went to school in the Brigidine in Mountrath

The Brigidine Convent in Mountrath no longer operates a girls secondary school as it amalgamated with Ballyfin College and Mountrath Vocational School in 2010 to form Mountrath CS.

For those who attended the highly-regarded school, there are many fond memories.

We’re sure the list below will bring back some of them.

• Being absolutely unreal at making St Brigid’s crosses.
• Trying to scab a lift on the Portlaoise bus on a Friday so you could sit at the fountain in the shopping centre and spy on all the CBS boys/Laois minors.
• Battered sausages being considered a completely normal thing to eat for lunch.
• Being stopped in the corridor by a teacher with “where are you off to” and when you said you were off to class being roared at “well get on your way then!!!!”
• Mr. Brennan being a sheer novelty because he was the only male teacher in the school.
• Being terrified of being caught going home in your PE gear.
• Mrs. Mullaney’s vibrant array of suits.
• Ma Kavanagh shouting, and stamping her feet at the entire school (who were lined up by class, in alphabetical order) at assembly. Friday’s lecture was always about not getting run over on the main Dublin-Limerick road outside.
• The smoking tree – this is where all the bad asses hung out!
• Mr. Brennan and Mrs. Dillon’s smoking shack. The rebels.
• Mrs. Costello getting really angry anytime any girls left her 5^th/6^thyear honours maths class to play sport.
• The ban on wearing coats inside even if it was freezing and being told to get off the radiators.
• Dr. Kelly’s mountain of biology homework.
• Being able to come into school at 9.40 during musical week because the first class was cancelled.
• The blazers being whipped out for anything important.
• The convent discos being the social event of the year.
• Mrs. Doyle’s insistence on a hard back copy book.
• Pulling down the steps in the hall from the stage for choir.
• Mrs Campbell “cancelling” the musical two weeks before curtain up as the girls didn’t know their lines.
• Ms Moore’s mantras – the Sale of Goods and Supply of Services says…;