In today’s Hospital Pass, we look at what one class of pupils have been up to in Tipperary, and reflect on the wondrous precociousness of Longford captain Paul Barden.
The Irish education system. It’s something that, as a nation, we’re rightly proud of. It may produce teachers who will never come before a disciplinary committee without committing something close to first degree murder – during class, of course – and graduates with both a pathological aversion to the possessive apostrophe and an enforced yearning to experience what working life might be like in Sydney or Saskatchewan.
But still, pride in the Irish education system is a given.
Primary school is both the starting block of the Irish education system and the venue for the careful implementation of GAA dogma.
Having the captain of the Tipperary hurling team as your teacher is influential enough, but when Paul Curran – or Mr Curran as he’s presumably known to 30-odd kids at St Mary’s National School in Irishtown, Clonmel – got his pupils to practise their writing by penning a series of please-come-back missives to the legendary and prematurely retired Lar Corbett, he was admirably killing two birds with 30 letters.
In one fell swoop, therefore, one whole class of pupils have been indoctrinated in both the valuable art of letter writing *AND* an unbreakable bond with the GAA.
The ploy seems to have worked, with Corbett back in action with Declan Ryan’s panel over the past week. Nicely done, Mr Curran, nicely done.
Paul The Younger
Now we can’t be one to point out typos in other media. With the sad passing of that media-room subspecies known as the subeditor, typos are everywhere. We know. Glasshouses and stones, etc.
But sometimes typos are funny.
As in the Irish Daily Star this morning, where “The Final Whistle” column paid tribute to Longford captain Paul Barden, who’s definitely packed a lot into a short career:
