There were two teachers in the old Gortnamona NS and two rooms. There was a partition in the middle of the school, so when a teacher was sick they would pull the partition aside and the one teacher would teach the whole school. Teachers were very harsh in those days. They had very different punishments compared to teachers now. Some of the girls had to clean the Masters house and the boys would do his gardening. Mrs Cummins was a past teacher in Gortnamona N.S. She started teaching in 1920, she spent 42 years in Gortnamona she was the longest serving teacher in Gortnamona history. Mrs Ryan began teaching in 1907 and continued as principal until Miss Casey replaced her in 1938. When Mrs. Cummins and Miss Casey started teaching they were forbidden to teach Irish. Mr Kavanagh taught for 10 years, he was remembered by past pupils for his love of Irish. Mrs Walsh became the new principal in 1960. Mary Cummins worked as her mothers replacement for a few weeks until she was appointed principal of Coolanarney N.S.
The
punishment teachers gave.
The
punishment teachers gave were very harsh. They got whipped and hit. If
the students pulled their hands away they would get an extra slap. They
got slapped with metal and wooden canes. Sometimes the teachers pulled
their ears. We had an interview with a past pupil and teacher Mrs Lambe.
She had a teacher with a really big stone engagement ring. She used to
go around and stick it in the side of the pupils, heads. The teachers
are much nicer these days. Usually children back then were scared of teachers.
The
subjects they taught
They
had an English book half the size of ours but a lot more words. Pupils
also had to learn long poems off by heart. They wrote everything on a
slate. Writing in Irish was completely different than in English. While
the girls did knitting and sewing, the boys did gardening or they played
football. Most pupils stayed in school until they were 14 or 15 years
of age, because a lot of children did not go on to secondary school.
