GDPR
The official GDPR came into force on 25 May 2018. Thankfully for the class of ’78 our reunion was not hampered by this directive. In August 2017 David Johnston proposed a reunion in 2018 and sent out an all-points bulletin to locate those unaccounted for. People gradually appeared out of the woodwork and by March only four remained to be located. Time to pull out all the stops and to hell with data protection. Care facilities, distant relations, art galleries and former employers (including a scuba diving school in Honduras) were all tapped for contact details. All four were tracked down. Although three politely (mostly) declined, one immediately booked flights from Berlin.
Great Dinner, Port and Reminiscences
To kick things of three keen golfers tackled the links in Lahinch and a further eight exercised our right to bear arms and took to clay pigeon shooting just outside Rathkeale. The most accomplished gunmen proved to be the farmer and the man based in Texas – surprise, surprise.
Along with Fr Patrick, Declan Casey, Bill Fearnley and Leo McGrath, 25 of us sat down to dinner at the Dunraven Arms in Adare on Saturday 28 April. Greatly missed were Ollie Desmond who died in 1981 and Paul Collins who had planned on attending but sadly died just three weeks before the event. John Egan delivered a rabble-rousing speech, which despite interruptions was nearly less than the expected 10 minutes and 30 seconds (or was that 30 minutes and 10 seconds). A couple of bottles of 1970 Da Silva’s vintage port rounded of formal proceedings.
Reminiscing in the bar continued until about 3.30 a.m. Old stories were rehearsed and indeed some new information came to light. Who knew that Michael Noonan (yes, that one) examined us in our leaving cert oral Irish?
The following morning brought a wonderful surprise as Denis Fagan, having checked on his flock of sheep in Mullingar at 5 a.m., showed up for breakfast, bringing the official attendance to 26.
Glorious Day Pax Revisited
Some highlights of a trip to Glenstal on a beautiful Sunday morning were the Washroom Dorm (looking very 21st century), the Munster Schools Senior Cup (fair dues to the class of 2018) and the Icon Chapel (how come we didn’t care about it as teenagers?). Those marble stairs that used to be red hot seem quite cool now.
For the group photos taken on the Saturday and again on Sunday, people were asked to assume as much as possible the same positions as we had in the 1978 picture. As can be seen by comparing the two, there was general agreement that the vast majority of us looked better than 40 years ago – the 1970s really was the decade that style forgot…
Glenstal Do Phenomenal Reunions!
Simon Tierney (1978)