Seventeen survivors of the class of 1976 ate shoe-sole beef or tired salmon at a west Dublin hotel, in a barnlike room that Father Andrew charitably described as “airyâ€. But none of that mattered; some of the large class formerly known as “the Bulge†were together again to mark a third of a century since we survived Glenstal. A message from Fr Celestine wished us well in all our endeavors and hoped that since we had survived five years of boarding school, we could surely all weather five years (his prediction) of recession. As former rugby captain and scrum-half, Paul Murphy, said later it was strange to have to introduce ourselves to each other like strangers, but the years fell away fast and we were soon chatting away as if we were still eighteen. But towards the end of the evening, a teenage waitress must have been puzzled at the sight of a whole lot of fifty-one-year-olds standing around looking at dog-eared school magazines with black-and-white photos of teenage sports days, funfairs and pillow-fights. It didn’t take her too long to understand, “Long time?†she said.
Dominic Berridge (’76).