Rahara School 60 yeqrs ago 2016

Rahara School 60 years ago © by Tony Fallon.
Like everybody else in Ireland we got an education
Ours was in Rahara in the Miss O’Beirne administration
We went through Beatties and Kelly’s fields on our way to class
Whether the sun was shining or frost was on the grass
Three thousand miles away my heart with pleasure fills
When my thoughts dance in Rahara to Mrs. Kelly's daffodils
Then through Doyle and Daly’s to get on the road
And up to Carrowkeel where St Brigid’s river flowed.
Geraghty’s and Naughten’s joined us if they had not departed
The crowds was much bigger than when at first we started
Fallon’s Doyle’s and Philomena we were a happy crowd
Unless some bully’s joined us who were bossy and loud
There might be seventeen of us enough to start a team
Football was not allowed in school that was a pipe dream.
We usually continued quite merrily on past the holy well
If you took away the holy water font you were going to hell
Then past the birthplace of Pat Groake a very famous sprinter
Who ran for Ireland many times in summer and Winter
When his name is mentioned no Rahara heads should hang
From such humble beginnings, no World Class runner ever sprang.
We knew Pat Margaret and Jane but not Pat’s running fame
For in our school in Rahara they never mentioned his name
Farther up the road to go back to the fields we opened Daly’s gate
It was only five or six more fields we were in the home straight
The McDermotts Curley's ,Gately's and O Connors had the longest walk
And they too were expected to be sitting in their desks by nine O’clock
When you got to the school there would Mike and Pat and Katie
One day when she counted us all there one or two over eighty
Sixty years ago in Rahara there were no calculators or computers
We didn’t have school buses, not even bicycles or scooters
The funny thing about these tough young years is so many of us are still alive
So maybe you don’t have to have everything on a silver plate to survive.