Looking Back© Tony Fallon082318

Looking Back© Tony Fallon082318

I was an altar boy but I did not go through hell
The severest that ever happened was the priest would yell
When we served Sunday mass they were such cranky creatures 

But in the school I went to so were the lay teachers

In secondary townies and country were taught together
And teachers very soon found another use for leather
Corporal punishment for teen agers was very common
At the brothers and the nuns in the town of Roscommon

The teachers the priests and some parents had a short fuse
Is it any wonder so many wound up on the booze
To complain to parents or aunts often was just futile
All of the grownups some children knew were just brutal

If you were bad at math or stumbled at English reading 
You were probably in for one hell of a beating
Why they were called teachers at all is way beyond my scope
If you were not smart or brilliant there just was little hope

Yet in almost every classroom there was one teacher’s pet
The ignored ones amongst us look back with some regret
The cruelty has finally stopped but not before its time
The sad thing is so many of them got away with crime