It’s finally here. A day I’ve dreamt about for, like, 12 years. Brian, Johnny and Leo are storting school in Castlerock College, where their old man famously went and his old man before him. It’s, like, orientation day and the three of them are wired like Ronan’s old dear’s Christmas lights, which is to say they’re very, very loud and almost certainly a danger to the safety of everyone around them.
They’re literally bouncing around the back of the cor and I possibly haven’t helped the situation by buying them energy drinks in the petrol station and putting on a playlist of my favourite rugby songs, including The Hairs on her Dicky Di Do and Bollocky Bill, the Bucking Bronco King.
I just thought the day called for it.
My old friend Fionn, who’s now the school principal, is standing at the main door, greeting the new intake, going, “Hello! Yes, hello! You’re very welcome!”
‘Rugby is the best idea we’ve ever come up with as a species,’ I go, channelling Fr Fehily
Sorcha goes, ‘The Dalkey Lobster Festival is this weekend. How am I going to show my face?’
‘I think you should have a conversation with Honor about her drinking,’ Sorcha goes
‘I got thrun out of Amedica,’ Ronan goes. ‘Me visa was revoked’
Leo storts belting out ‘Castlerock über Alles’, which the boys have been learning all summer.
Fionn goes, “Ross, we, em, don’t sing that song here any more.”
I’m like, “What do you mean you don’t sing it? It’s, like, the school anthem.”
“Not any more. The board of governors decided a few months back that some of the ideas expressed in it are a bit, well, inappropriate given the times we live in.”
“Which ideas?”
“The bit about needing our Lebensraum and taking the Sudetenland. It was written in the 1930s, Ross. It’s just a bit dated.”
“You know there’ll be a letter to The Irish Times when my old man hears about this.”
“We’ll deal with that if and when it happens.”
So I’m there, “Right,” and I go to step past him, “let’s get this orientation storted,” except the dude tries to block my way.
He goes, “Sorry, Ross, it’s students only.”
I end up giving him a serious shoulder nudge – he’s only, like, 11 stone – as I push past him.
I’m like, “Dude, you’ll make an exception for me. As the school’s most famous past pupil, these kids are going to want to hear from me.”
He decides to let me stay for the tour. No choice in the matter. And as he leads the new first years inside, he storts his spiel.
He goes, “The school was founded in 1870 by Justin Renard, a French missionary with the Congregation of the Sacred Heart. The founder of the order was St Claude of Bethany, whose statue you will have seen along the driveway.”
I’m there, “He’s the dude who swam to Ireland from France with a rugby ball under his orm.”
Fionn obviously hates the interruption – typical teacher, I’m very tempted to say.
“Ross,” he goes, “we, em, don’t tell that story any more.”
I’m like, “Why not?”
“Because it’s apocryphal.”
“English please?”
“It was never meant to be taken literally, Ross. It was just a story that Fr Fehily used to tell us to illustrate a point.”
“Well, I took it literally?”
He doesn’t comment on that one way or the other, just continues with the tour.
The photographs have been taken down – including the one of me receiving the famous soup tureen from Mary McAleese with my top off
He’s going, “At Castlerock College, we are especially proud of our record of academic achievement. We have topped the Leaving Cert results table in seven of the last 20 years. Also, nine of the last 20 Young Scientist Competition winners came from this school.”
There’s no reaction from the kids. You can see that he’s lost them.
He goes, “Our science laboratory is university-standard and our library is the third lorgest in the country after Trinity College and the National Library.”
“Speaking of science,” I go, “do you remember the time I smuggled a lump of white phosphorus out of the lab and stuck it in the hood of your Abercrombie? The screams of you!”
Brian, Johnny and Leo laugh – he’s going to have his hands full with them – but Fionn decides to just ignore it and pushes on.
He’s there, “Now, those of you with an interest in the orts will be well-served here. Our drama teacher, Mr Manning, was a product of Rada and our theatre and concert hall has 1,500 seats, making it the biggest performance space in any school in the country. You can learn more than 70 musical instruments–”
I’m like, “Whoa, whoa, whoa! What route are you taking here? The first stop on the tour is usually the Hallway of Legends,” which is this, like, corridor with framed photographs of all the – like I said – legendary rugby players and teams who’ve represented the school down through the years.
Fionn goes, “It’s gone, Ross,” and he says it as casually as that. “We got rid of it.”
I’m like, “Why?”
And he’s there, “Because we want our students to know that there’s more to life than rugby.”
I’m like, “I don’t believe you,” and I end up racing off to see for myself.
It turns out he isn’t lying. The photographs have been taken down – including the one of me receiving the famous soup tureen from Mary McAleese with my top off – and the walls, like the school’s rugby history, have been completely whitewashed.
I catch up with the tour again. Fionn, if you can believe the gall of the goy, is going, “As a school, we are well-known for our achievements in the area of sport. Our table tennis team are the current All Ireland Schools Champions. Two former pupils have signed for English Premier League soccer clubs. We also play rugby.”
That’s the line that finally snaps my crayons. Well, that and the one about soccer.
I’m like, “We also play rugby? Rugby is the reason most of these kids are here – am I right, kids?”
There’s one or two shouts of yeah – admittedly from my own children.
I’m there, “Rugby is the best idea we’ve ever come up with as a species,” suddenly channelling Fr Fehily. “It will help you form bonds with your fellow students that will last a lifetime. People will look at you and love you. They will look at you and want to be you.”
I can already see tears in their eyes.
I’m there, “Who here wants to win a Leinster Schools Senior Cup medal in six years’ time?”
Twenty or 30 hands shoot up.
I’m there, “That’s good. Because you’ve just got yourselves a new coach. The road to glory storts today. Fionn, we can talk exes later.”
