Page 33 - The Gonzaga Record 1986
P. 33
MEMORIES OF THE FIFTIES
Charles Lysaght
I was a member of the first class of boys to complete the course at
Gonzaga - the class of 1958. But unlike the others in my year I was not
a founder pupil as I did not arrive until September 1953 when the school
was three years old. I had been at St Michael's in Ailesbury Road which
was then a preparatory school for Blackrock. But my father was an Old
Belvederian and would not hear of my going on to 'Rock. I was a keen
sportsman and the Belvedere playing fields were too far away. The Jesuit
Provincial, Father O'Grady, told my father that Gonzaga would be the
leading Jesuit school of the future. He went to see Fr O'Conor and they
took to one another at once. My father came home totally charmed. In
Fr O'Conor he saw combined all the saintly and patrician virtues; he was,
I remember my father saying, like the Jesuits he had known and admired
in the old days -men like Fr John Fahy and Fr Frank Browne. As a
result of this happy meeting my educational fate was sealed and after a
cursory examination I was given a place in Senior 11 which was then the
top class in the school.
My immediate impression of the place when I cycled up on that
September morning was a feeling of coldness and unfriendliness, quite
at odds with what I had known in St Michaels. The Jesuits seemed to me
aloof, distant and rather studied in comparison with the warmly spon-
taneous characters that had been my former mentors. I spent my first
term asking my parents if I could return to St Michael's. My situation
was not helped by the fact that I was put in a class where most of the
boys were at least a year older. This was always a social strain and con-
tributed to the unhappiness of my years at the school. I don't think I ever
had a close friend. Instead of leading the class as had been my experience
in St Michael's, I was lucky to stay in the first four or five.
Almost all the boys were the sons of important men. There was not
the same social mix I had known at St Michael's I was, therefore, sur-
prised to notice that they were not better behaved. Shortly after I arrived
at Gonzaga, some members of the class let off a stink bomb in the
school. The whole class was detained after hours and told that they
would not be allowed to go home until the guilty parties owned up. They
did so eventually and were duly punished. I remember not being
impressed either by the misbehaviour or the manner in which the
miscreants had been forced to confess their guilt.
We were a small class - fourteen boys. Apart from Niall Scott and
myself, they had all been there from the foundation. Christopher Robson
was the academic leader, Jerry Liston the dominant personality and
Leonard Little the perfect gentleman. Brendan Walsh, later to emerge as
our brightest light, seemed in those days to be easygoing and somewhat
31
Charles Lysaght
I was a member of the first class of boys to complete the course at
Gonzaga - the class of 1958. But unlike the others in my year I was not
a founder pupil as I did not arrive until September 1953 when the school
was three years old. I had been at St Michael's in Ailesbury Road which
was then a preparatory school for Blackrock. But my father was an Old
Belvederian and would not hear of my going on to 'Rock. I was a keen
sportsman and the Belvedere playing fields were too far away. The Jesuit
Provincial, Father O'Grady, told my father that Gonzaga would be the
leading Jesuit school of the future. He went to see Fr O'Conor and they
took to one another at once. My father came home totally charmed. In
Fr O'Conor he saw combined all the saintly and patrician virtues; he was,
I remember my father saying, like the Jesuits he had known and admired
in the old days -men like Fr John Fahy and Fr Frank Browne. As a
result of this happy meeting my educational fate was sealed and after a
cursory examination I was given a place in Senior 11 which was then the
top class in the school.
My immediate impression of the place when I cycled up on that
September morning was a feeling of coldness and unfriendliness, quite
at odds with what I had known in St Michaels. The Jesuits seemed to me
aloof, distant and rather studied in comparison with the warmly spon-
taneous characters that had been my former mentors. I spent my first
term asking my parents if I could return to St Michael's. My situation
was not helped by the fact that I was put in a class where most of the
boys were at least a year older. This was always a social strain and con-
tributed to the unhappiness of my years at the school. I don't think I ever
had a close friend. Instead of leading the class as had been my experience
in St Michael's, I was lucky to stay in the first four or five.
Almost all the boys were the sons of important men. There was not
the same social mix I had known at St Michael's I was, therefore, sur-
prised to notice that they were not better behaved. Shortly after I arrived
at Gonzaga, some members of the class let off a stink bomb in the
school. The whole class was detained after hours and told that they
would not be allowed to go home until the guilty parties owned up. They
did so eventually and were duly punished. I remember not being
impressed either by the misbehaviour or the manner in which the
miscreants had been forced to confess their guilt.
We were a small class - fourteen boys. Apart from Niall Scott and
myself, they had all been there from the foundation. Christopher Robson
was the academic leader, Jerry Liston the dominant personality and
Leonard Little the perfect gentleman. Brendan Walsh, later to emerge as
our brightest light, seemed in those days to be easygoing and somewhat
31
