Page 101 - Gonzaga at 60
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101
GONZAGA AT SIXTY: A WORK IN PROGRESS
Had I not had the chance to learn Lain and Greek at school, it would never have occurred to me Mr John
to go on to study Classics. I let Gonzaga with a lasing passion for the ancient languages and the Wilson; who
taught Greek
fascinaing cultures that they give access to. It was a rare privilege. In my year only ive students and Latin until
across the whole country took the Leaving Cert in ancient Greek. Learning these languages is the early 1970s,
slow, painstaking work – a chore best done when you are young. It is much harder for those who visits Sixth
Year in 2001.
have not learned Lain and Greek at school to study the ancient world at university level. But I John Wilson’s
was well equipped to read Classics at Trinity. subsequent
career in
By the end of the four-year degree, however, I was eager to move on to something diferent politics
– something with more obvious relevance to the real world. My heart was set on a career in saw him hold
public policy, perhaps foreign afairs. Oddly enough, my disafecion with Classics at this point the positions
of Minister for
was probably a direct result of my immersion in it. Much of what survives of Greek and Lain Education and
literature was writen by men who believed in the primacy of the poliical life. Not for them a Tanaiste
career of disengaged study. Feeling (rather naively) that more technical training was needed for
work in the civil service, I let for Washington D.C. to study internaional poliics and economics
in the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown. The School had been training would-be
GONZAGA AT SIXTY: A WORK IN PROGRESS
Had I not had the chance to learn Lain and Greek at school, it would never have occurred to me Mr John
to go on to study Classics. I let Gonzaga with a lasing passion for the ancient languages and the Wilson; who
taught Greek
fascinaing cultures that they give access to. It was a rare privilege. In my year only ive students and Latin until
across the whole country took the Leaving Cert in ancient Greek. Learning these languages is the early 1970s,
slow, painstaking work – a chore best done when you are young. It is much harder for those who visits Sixth
Year in 2001.
have not learned Lain and Greek at school to study the ancient world at university level. But I John Wilson’s
was well equipped to read Classics at Trinity. subsequent
career in
By the end of the four-year degree, however, I was eager to move on to something diferent politics
– something with more obvious relevance to the real world. My heart was set on a career in saw him hold
public policy, perhaps foreign afairs. Oddly enough, my disafecion with Classics at this point the positions
of Minister for
was probably a direct result of my immersion in it. Much of what survives of Greek and Lain Education and
literature was writen by men who believed in the primacy of the poliical life. Not for them a Tanaiste
career of disengaged study. Feeling (rather naively) that more technical training was needed for
work in the civil service, I let for Washington D.C. to study internaional poliics and economics
in the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown. The School had been training would-be
