19 September 2016, Dublin, Ireland
Good evening everybody. Thank you Olivia, who I'm claiming as my second cousin.
David said to me last week that he didn't want me to speak too long and to get out the red pen when I told him what I was going to say. So I told him I was going to put a governor on it by standing up.
It's great to see so many people. It really is fantastic. It is great to see all the people that have travelled. Celine has come from the Cayman Islands. Kevin and Brian, Kevin Treacy and Brian O'Reilly from New York. We have from London, Carol Dempsey, Gerard Carolan, Helen Kennedy, Pat Butler and I saw Patricia Murphy. Sorry I mean Pauline Murphy and Patricia Geraghty. Apologies Patricia. And loads of people have come from all around the country. It's fantastic to see a lot of people here.
When we came into Commerce in 1978, the points were 16, I think. To get in now, to get in now - there is commerce, and: so there’s economics and finance; there's business and law; there's international commerce and there's just regular old commerce.
But to get into Ec. and Fi. as the kids call it, you need 585 points; Business and Law is, 520; and International Commerce is 510. So, I reckon that there might have been one in our class they got into Ec and Fi; probably three or four, maybe 5 or 10 that did business and law and you know maybe in total 40 or 50. But you've got to think that that is to deny the effect of the bell curve which gathers everything into the middle and pushes it up, a sort of an academic equivalent of the Wonderbra.
Charlie Haughey was Taoiseach in 1978. The Apple fine could have repaid the entire of the Irish exchequer debt, in full.
Kerry won the all Ireland 5-11 to 9 points, the first of four in a row, and we talk now about Dublin being that dominant.
Hash was something you smoked in the corner of the bar. It had yet to become a key on your mobile phone. Instant wasn’t a word used in the context of communication other than perhaps asking your mother if she was making Bird’s Custard.
If you wanted to send a short message you put it on a piece of paper, folded it, wrote the name on it and passed it along the bench. And if you were feeling really bored, you might actually make a paper aeroplane and try your luck. Or chuck sugar cubes at John Teeling. And maybe tonight he will tell us which of his students actually got a share in his big idea. Or at least promised that they got a good grade.
Is was nearly faster to get on my motorbike and to go home then it was to dial 900896 on the phone because of the length of time it took for the dial to go back around. And it was more fun and I could drive it down Grafton street at the time.
By third year my mother no longer thought garlic bread was an hallucinogenic and that Blue Nun on was not a strange religious text sect. When she heard the accounting firms were doing the milk rounds she was delighted that someone sensible might employ us because she thought we were drinking too much anyway.
We worked. In the summers we went to the US, the UK, Germany, Holland to do all sorts of jobs. At the weekends we worked in bars and at Christmas those who got up early got into Hallmark Cards in Rathfarnham. The rest of us delivered the post.
Smoking was everywhere including upstairs on the bus. That’s gone as is the Rocky Horror Picture Show and double seats at the back of the Green Cinema.
Some things haven't changed. The 46A still comes in threes and fours. The Merrion Inn is still there as is Ashton's and Kiely’s and the Horse Show House.
And we didn't need Facebook to have our own little talent contest. Miss B. Comm 1981 isn't with us and I don't see the runner up. But when I did see him he was looking slimer and trimmer. Where is Mick Doorly?
Some of the people that were in our class didn't make it this far. You know, on a sincere note, we remember those that didn't make it. There were people that were with us at the time that didn't make it, and there were people who had huge meaning that came into our lives that didn’t make it either and we remember all of those people as we're here.
I said at the start it's great to see so many. It's great to see so many looking as well and it's great to look forward to a fantastic evening.
I tell my kids that the most important thing about going to college is going. What we did in lectures, what we did in the library - you remember the microfiche? The worlds data hadn't been indexed in 1978 - that got us the qualification that we came for, the B. Comm.
What we did outside that was growing up, was making friends, was learning to manage ourselves, learning to find our way, learning to make decisions and becoming independent. This with the real education that we got here.
We dated. There were five weddings in our class. Three them are here: Noel and Karina; Catriona and Jim; and Carol and Ken and John McKenna and Lorraine Donnellan and Terry McGuigan and Alan Monaghan as well.
We came away from here with fantastic friends that we had fun with as individuals and families; that we've left off for long periods and picked up seamlessly with whom our children who become friends and even our children have been taught by some of you. Barbara taught my daughter. She's here in second year. My son didn't get in here: the box he wanted to take wasn't on the CAO form: it said “go to UCD with my friends”.
I’m deeply honoured to be asked to do this. It’s fantastic to stand in front of a wonderful group of people that we shared so much with. I'm looking forward to this evening. I’m looking forward to catching up with everyone and maybe we might just raise a glass to the B. Comm class of 1981.