My Leaving Certificate 1959

I sat the Leaving Certificate in 1959 at the end of six years in a convent boarding school run by the Sisters of Mercy in Ballymahon, Co. Longford. It was a small school with 100 students, 90% of whom were boarders. The annual fee for boarders was £50. Because I had won a county council scholarship my secondary education was free – which was just as well as there were thirteen children in family, ten of whom were younger than me.