As I look out of my window, the sun is splitting the stones. It must be Leaving Certificate exam time again. No doubt these benchmark evaluations are stepping stones to the future, but stepping stones are useful only if you know where you are going. I have never had a grand plan, and my formal education did little to tap into the potential I may have had during those formative years.

I can identify only one period of my schooling that made any sense. It was that time devoted to a deeper understanding of my Irish Catholic heritage, one that culminated in a new suit and a pocketful of cash: the year of my confirmation.

My teacher, Brother Regan, equated Irish Catholicism with Irish republicanism. His rare incursions into the world of academia were therefore always coloured with a tint of green. A typical mathematical problem would be expressed as follows: if one Irish rebel could pin down a detachment of British lancers coming down Sackville Street for three hours, for how long could two rebels pin them down? I suppose it depended on whether the second rebel could shoot as straight as the first. But logic didn't enter Brother Regan's mathematics: all rebels were created equal, marksmen to a man.

On the sports field, he always took the opportunity to remind us that a hurley in the right hands was an effective weapon and that, now the gun had been taken out of Southern politics, we should always keep a hurley under the stairs, as you never knew when you might be called upon to use it.

History was nothing short of 800 years of blackguarding at the hands of our nearest neighbour. And, of course, music-appreciation classes involved a deep analysis of the lyrics of greats such as Boulavogue and A Nation Once Again; with a twang of a tuning fork followed by three notes of Brother Regan's recorder, the full 52 of us would let fly and raise the rafters.

Sometime in May, following the ritualistic clatter from a bishop, we passed our confirmations with flying colours. With a few weeks remaining in the academic calendar, Brother Regan suggested that a group excursion to see Padraig Pearse's cottage in Connemara would be the best way to spend our money. It happened that my confirmation coincided with the closures of the Ford and Dunlop factories, so the pickings were tight. Brother Regan compensated with a low-budget option.

Our battered bus belched out of Cork at the crack of dawn. Eight hours of treacherous terrain lay ahead of us, and we had nothing but a few boxes of biscuits and a crate of lemonade for sustenance. By the time we reached Mallow the coach was awash with vomit. But Brother Regan was not to be deterred and kept our spirits up with a medley of rebel tunes on his recorder.

Pearse's cottage is a sight to behold, perched on a rock overlooking a tranquil lake. But that day, as 52 downtown dirty faces staggered off the bus, Brother Regan realised that a two-bedroom cottage in the middle of nowhere was no Shangri-La.

He had a mutiny on his hands, and as a chant of "We want our money back" echoed across the bog, Brother Regan tried to boost morale with a brief re-enactment of the ambush at Crossbarry. But it was too little, too late. There was no way we were getting back on the bus. Eventually, we struck a deal and Brother Regan agreed to a brief stopover at the slot machines in Salthill and promised us a plate of chips and ketchup each for the road home. I'm sure he took pride in the fact that he had trained us well: like true republicans, we negotiated ourselves out from between a rock and a hard place.

Serious school flicks such as Goodbye, Mr Chips are classics of the genre, but given the gloom surrounding examinees, I picked up The Belles Of St. Trinian's, Frank Launder's 1954 film. Based on Ronald Searle's cartoons, it is formulaic farce at its best.

The narrative weaves around the imminent closure of the school and a scam that saves the day, with the inimitable Alastair Sim in a dual role as Miss Fitton, the prim and proper headmistress, and Clarence, her bookmaker brother.

It is also a narrative fuelled by explosions and espionage, where the fourth formers beaver away at badness at the behest of the cigarette-smoking, suspender-belt-wearing sixth formers.

Interestingly, as subsequent St. Trinian's films were released - there were five in all, including The Wildcats of St. Trinian's, a 1980 revival of the series - the sixth formers seemed to mature rather than graduate.

But watch out for George Cole, who plays a young spiv called Flash Harry. Apparently the school's only graduate, he of course became Arthur Daley, the East End wheeler-dealer in the hit television series Minder during the 1980s. Who says school isn't a stepping stone?

But if I learned only one thing from my years of education, it is never to delay gratification. The sun is still splitting the stones. So to hell with this, I'm off to play.