GOING TO Iowa State University in 1961 to pursue postgraduate studies in engineering was one of the most liberating experiences of my life. My personal values and attitudes, which were in neutral gear during my undergraduate years at UCC, changed radically in America.

I had come from Cork - where, during the 1950s, everything seemed absolute and predetermined. We experienced a strict social regime that gave us a sense of predestination. It was in the US that I felt for the first time that one could create a future for oneself, that one had real options.

My years as a student at the Christian Brothers College, Cork, had imbued in me a great work ethic, but I have always felt that in Cork our attitude to work was penitential - something that we offered up to God as a result of our expulsion from the Garden of Eden, unlike the Japanese for example, who regard work as a privilege.

CBC was a rigorous, no nonsense school where we worked six days a week and had oodles of homework. I worked much harder at school than I ever did at college.

Things have changed enormously since that time; in my day CBC was no different from most other schools. Although I can think of some wonderful people who taught me, the atmosphere at school was oppressive and compulsive and questions were discouraged.

Work, religion and republicanism were closely intertwined, and our sense of history was bound up with killing and the blood sacrifice of Padraig Pearse. We saw violence as the solution to political problems, and the level of religious intolerance almost amounted to bigotry.

I left school with the feeling that the violent struggle was not yet over.

UCC was a liberating experience because for the first time I was able to work at my own pace. The engineering programme was rigorous and produced good engineers. I'm proud to be a graduate of the college.

During my stay in Iowa, I lodged with an elderly professor who was a Methodist and a pacifist. It was a wonderful educational experience. He was a man for whom I had an enormous admiration - he was committed to the work ethic and was reliable and trustworthy.

Under his influence, I began to question my own attitudes towards religion and the use of violence for political ends. I began to feel that I had been brainwashed, that my attitudes were ridiculous and that education should be about encouraging people to seek non violent political solutions.

When I returned to Ireland and developed the Limerick project, I was determined to create a multifaceted environment, where half the faculty was non Irish and from a variety of religious and cultural backgrounds.