MY memories of national school are few enough. Not for any negative reasons, but I sometimes find that what memories I do have, result more from photographs than real feelings.

That said, in the last year or so with my own children, Conor and Fergal, starting school, I've discovered that the strong smell of furniture polish - of all things - gives me a real sense of national school deja vu.

I gained most of my national school and all of my secondary education at St Ignatius College, Galway - I was therefore a "Jam Jar". This was the nickname given to Jesuit kids in Galway, while St Joseph students were known as "Bish Mugs".

I enjoyed school and became involved in rugby, school newspapers and music clubs - although the latter was, in reality, a cover for discos.

Nowadays, it's teachers' nicknames - Spook, Mannix, and Buttsie - that I remember more easily than their real names.

I left St Ignatius' in 1977 to do an arts degree in history, geography and English at UCG. I can well recall registration day and the panic and the temptation to switch courses which ensued when students realised that all their lectures were at 9.00 a.m. We often made key academic decisions on such flimsy bases.

I loved UCG and college life in general. I realised, even then, what a wonderful opportunity to dabble in all sorts of activities those years presented. I became deeply involved in societies - for a couple of years I was chairman of "college societies" and I served as a member of the student union executive.

Galway has always been a wonderful university with an exceptional campus. During my time, there were fewer than 5,000 students there and people from the different faculties mixed well.

For all of us Peggy's Coffee Shop was a home from home. While some of our lecturers were clearly lacking in communication skills, people like Gearoid O Tuataigh, who teaches history, more than made up for them.

I followed up my arts degree with a H. Dip in education - more as an insurance policy than with any real intention of teaching. I think that by then I had realised that management of some sort was what I wanted to do.

While working as general manager with the Druid Theatre Company, I returned to UCG during the mid 1980s to complete an evening law degree. Even then I could feel the winds of change.

Semesterisation had taken grip and like a disease had plundered societies, clubs and college politics of many active members. It seems to me that nowadays real education is being neglected and academic success, the points race and letters after your name are, unfortunately, the priorities.