School held absolutely no pleasure for young Anne Rynne. So at 15 she left the formal education system and spent a year doing a commercial course before getting a job.

"I had to board to do the commercial course because we lived in Kildare and the course was in Dun Laoghaire - and I hated every minute of it," she says. "I just didn't want to be there any more than I had wanted to be in school and I couldn't wait to leave and get a job."

The job that presented itself was at the Royal Hibernian Hotel in Dublin's Dawson Street, where she spent two years learning hotel management. "It wasn't a very satisfactory experience," she says. "Basically it meant working very long hours for very low wages and being moved around from department to department within the hotel. "A job came up in the Gresham for a cashier, which I got, and I stayed there until I got married about seven months later and gave up work completely."

Rearing a family of five children, who now range in age from 22 to 30 preoccupied her full-time until 1995, when the last of them went off to college. Anne and her husband Dabheoc live in Clare - they decided to move the family to the country when the children were small, in order to raise them in a rural environment.

"We were living in Kildare at the time and it was rapidly becoming commuter land and just an adjunct to Dublin city and we didn't like that," she says. "My husband is self-employed, so we made the decision to move. We spent 20 years in Spanish Point before moving recently to Milltown Malbay."

The family had a large house in Clare and Rynne dabbled in tourist accommodation for about five years. But she quickly discovered that business was not her natural environment. "I'm not built for business and I wasn't particularly good in a commercial environment," she says. "The tourist season here is also very short, so for what was involved it really wasn't worth it.

"I had always felt inadequate because I didn't have a Leaving Cert and I had toyed with the idea of going back to school. My mother - who reared six of us on her own - was a very enlightened woman and she had always encouraged my interest in reading. She was also very interested in politics and women's issues and that had rubbed off on me too. "So while the children were growing up I'd always been involved with various political and social issues such as the divorce campaign and the anti-nuclear movement before that. These kind of real-life issues have always interested me a lot.

"My mother died in 1992, and I really missed her. And then my youngest son went off to college and here I was in my 40s wondering what I was going to do next. "I have always been a do-er, so I knew I couldn't sit around at home and do nothing or I'd go crackers. Following up on my thoughts about the Leaving Cert I started looking around for a course to do, but I didn't want to go to college just for the sake of it. I wanted to find a course that would be relevant and that would suit me and my interests and life experience."

Through a friend who is an adult education officer, Rynne was pointed in the direction of the course in community and youth work run by St Patrick's College, Maynooth.

"I was called for an interview and I was accepted on to the course and I was absolutely thrilled," she says. "With my interest in politics and people and with the experience of bringing up five kids the course could have been made for me. I loved every minute of it."

The drawback was that the course was full-time over two years, which meant leaving home in Clare and moving back to Kildare. "It was not the most conventional thing to do, but my husband and my family were right behind me and I was told that if I didn't do it they wouldn't talk to me again!

"My husband was terrific. Himself and one of the boys fended for themselves while I spent the two years with my sister in Newbridge, who was fantastic and spoilt me rotten.

"It was a tough two years from an academic point of view. I was the `elder lemon' in the group, though I have to say feeling like this was more to do with how I saw myself - the people in my class accepted me completely and we ranged in age from early 20s to late 40s. "I had no problem with the practical side of the course. But I found the academic side of the course such as writing assignments and essays and doing exams very, very hard. I quickly realised that whatever thoughts I'd had about having unrealised academic potential were way off!

"I graduated in 1997 and, looking back, I still can't believe I actually did it. About three weeks before I started I was seriously nervous and asking myself what on earth I was doing. But once I got there and got involved with the course I have to say it was fantastic and worth every minute of the effort it demanded."

Rynne now works full-time as a community development worker with Eiri Corca Baiscinn, a local development organisation in west Clare. "My job involves working with communities and community groups to put projects together which will make life better for them in some way," she says. "The area covers about 8,500 people who are very spread out geographically and my particular interest is in women's groups, children and people with disabilities. "For example, I'm currently involved in a project targeted at early school-leavers. I will also get involved arranging funding and training for groups in the area who need support.

"Five years ago I wouldn't have believed that this is what I'd be doing at this stage in my life. I have to say it's terrific and I love it. "I would really encourage anyone with even a small thought about doing a course or something new with their lives to pursue it. If you're determined and you find the right course for you, then you'll do it."