'That was definitely a memorable schoolday'

'That was definitely a memorable schoolday'

Ita McClelland describes a memorable day at school when a lady having a psychotic episode attacked her father.

Ita McClelland

Trinity College Dublin

1965

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Ita McClelland

Childhood and Early Life

Life Story

Co. Armagh

1960's

I remember one day at the school when I was in one classroom of the old building and Patsy was in the other a great din broke out outside and the teacher and the bigger boys ran out to see what was happening. It transpired that my father who had come to collect us from school was making his ceile in Gordon's house across from the school and a local lady who suffered from mental illness was shouting at him and had broken the aerial off his car and was hitting him over the head with it. When Patsy saw this he ran out of the school yard to defend my father but the lady ran at him and hurled a milk bottle from the crate that was sitting at the school gate after him. Luckily for everyone it missed and went smashing across the playground. As I said the lady wasn't well and after becoming a psychiatric nurse I could understand that she must have been having a psychotic episode. That was definitely a memorable schoolday.

Irish Research Council for Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences (IRCHSS)

Dr Kathleen McTiernan (Trinity College Dublin)

Dr Deirdre O'Donnell (Trinity College Dublin)