Allihies People -
Interviews from around the parish...
Bernie O'Sullivan talks to Dave Spathaky for Allihies Parish Website
Bernie "The Master" O'Sullivan is the son of a teacher. He is also himself a retired teacher and has a son and daughter who are both teachers.
When I talked to him recently he reminisced about his early days at the school.He attended the old Cahermore School as a pupil. "In those days, about 1939, the old Cahermore school was like two schools, the boys and the girls were taught completely separately"
One of his teachers from those days, Mary J L O'Sullivan, who died only recently, would later become his colleague in the Cahermore schoool.
Bernie went on the explain that the school had four teachers and a hundred and thirty pupils as did the schools in Lehanmore and Cluin. The two other schools in the parish; on Dursey Island, and in Reentrisk were smaller with two teachers and fifty or so children.
Reentrisk school closed in the 1950's and Dursey Island school closed it's doors for the last time in 1975. Chahermore, Cluin and Lehanmore Schools amalgamated in 1979 with falling numbers of pupils. The new school at Cahermore opened in 1979 in a new building with four teachers Bernie as head, John L O'Sullivan who transferred from Lehanmore (and retired this year), Monica Polly and Bernies's wife Mary. They then had two classes (year groups) each.
Today Monica Polly is the headteacher, Siobhan O'Driscoll (Master Bernies daughter)
and Paudie O'Sullivan (Master Bernies son). There are about seventy pupils
in the school. The numbers mean that the school now has only three teachers
who have three classes each. In addition they have a visiting remedial teacher
Mrs. Burn. Finola Doherty teaches tin whistle once a week and Mrs Geraghty
teaches Piano. Since Bernie's retirement in 1995 the school has been modernised
with new computers a new lawn and this year a repaint.
We went on to talk about Bernie's hobby for many years, amateur radio. He says he was interested in radio from an early age. "It was a link with an outside world that I knew little about in those days. We had an early Radio set with wet cell batteries. These had to be taken to the local garage each week to be recharged. Obviously this was in the days before electricity had come to almost every house in the Ireland!"
"I used to put a piece of wire out the window to a pike stuck in the garden to improve the reception! Much later I started building my own equipment from bits and pieces. I remember ordering a vital crystal from London and with much excitement soldered it into the transmitter circuit."
"I remember the first transmission I ever made. I used to listen in to the lighthouse keeper who in those days where stationed out on the Bull rock at the end of Dursey Island. When they had finished their days business on the radio, making their reports, I took My chance and, talking into a telephone mouthpiece I had soldered on to the transmitters single diode valve I said 'Calling Bull Rock light house, come in please' there was a silence and then a surprised sounding voice came back On my receiver saying 'come in, which shore station is this talking?' I don't remember the conversation but afterwards I remember feeling like Marconi -even though the light house was only a few miles away!"
The memory of that first success obviously stayed with Bernie over the years and he went on to qualify as one of Irelands first licensed amateur radio operators, as his call sign EI 6 AX testifies. Bernie was in the news recently when King Hussein of Jordan died. King Hussein was another amateur radio enthusiast and they used to have regular weekly chats over the airwaves. For a long time Bernie was unaware that he was talking casually to royalty as they were only known to each other by their call signs!
Today Bernie keeps up to date with technology and is a avid internet user. He keeps in contact with friends and relations around the world. He maintains his radio equipment in working order and still enjoys a chat with other enthusiasts around the world.
DS.