During the recent industrial action by teachers it was difficult not to reflect on what used to be in Irish education. Then, the very notion of teachers putting the future of their exam students at risk was unthinkable.
That they would do so coldly, with full knowledge and consent, and to advance a selfish cause, however just, would not be believed.
Back in the bad old days most of those teaching at secondary level were nuns or priests. In schools where this was not so, the ethos was dominated also by an overriding commitment to the welfare of the pupil.
Clearly, that is no longer so.
The Leaving and Junior Cert exams have been threatened, pupils have been deprived of 13 teaching days, and their preparation has been disrupted by ASTI teachers in pursuit of a pay rise.
In 1932 my late Uncle Sean became the first child in his townland in Co Roscommon to go to secondary school. My grandmother was determined he should do so. She did not even know when the school year began. So it was February when she brought Sean by cart on the seven-mile journey to St Nathy's diocesan college, Ballaghaderreen.
The president, Canon Blaine, immediately recognised the situation. He charmed my grandmother, took my uncle on board and introduced him to his class saying: "This blessed monkey has no Latin and less Greek, but then neither had Shakespeare."
For the next five years Sean cycled the 14-mile round trip to St Nathy's daily. It meant he became the first person in the townland to go to university and then to the Civil Service.
Not long before he died in 1999 he told me, with the embarrassment of a small boy, that he didn't think his fees at St Nathy's were ever paid. My grandparents could not afford them. And no one ever asked.
St Nathy's was much the same institution when I attended decades later. Nearly all its teachers were priests. They lived in the college and had a lifestyle which was almost as spartan as that of its boarders.
It was said that half their salaries went to help run the college, while nearly all were involved in sports/drama/choirs/whatever after school hours. In the evenings, too, they took weaker pupils for grinds - without charge.
It was deliberate policy to keep fees as low as possible so the greatest number could attend. And, if the regime was harsh, there was justice about it. One of the most strictly enforced rules was that visitors were strictly limited in what they could bring. As was explained, this was so poorer boys would not be humiliated by receiving less or nothing, while wealthier pupils were pampered.
St Nathy's has changed beyond recognition, but certain traditions remain. It is now a mixed school with about 50 teachers, of whom just three are priests.
On Friday, March 23rd, the senior pupils decided to protest at the continuing ASTI action. The college president, Father Martin Convey, joined them. He was acting in solidarity, he said.
As Father Convey explained at a parents' council meeting in St Nathy's the following Monday, he could take part in the pupils' protest as he was not an ASTI member.
He assured the parents the exams would go ahead regardless. He had filled in all the necessary documentation. He also promised to make up for lost time by continuing classes as long as required into May. That was before industrial action by the ASTI was suspended.
He spoke sympathetically about what his teachers were suffering. Two had got physically sick when it was announced that industrial action was to resume some weeks previously.
Most parents would have known the genuine distress many of the teachers were experiencing. Some had apologised to their classes.
Yes, the diocesan colleges were part of that self-interested, calculated enterprise of the 19thcentury Irish Catholic Church to recruit clergy while creating a large educated Catholic middle class which would be a bulwark against any possible future persecution.
But the calculation was at institutional level. Locally the countless, selfless acts of now forgotten men and women made it possible for us to have an enviable education system when we had little else.
We should not forget them. And as is now sadly clear we shall never see their likes again in Irish secondary education.